Faux Martini Mocktail

In my internet search on uses for leftover olive juice, I found this recipe for a Faux Martini and couldn't resist!

Faux Martini Mocktail

(Adapted from: https://www.thespruceeats.com/paleo-martini-4040395)

Pre-Prepration:

Put cocktail glass in freezer for a few minutes.

 

 

Ingredients:

 

Cold Carbonated water (or sparkling mineral water)

3 Tbspns Olive juice (manzanilla)

3 Olives (manzanilla)

 

 

Process:

 

Fill chilled cocktail glass with carbonated water. Save room for olive Juice and olives.

Add Olive juice.

Add Olives.

Enjoy.

 

Smashwords COVID19 Crisis Promotion

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Smashwords Authors are offering many of their books at discounted rates or for free to help you get through the COVID19 Crisis.

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I Have Fallen in Love.....With Pink Mocktails!!!

I Have Fallen in Love.....With Pink Mocktails!

It all started with Neelix's Star Trek Cookbook.

When I went shopping for the ingredients for the Calaman Sherry ST Mocktail, I discovered there were lots of pink beverages.

So, I bought several of them:

Guayaba Juice
Cranberry Juice
Pink Grapefruit Juice
Pink Grapefruit Soda
Passion Fruit Juice
Pink Lemonade
Jamaica Concentrate
and more...

Then, I started making variations of a "Pink Mocktail."


Ginger Ale/Jamaica Mocktail

Ingredients:

6 oz Ginger Ale
2 capfuls Jamaica juice concentrate
Ice cubes
Garnish: Lime Slice


Process:

In a glass, add Ginger ale and Jamaica juice, mix together.
Add ice cubes.
Add Garnish.


Quick Ersatz Rose Champagne

Ingredients:

5 oz Club Soda*, cold
2 oz Ginger ale, cold
1 oz Grape juice or Cranberry juice, cold


Process:

In an 8oz glass, add Club Soda, Ginger Ale, Grape or Cranberry juice. Mix together.

If your juices are not cold. Add crushed ice to a commuter mug with a lid. Add the liquids. Close lid. Shake. Wait. Strain into a glass.


Gingery Pink Grapefruit Mocktail

Ingredients:

5 oz Pink grapefruit juice
2 oz Ginger Ale
2/3 capful lime juice concentrate
1/4 Tspn ginger paste
Ice Cubes
Garnish: Lime slice


Process:

In an 8 oz glass add Pink Grapefruit juice, Ginger Ale, lime juice concentrate, and ginger paste. Mix thoroughly.
Add ice cubes.
Add garnish.


Quick Faux Paloma

Ingredients:

2/3 Pink grapefruit soda
1/3 sparkling mineral water*
1/2 capful Lime juice
Ice cubes
Garnish: Slice of Lime


Process:

Add liquids to a 8 oz glass, stir together.
Add ice cubes.
Add garnish.

Guayaba Ginger Pink Mocktail

Ingredients:

4oz Seltzer water*
2oz Guayaba Soda
2oz Ginger Ale
1/8 Tspn Tea mix
Ice Cubes
Garnish: Lime slice

Process:

In an 10 oz glass, add Seltzer water, Guayaba Soda, Ginger Ale, tea mix, and Lime Juice concentrate. Stir well.
Add ice cubes.
Add garnish.

*You can use a variety of carbonated waters: Seltzer, Club Soda, Mineral water, carbonated, or Sparkling water.

Star Trek Calaman Sherry Mocktail...Many Versions

Thanks to Neelix (Ethan Phillips with William J. Birnes) and their Star Trek Cookbook (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/star-trek-cookbook-ethan-phillips/1104309366), I have some great recipes to try.

Calaman Sherry
Here’s a blush-colored drink that should look like pink champagne. Strawberry Kiwi is again your base drink of choice, lightened with Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider, which also provides effervescence, or straight club soda if you don’t want it too sweet. Serve in a tall, long-stemmed champagne glass so you can watch the bubbles rise.
Phillips, Ethan. Star Trek Cookbook (p. 223). Pocket Books/Star Trek. Kindle Edition.

