gin basil lemonade

It’s Marathon Monday here in Boston.  And, if you’re like most of the people I know, you are either drinking on the sidelines rooting on friends, or hosting people at your apartment on the Marathon route. Whichever the case may be, it could potentially be the perfect day for a gin basil lemonade cocktail.

 I was lucky to stumble on these 100th anniversary Ball jars which are in their signature, throwback “vintage blue”.  My heart was pounding when they arrived at my house…pure excitement.  The first thing I did was whip up this cocktail.

You’ll need

• 2 oz gin
• 1 oz simple syrup
• 2 oz water
• the juice of 2 lemons
• 6 sprigs of basil, muddled
• sea salt for rim

Directions

• In a shaker, add 1 oz of simple syrup + basil + lemon juice: muddle together
• Add 2 oz gin + 2 oz water + ice cubes: shake
• Salt the rim
• Pour over ice

Beware, these go down EASY so tread lightly, and enjoy the marathon!

sweet young thang

You’ll need:

• vodka of your choice
• strawberries
• cilantro or basil
• 1 lemon
• simple syrup

Prepare ahead of time:

• simple syrup
• strawberry ice cubes (I did not use this recipe, I simply placed diced strawberries into my ice cube tray with water, but this would be a nice alternative and would work with the flavors)

Instructions:

• muddle a handful of strawberries with 2 oz of simple syrup, your choice of chopped basil or cilantro and fresh squeezed lemon juice
• add approx 3 oz of vodka
• add 3 regular ice cubes + 3 strawberry ice cubes
• shake it baby
• strain + pour over 4 strawberry ice cubes in a tumbler
• garnish with dried kiwi

spring cooking: bring on the lamb

When the first day of Spring hit this year, I was stumped.  I had lamb ready to cook to properly celebrate, but it was also National Ravioli Day.  I thought to myself, “well, I’ve never had lamb ravioli because I don’t think I was ever given the option to try it” so that’s what I chose to create.  I wanted to gather the flavors of spring and pack them into one square ravioli.  I freestyled the process, as I do with most of my recipes and began by making the dough for pasta.  Listen, I’m no professional, I don’t even have a pasta machine…not even a ravioli stamp but this dough came out great.  More about the dough and its recipe in my next post.  I then headed into my fridge and pulled out a tub of ricotta, a chunk of parmesan, an egg, a lemon, mint and cilantro.  I had picked up a few pounds of lamb shoulder at my butcher (my heart goes boom for lamb lollipops, but they were far too expensive for my pocket that day).  I chopped up 1 cup of mint and 1 cup of cilantro and tossed it into a bowl with 1 cup of ricotta and about 2 cups of freshly grated parmesan.  I squeezed the juice from the lemon, cracked the egg and whipped it all together.  At this point the filling is almost complete.  Next, I chopped up some garlic and threw it into a sauté pan with olive oil on medium heat and placed my lamb shoulders in there, about 5 minutes on each side with a few splashes of dry red wine and a pinch of salt & pepper to taste.  When they were done cooking, I brought them over to my cutting board and chopped them up and whisked them into the ricotta mixture.  Add salt & pepper to taste and voila, you’ve got yourself one bad ass ravioli filling.