Kitchen successes
Not one, y'all, but two, TWO hits in the kitchen this week! I hosted my book club this past weekend, which is always a fun sort of challenge: coming up with a menu that pleases everyone and tidying up my home at the end of a weekend. Stubbs BBQ now has crockpot starter kits for chicken, beef, and pork. These are excellent. I made the pulled pork. You can find Stubbs Cookin' Sauce in the grocery store (or on Amazon, per my underline) in the same aisle that stocks gravy pouches. I bought some corn tortillas fresh from Taco Cabana and poured some Creme Fresca over it - delish!
Ok, here's the first success: Beer Punch!
I can sense some of you grimacing. My friend, Beth, quirked her eyebrow when I offered her some. Have you noticed how eyebrow quirkers can communicate so much just by raising one muscle? I don't have this muscle, or rather I do, but I can't separate the left eyebrow from the right so when I quirk (quirk, not to be confused with twerk - good heavens above, my eyebrows do NOT twerk!) I just look astonished. Or appalled. But back to Beth, after one sip of this yummy delightfulness, her eyebrows settled down nicely. This punch is perfect for summer, sweet, but not too sweet, mostly refreshing. You just have to watch yourself on a hot day because it goes down like the most welcoming Gatorade you've ever had. The recipe comes from Southern Living, and I've only enhanced one tiny little feature.
3 bottles of beer - here's my enhancement: I use Shiner Bock Ruby Redbird - the grapefruit juice really adds to the punch
1 container of raspberry lemonade frozen concentrate - I can only find this at Kroger and Target
1/2 cup vodka
1 bag of frozen raspberries
Stir it all together
Go ahead and buy 2 bags of frozen fruit and frozen concentrate because you're going to have 3 leftover beers, and your friends will drink it all and demand more. See, then you're a hero because you're making a second pitcher.
2nd Kitchen success:
This success comes via a great recipe blog: www.number- 2-pencil.com and it is Single Serving Chocolate Chip Cookies! REJOICE! I have a great chocolate chip cookie recipe, tho it is quite involved, which is fine, except sometimes I am not rejoicing at all the many steps my cookies require. My son and I made this recipe Monday night, and it is AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!!!!
And they are AMAZINGLY HUGE, which is always a plus when it comes to cookies. Check out the blog for this recipe for 2 cookies.
Final thought: my book club read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. It is a truly wonderful read; I laughed, I cried, so a little something for everyone.