Calaman Sherry Mocktail…Many Versions
(Adapted from: Star Trek Cookbook)

I made several adaptations to this mocktail. "You adapt," as the Star Trek Voyager crew would say. The ability to adapt is a good quality in Star Trek crew and fans, right?

I used a 4oz champagne glass.

There are more pink beverages available besides Strawberry-Kiwi than I realized, for example: pink grapefruit, cranberry, passion fruit, and more, so I choose a few.


Version 1


Ingredients:

1 Commuter Mug with lid
1 Fancy glass
1 baggie
about 6 ices cubes
4 oz del Valle nectar mixto guayaba naranja
2 oz Club Soda


Process:

Put ice cubes in the baggie.
Pound them on the kitchen counter with something hard like a cutting board to make ice chips.
Add the chips to the commuter mug.
Add juice and club soda.
Add lid and close.
Shake a bit.
Strain/pour liquid from mug spout into fancy glass.
Enjoy!

(Made with de Valle nectar mixto guayaba naranja https://jugosdelvalle.com.mx/portafolio/#del-valle/producto-519%20)

This mocktail smells mysterious and wonderful. It has lovely pink color and tastes great!


#GERD-friendly



Version 2


Ingredients:

1 Commuter Mug with lid
1 Fancy glass
1 baggie
about 6 ices cubes
5 oz Penafiel toronjada w/mineral water
1 oz carbonated apple juice


Process:

Put ice cubes in the baggie.
Pound them on the kitchen counter with something hard like a cutting board to make ice chips.
Add the chips to the commuter mug.
Add juices.
Add lid and close.
Shake a bit.
Strain/pour liquid from mug spout into fancy glass.

(Made with: Penafiel toronjada w/mineral water https://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/brands/penafiel)

This mocktail smells like pink grapefruit. It has a nice pinkish color. Tastes great!


Not GERD-Friendly

In addition, I got cranberry juice, too. I could make many different versions of Calaman Sherry!

Note: I think the lighting in my apartment is not strong enough to show the bubbles in my mocktails.

Happy New Year 2019

Happy New Year!!!!!

Updated 1/2/19

Two friends came over to celebrate the New Year.

I had warned them I already planned to make a black-eyed pea dish, and a pasta recipe from my new Star Trek Cookbook by Ethan Philips and William J. Birnes.

Plus, I was going to attempt to make some of the “mocktails” from ecookbook. The ecookbook was a Christmas present and it has been a blast to read. Now, I was going to try some of the recipes.

The ecookbook has over 300 pages and is full of stories about all the Star Trek shows. Various characters offer their favorite recipes. Ethan Philips played Nelix on the Star Trek show Voyager and he offers many of the recipes Nelix “prepared” during the show.

While Philips and Birnes playfully make these recipes seem "Alien", they are regular recipes.

Many recipes are simple like Tim Russ’s (Tuvok) Special Scrambled Eggs or too complex for me, like Icoberry Torte.

Many recipes make tongue-in-cheek references to various Star Trek shows, like “Quadrotriticale Bread”, a reference to the original Star Trek and the famous episode The Trouble with Tribbles. While this is a bread recipe, it does suggest using some unusual ingredients like pressed black olives.

While I enjoyed reading the recipes and will probably try to make a few more, it was the "mocktail" recipes that intrigued me. Special effects technician, Alan Sims, offers recipes to make some of the famous drinks in the Star Trek series.

While I made several of these “mocktails,” I did not drink them. I wasn't sure all of them are drinkable.

Andorian Ale

Gallia Nectar

Romulan Ale

I tried to make Synthehol but need to work on it some more. Plus, I think I can do better with the Gallia Nectar.

I was glad my friends were coming. Holding a New Year’s Day open house was a tradition of my mom’s, so was serving a dish made with black-eyed peas.

The night before, while I sorted out and prepared many of items I would serve, I began to prepare the Black-eyed Pea Salad (See recipe at end of post.)

I followed the instructions for cooking the black-eyed peas using my hotplate. I thought I got it right.

I stored the peas in the frig and would finish the recipe in the morning.

But, in the morning the peas just did not taste like they were fully cooked.

