The original James Bond drink
The perfect Friday night clink-clink
It’s a little lillet and vodka and gin
Pour it in a pitcher - add ice - and begin
Not shaken, but stirred
More than one and your vision is definitely blurred.
1 ounce vodka
2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce lillet blanc
lemon peel
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail pitcher. Add ice and stir gently. Strain into two cocktail glasses and garnish with a lemon peel.
Clam Chowder is literally my favorite soup ever. We took a roadtrip several years ago down highway 101 which goes down the coast of Washington, Oregon and California (at some point it turns to Highway 1 but I can never remember where that happens). Every restaurant that we stepped into, I got clam chowder. Some were great. Some were gloopy. Some had too much dill. Some had too many potatoes. One was even red which is the most dreadful thing you can do to chowder.
Serves 4
4 strips bacon, chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
4 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
¼ lb potatoes, finely chopped
1 can clams
8 oz clam nectar/ clam juice
4 cups seafood stock
1 bay leaf
1 cup half and half
¼ cup flour
2 tbs parsley, chopped
1 bag oyster crackers
STEP 1
In a large pot, cook bacon until browned.
STEP 2
Add onion, celery, potatoes, and garlic. Cook until onions and celery are softened. Stir regularly.
STEP 3
Pour in stock and clams. Don’t drain the clams before – pour the liquid into the pot. Add the bay leaf. Cover and cook 20 minutes.
STEP 4
Whisk together half and half with the flour. Very slowly whisk in 1 cup of the hot soup broth.
STEP 5
Pour flour mixture into the soup pot and stir until incorporated.
STEP 6
Serve with fresh parsley and oyster crackers on top.
Every summer my mom makes her signature crab cakes. My cousins will happily sit and pick crab for hours if it means we get crab cakes for dinner. We all adore them. The secret is that it’s barely held together with anything - so it’s basically all crab. By letting them rest for a bit in the fridge - you can even leave them all day - they hold together a little better and cook a lot better.
serves 4-6
1 pound fresh cracked Dungeness crab
1/4 cup mayonaisse
1 egg, beaten
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
2 teaspoons Old Bay Seasoning
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon baking soda
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper
butter
STEP 1
Mix all ingredients together – except for the butter – add salt and pepper to taste. From the crab mixture into patties. Let them rest about 1/2 hour in the refrigerator.
STEP 2
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a skillet over medium heat. Working in batches, place patties in the preheated pan and cook 3-5 minutes on each side until cakes are golden on each side and warmed throughout. Add a tablespoon of butter to the pan between each batch.
STEP 3
To keep the crab cakes warm before serving, keep them on a cookie sheet in a 200 degree oven.
This is one my my top ten favorite dinners. We make this all the time in the summer - and you should too! A giant bowl of fresh mussels is one of the most amazing summer dinners. Here in the Pacific Northwest we are so lucky to be surrounded by waters filled with delicious, plump mussels. Grab a loaf of crusty bread, gather your family and enjoy a casual dinner together!
Beer Steamed Mussels
Serves 4
4 lb mussels, scrubbed and beards removed
2 8-ounce beers (light ones like Rainier)
2 strips bacon
½ onion, diced
½ cup basil, ripped
¼ cup chives, chopped
2 tbs butter
1 tsp sea salt
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic
STEP 1
In a large skillet, cook together bacon and onions until soft and bacon has rendered at least one tablespoon of fat.
STEP 2
Add butter, basil, chives, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Stir to soften for about 1 minute
STEP 3
Pour in beer and mussels. Cover with a tight fitting lid and let steam over medium heat until mussels have opened.
STEP 4
Discard any mussels that haven’t opened and serve with crusty bread.
If I ate a sugar cookie while drinking a Manhattan I would literally go into a sugar coma. I haven’t had that much sugar in a really long time - but I cannot deny it is a dream of mine to eat sugar cookies and drink cocktails. If I had a restaurant, it would serve sugar cookies and boozy drinks - preferably vintage cocktails and champagne. Can you even? Wouldn’t that be the best? What would we name our restaurant? Should we serve charcuterie boards as well? Would that be the most bougie/basic thing ever? Probably.
