Cocktail Wednesday

This week's cocktail was great -- Tiffany's Lemonade! Shay gave it another name but I'm sticking with that one.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1 oz Peach Snapps
• Frozen or Fresh lemonade
• a smidge of Blue Curaco
• Sugar (for the glass rim) optional
• Lemon wedges
• Ice

I followed the directions from here.  A very refreshing drink -- great for summertime, or so I hear -- perhaps we should go for a cold weather cocktail next week. :).

  

Doesn't look quite as pretty as the pictures from the link above (or Shay's pictures either), but it tasted really good.  Like lemonade with a hint of peaches.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  We have a lot of cooking to do in the morning, but before that I'm going to run in a Turkey Trot.

finally ..

finally, I did some sewing today.

Cocktail Wednesday

Tonight's cocktail is a Candy Corn Cocktail.  Check out Shay's post on it.  It's difficult joining in when the reviews are not stellar -- but I'm committed to it this week, I've already put the vodka in with the candy corn ...

and a friend is coming over to help with this tasting.

Here's the link for the recipe we used: http://www.gingersnapsblog.com/2013/10/recipe-candy-corn-martini.html.  I googled "candy corn martini" today and found several others.

 

 

 

The vodka/candy corn mixture wasn't nearly as clear as the one in the link.  I didn't do the "glasses" up as pretty as Shay, though I did dip the rims in sugar.  We actually thought the martini tasted okay.  I might even say pretty good.  I don't have a rating scale yet (Shay's was 2.5 out of 5.0), but this was so much better than last week's.  Last week's cocktail's only saving grace was that the vodka wasn't infused with anything (i.e., candy corn) so the vodka was still usable (we used it this week). 

 

I didn't read the directions on how much candy corn and vodka to put in the jar which may account for the cloudiness of the mixture and I used lemon vodka. 

 

Anyway, on to next week ..

 

p.s. don't you just love the plastic martinit glasses??

 



Update - The List

I looked over my list of goals for 2013 today.  I feel like I've done a pretty good job on them.  I didn't do a tally, but it's definitely better than last year. 

One thing I am going to try to do is to finish the 9 quilts.  I've finished 5; there are three tops close to finished; and the final quilt is my Grinch quilt.  So, I need to buckle down and do some sewing.  I'll get started tomorrow night.  Actually, I'm missing one from my list -- the stacked sock monkey quilt -- nice to know I only have three more to finish, not four!

Cocktail Wednesday

so, I decided to follow Little Miss Sunshine and Mrs. Pyjamas and mix it up, literally, on Wednesday with a cocktail.  I'm not sure why they're doing it, but I'm doing it just to copy them.  This week's cocktail was a Lemon Meringue Cocktail.  The recipe was simple, but the result not so good.

 

It was quite potent and everyone here turned their noses up at it.  I decided to google it and found several other recipes that I will try should I ever have the desire to have a Lemon Meringue Cocktail again.  

In order to drink this one, I diluted it with lemonade.  After doing that, my YD said it was less horrible, but still horrible.  hmmm.

I finished my lemonade diluted Lemon Meringue Cocktail and am feeling quite ready for bed.

Can't wait to see what is picked for next week's cocktail...

11 things on 11/11

1 - copying good ideas from other people's blogs
2 - reading a good book
3 - realizing that tomorrow is 11/12/13
4 - eating oreos
5 - wishing I hadn't eaten those oreos
6 - owing $1.75 to the office snack machine
7 - wishing it was Friday already
8 - listening to the clock ticking
9 - remembering good friends
10 - listening to Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"*
11 - snuggling in my bed


*it was 38 years ago yesterday that it went down in the icy waters of Lake Superior.

Happy Birthday!

Just wanted to take time to wish my wonderful husband a Happy Birthday!

Advice?

I found this plaid fabric in my "stash" last night and was wondering if you think I should use it on my pink elephan quilt.  The plaid is actually pinker than it looks in the picture and the pink isn't quite so bright, and the background for hte pink elephants is more cream than yellow.  The second picture is more accurate.

 

 My thoughts are
            1) to use the plaid instead of the pink or cream,
            2) to use the plaid for sashing, or
            3) to use the plaid as a small border (before the other elephant fabric I have)

So, what do you think?  I've decided to use it as the binding even if I use it in the quilt as well.

And More Wine Tasting

and now, back to wine tasting in Napa ...

Our third winery was Raymond. (Where do they come up with these names??) 

Raymond was an interesting place.  The bar area was fairly traditional but the rest of it was anything but.  I'm not sure what this area was -- we just looked around and then left.

 

These "angels" were up above. 

Outside there was a little walkway with a garden with lots of veggies and other things.  I thought it would be really dull, but it was quite interesting.  Either that or I had had a few too many sips.

 Weeds .. volunteer plants. hmmm.

 At the end there was a spot for picture taking ...

And then the last one.  It looked like a warehouse from the outside, but inside it was great! I think when it says "tasting cellar" that was the room we were in.  it was massive, smelled winey (in a good way).  It was perfect for our final stop.

 Behind the bar.

 The three of us ..

All in all, a good day with some very interesting wines and wineries.  Can't wait to do it again.

Birthday Weekend

My oldest and youngest sons celebrated their 33rd and 27th this weekend.  We had a lovely dinner on Sunday with both boys.  My cousin Steve was in town too, so he joined us.  I've pulled the pictures Steve took from fb.

 Getting dessert ready.

 The birthday boy (and his bride) -- her birthday was October 1.

The other birthday boy, and his bride (her birthday is tomorrow).

Of course, I didn't take any pictures of my cousin.  :(.  what's up with that?

Wine Tasting in Napa

So, we've lived in Northern California for 15 years now and this past weekend was the first time we've actually gone wine tasting.  On two earlier occasions, we attempted to do it, but didn't know what we were doing and it didn't actually count.  I think the first time we went to one winery in the Santa Cruz mountains and the second time we went to one winery in Sonoma.  This time we went to Napa with a friend of mine who showed us how it is done.

Our first stop (after McDonald's for breakfast), was Mumm.

Here we tasted champagne -- or rather sparkling wine.  We tried six different kinds.  At the table next to us, they sampled twelve different kinds -- or at least they had twelve glasses.  That makes for a very pretty table.

and here's our table.  Not nearly as impressive, but we needed to be able to walk away and even do some driving.

Outside the winery there were lots of these flowers.  I'm guessing that they are mums.

Our next stop was St. Supery.

Here we tasted 8 different wines - two tastings of four wines each.  I discovered that I like Sauvignon Blanc better than Chardonnay.   I was going to take another picture, but the bottles disappeared right after this.

 .

I'll post pictures of the other two tomorrow.

I think it's interesting how each winery has its own feel / character / atmosphere.