So, I had to add water to the peas and microwave them at least 3 times at 6 minutes each time. Finally, they tasted cooked.

But, then the original recipe did not specific a particular vinegar. So, I felt a taste test was required. I tried a sample with apple vinegar, Nah, no good. Then, one with Balsamic vinegar, Nah, so-so. Then I tried red wine vinegar and that tasted better.

In the middle of all this, I had a minor health crisis and spent at least an hour in the bathroom.

The beans overflowed in the microwave. I had to go feed my friend’s dogs. I had made a fish paste for another recipe because I had confused two recipes. But, still given that I have had many kitchen disasters in the past, I still had 2 hours to get things done.

So, I did not worry except for a few minutes when I locked myself out of my friend’s house while on the patio feeding her dogs. I had no cell phone to call anyone. I couldn’t climb the walls or find another way out.

Here I was about to entertain my friends for the first time and I was stuck on my friend’s patio. Eventually, I got help and returned to continue preparing for our lunch.

I continued making the black-eyed pea salad and preparing the appetizers.

The apartment was clean and the fans were running. Things went well.

My friends were amused watching me make the Star Trek “mocktails” that were undrinkable. We had grape juice and later champagne as our beverages.

In addition, we all enjoyed the appetizers and the black-eyed peas before we began to make the meal, Commander Benjamin Sisko's Bajoran (Deep Space Nine) Mushroom-and-Peppers Ratamba Stew. As usual I made adaptations.

Because I could not find spinach linguine, I bought spinach fettuccine. It came in a bag of pre-rolled bunches.

In compliance with GERD diet modifications, instead of tomatoes, I added a tomato bouillon to the pasta water. Plus, I used onion powder instead of whole onions.

It came out very well. Plus, it had an "alien" look because the tomato bullion made the spinach fettuccine look yellow.

It was a good meal and a good day with friends.

We are each on an adventure.


Black-eyed Pea Salad

(Adapted from: http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/HNFE/HNFE-320/HNFE-320-11/HNFE-320-11.html)

 





Ingredients:



2 Cups fresh, shelled black-eyed peas, washed

1 220g can of corn, drained

1 Cup bell peppers, diced


1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 

4 dashes onion powder


Note: Original recipe called for 2 TBspns of olive oil and 1 Tspn of ground cumin.




Process:



In a colander, wash peas.
Pour peas into saucepan.

Cover peas with water with an extra 1/2 inch of water above peas.
Bring to a boil.
Turn down heat to a simmer.

Simmer for 1 hour until peas are soft not chewy.

Drain and allow to cool.

Add to medium salad bowl.


I prepared this recipe in two and more stages.


In the morning, I wasn't happy with the peas, they seemed uncooked. So, I added about 1/2 cup water to the peas and microwaved them 3 times at 6 minutes each. Finally, I liked how the peas tasted.


Then, I added the corn, bell peppers, vinegar, ground black pepper, and onion powder. I mixed the ingredients thoroughly.


To me, the salad tastes fresh. I tried the cumin but it has a different flavor.


Note, I used various bell peppers, red, green and yellow. It gave the salad a holiday look.

#GERD-Friendly

Royal Sussex Mocktail

I watched Harry and Meghan's Royal wedding (5/19/18).

It was a beautiful wedding. Meghan and Harry added so many personal touches like the Forget-Me-Nots from the Kensington Palace garden for Meghan's bouquet as a remembrance of Princess Diana, Harry's mom.

Plus, I really liked Meghan's veil. It was embroidered with the official flower from each of the 53 countries (member states) in the Commonwealth.

  Meghan in her Wedding Dress and Veil.

(Source: https://www.elle.com/fashion/a20754091/meghan-markle-veil-royal-wedding/)

 Update: just found out Meghan's veil also included California's state flower, the poppy. Meghan was born in California. 
(Source:
 https://fashion.hellomagazine.com/fashion-news/201805248795/meghan-markle-dress-designer-royal-wedding-highlights/)

For more information on Meghan's dress, veil and more, see https://www.royal.uk/wedding-dress-bridesmaids%E2%80%99-dresses-and-page-boys-uniforms. Seems there are crop images on the veil as well. Very interesting. But, I see no mention of the Poppy.