Until I open my bougie/basic cookie bar (do we name it The Cookie Bar?!?!) I will have to settle for making my own. It’s not that big of a stretch. I make cookies for every holiday and send them around to friends. And there’s no denying I like a good cocktail.
For Valentines’s Day I paired up this natural (?) duo with a Manhattan and sugar cookies. My sugar cookies have become famous in the neighborhood. When everyone else “boo-s” with candy at Halloween, my kids “boo” with sugar cookies. The truth of my sugar cookies is that they are really a quick knock off of Jenny Cookies recipe. Her recipe has things like “refrigerate the dough” and “add the flour a little at a time.” I don’t have the patience for either of those things. Because her recipe is so easy to remember, it’s become mine too.
makes 2 dozen
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter (room temperature or slightly warmer)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
STEP 1
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
In a small bowl, combine the flour and the baking powder. Set aside.
STEP 2
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until soft and totally incorporated. It’s important you don’t see ‘chunks’ of butter.
STEP 3
Add the eggs and vanilla and combine totally.
STEP 4
Add the flour mixture and combine on low speed until it looks ‘crumbly.’ Then turn up the mixer speed and beat until the dough forms a ball. It legitimately will form a ball and you’ll panic for a minute that you’ve ruined everything and why is it so crumbly, and then it just works.
STEP 5
Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch depth. I use rolling pin with guides on it so I know I’m at the same depth all the way around. If the cookies end up being different depths, you will end up with some cooked and some still raw.
STEP 6
Bake 6-8 minutes until just set. Let cool on the cookie sheet 5-10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before frosting.
The perfect Manhattan is not super hard. But there are lots of opinions on how to make the perfect Manhattan - even saying that is a problem because there’s a variation of Manhattan called “Perfect Manhattan.” {eyeroll}
I turned to my own personal cocktail expert - my friend Eric - who has strong opinions on the subject of cocktails for his opinion on what we would call the perfect Manhattan - the history of the drink seemed like a good place to start.
There’s no exact place the cocktail was invented - the only thing the stories all agree with is that it was developed in the 1880’s in NYC. One story is that it was created for the mother of Winston Churchill before he was born (the timeline doesn’t work) but I’m here for that story. It’s great.
The original drink was made with “American whiskey”, French vermouth and 3-4 dashes of bitters. The “American whiskey” is the critical part. That’s what we would call rye today. It’s not bourbon. You can make this with bourbon, but it’s a different drink. Eric says it sweeter, I say “it’s not as delicious.” Some early versions have a few dashes of gum syrup as well. Gum syrup (or gimme syrup) is basically a simple syrup but with gum arabic dissolved in it as well as sugar. Since that’s just a thickener/stabilizer, we can assume it had nothing to do with adding flavor so really, just a few dashes of simple syrup.
The recipe gets slightly more complicated during prohibition when American whiskey becomes a challenge to get in NYC but Canadian whiskey isn’t the same challenge (geography). Some recipes still use Canadian whiskey because of this hiccup in history.
Before I give you the recipe for a perfect (not Perfect) Manhattan, let me first say that Eric is dying right now that I made my Manhattans on the rocks. He would make them up. Only. And he’s going to call me for sure when he sees these pictures and tell me how wrong it is. So let me say - the correct way is served up like a Martini. But if you’re like me and you drink a neat drink WWAAAYYY too fast, then on the rocks is a liver saver.
Don’t worry, I didn’t shake it - I still stirred it which is the proper way to serve a Manhattan. It’s another controversy, but it’s not to be debated here. Stir it. Don’t shake it.
2 ounces Pikesville Rye
1 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
2-3 dashes Angostura bitters
luxardo cherries
In a cocktail pitcher filled with ice, combine the ingredients. Stir gently with a swizzle or bougie glass stir stick. Strain into glasses immediately (so it doesn’t dilute) and serve with a cherry for garnish.
While I wait to open my bougie/basic Cookie Bar, I made these for girlfriends this holiday since we can’t see each other. It’s a “happy hour” I can deliver and I’m wrapping the whole thing in the “That’s Amore” dishtowel. Aren’t they fun? I made them. If you want one, let me know. I’ll send you one too.
Nothing will ever warm you up on a cold winter night better than the perfect Manhattan. You're welcome.