The wedding was also a great break from the doom and gloom in the news.

The bridal party.

Harry, Meghan, the Queen and Prince Phillip, and several other members of the Royal Family.

I admire Meghan for choosing to make conscious choices in living a healthy life. I think she's a vegan during the week. Plus, she has rescued two shelter dogs. She does yoga. She is a spokesperson for women's issues.

This is not from the Duchess of Sussex's official web page.
Link to the Duchess of Sussex webpage at; https://www.hrp.org.uk/kensington-palace/

Megan and her beagle, Guy (Source: conceptnewcentral.com)

Meghan's parents, Doria Ragland and Thomas Markle.

Ms. Doria Ragland at Meghan's wedding

Doria and Thomas Markle at their wedding.

After the wedding, the couple, now, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, went to their reception at Frogmore House in Windsor. While you can find lots about the menu at the reception on the web, one item caught my eye. They served mocktails!

"With a nod to the no-ABV cocktail movement, guests of the royal couple were offered a non-alcoholic drink: An apple and elderflower mocktail, created to complement the elderflower in the wedding cake."

(Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/elvaramirez/2018/05/19/royal-wedding-prince-harry-and-meghans-official-menu/#57ff35b54709)

Couldn't find the recipe, so I can only guess at the proportions and ingredients.

Anyway, I decided to make my own Royal Sussex Mocktail.

 Royal Sussex Mocktail

Ingredients:

1 8 oz glass
Ice cubes
1 capful of Lime concentrate
1 capful of Jamaica concentrate*
Apple Juice
Sparkling Water or any carbonated water
Garnish Optional

Process:

Add ice cubes to glass.
Add Lime and Jamaica concentrates.
Fill glass about 1/3 with Apple Juice.
Fill remainder of glass with Sparking Water.
Stirring is optional. I liked the layered look.
Add Optional Garnish.

It's tasty!!

*Jamaica Concentrate is made from juice made from the Jamaica flower (flor de Jamaica). The flower is also called Hibiscus. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus_tea

For more frugal Mocktail Recipes, see Mocktails by Ria Stone at Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/539967. Only .99 cents!

Recipes from the Kitchen of a Frugal Non-Cook Revised -- follow this post for future Updates -- Publication not available at this time

I revised Recipes from the Kitchen of a Frugal Non-Cook.

Some new recipes were added as well as a few new Mocktails. Also, I cleaned it up a bit and added a few more promos.

As of today, readers and cooks can find a copy of the Recipes from the Kitchen of a Frugal Non-Cook  Revised on Smashwords as an eBook or on MagCloud as a Print on Demand Book (POD) at:

Smashwords

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/388817

 

 

MagCloud

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1597585

 

 

Cool Off with a Spritzer Festival!

Spritzer Festival!

Spritzers cool you down, and have great flavor with fewer calories.

Your basic recipe is:

Ingredients:
8oz glass
Ice cubes
Carbonated water
Flavoring
Garnish: Lime slices, orange slices, pineapple chunks, apple slices, and more (optional)

Process:
Fill glass with ice.
Fill glass 2/3rds to 7/8ths with carbonated water.
Add flavoring.
Stir.
Add garnish, your choice (optional).

Ginger Ale Spritzer

Spritzers (Left to Right): Apple Juice, Coconut Cream, Coffee, Grapefruit, Mandarin, Jamaica, Tonic Water, Chocolate Sorbet, Mango, Cola Light, Orange Juice, and Ginger Ale

Not Pictured:

Decaffeinated coffee with a dollop of chocolate sorbet

Ginger Root with a bit of sugar

Grape Juice

Lime Juice

Peppermint Tea

Pomegranate Juice

Other flavor ideas:

Watermelon

Strawberry

Root Beer

Dr. Pepper

Cherry

Lemon/Lime

Vanilla

Guava

Melon

Passionfruit

Papaya

Variation:

Beer Spritzer

Fill glass with ice.

Fill 2/3rds with carbonated water.

Add a bit of beer.

Add a capful of lime juice.

Beer Spritzer

Use your imagination. Make your own Spritzer!