3 Easy and Fun Cocktails for your Year End Party

I am not much of an "alcohol-drinking" kind of person. I don't get the light-headed, happy feeling that usually a glass of drink should bring.

Instead I feel just plain sleepy after a glass of wine. My eyes get heavy and I doze off!! Plonk!
Clearly that is not what I want to do, as "dozing off" is something I can do easily even without a drink. What is the point then?

I however love cocktails -- Mojito, Margaritas, Mimosas-- Mmmm...so good. Given a choice, I usually tell the bartender to go light on the alcohol part. Defeats the purpose you say? But works for me. I am not sleeping after that drink. And I think I might be feeling a teeny bit happier.

But it works best if the husband-man is mixing the drinks at home. He knows my limits and makes the best cocktails that I love.

Here are 3 that I am sure you will love too.

Singapore Sling

This Singapore Sling which the husband-man had made for my last book club meeting(it is his version of the drink), was a major hit.
Our town has a book club and the coordinators take great care to pair the potluck menu at those meetings with the book of the month.
So few months back we were reading #CrazyRichAsians and the menu was around Singapore. I took this cocktail and it was a major hit. It indeed is a lovely drink and heady enough to drown all sorrows!!😜
.
1 part Gin
2 part Pineapple Juice
Little lime juice.
Shake
.
1 tsp Grenadine
1 part Club Soda
Add a lime wedge
Stir

Mint Mojito

Mojito is a summer drink and since we have a huge bush of Mint growing in our backyard, we use all that fresh mint to make ours. If you can get fresh mint, it is a refreshing drink any time of the year.

10 fresh mint leaves

1/2 lime cut into 4 wedges

2 tablespoons white sugar or 2 tbsp of simple syrup.
*Make simple syrup by boiling 1 Cup of Sugar + 1 Cup of Water

1 cup ice cubes

1 1/2 fluid ounces white rum

1/2 cup club soda or Sprite

Mix

Place the mint leaves, lime wedges at the bottom of a tall glass or in a cocktail shaker. Add the sugar or simple syrup.

Muddle with a Pestle to release the mint oil and lime juice.

Fill the glass with ice.

Add the rum and top off with club soda or sprite.

Garnish with fresh mint leaves.

Limoncello Mule

I had got a bottle of Limoncello on our trip to Italy earlier this year. I have been waiting for the right time to drink it and never found the "right-time". The husband-man used it to make another amazing cocktail which will be on the drink list tomorrow.

3 oz. limoncello
3 oz. good quality vodka
1 oz. fresh lemon juice
4 oz. ginger beer

Lots of ice
lemon slices - for garnish

Fill a glass with ice.

Add the limoncello, vodka, lemon juice, to a cocktail shaker. Shake shake shake.

Pour into glass. Add Ginger Beer to the top of drinks and stir.

Garnish with Thin rinds of lime.

Here's to a happy looking back to 2018 and fizzy welcome to 2019!




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Ek cup kara Cha -- a cup of strong Tea

He had a slight built. His face was weathered. Fate had not been kind to him and it showed in those deep lines. His sparse hair around the temples were already turning white. They shouldn't have. He was Ma's younger brother, five years younger to her black dark hair.

Bring water to boil

Almost every Saturday he stopped by at their home after the half day at office. Every Saturday Ma would keep aside the choicest piece of fish from the day's macher jhol, some tarkari and ladle-fulls of dal before she served lunch. Baromama never arrived in time.

The water merrily bubbles

Ma would sit, waiting at the dining table long after everyone was done.Some days she would crane her neck out from the verandah at the lane now empty at noon, and finally go off to take her nap. Baba who generally was averse to the human race and found more kinship in The Statesman editorial than any mortal, would fold up the paper around three in the afternoon, declare, "Nah Khoka aaj ar elona" (No Khoka is not coming today) and retreat to his study. She still waited, occasionally glancing out of the window, beyond the football field, trying to locate the very familiar hunched figure with a battered briefcase in hand.

The water boils furiously

It was strange that she and her other siblings liked him so much. You wouldn't think kids looked beyond the exterior, the materialistic outer cover, to the honest soul within. You wouldn't believe they preferred a warm heart to a cadbury's dairy milk.

Spoonfuls of fragrant tea leaves

He would eventually come, much after lunch around tea time. Ma would get agitated, "Saradin kichu khas ni (You have not had any food almost whole day)", she would complain. He would smile sheepishly and mutter something about getting late. He didn't want lunch. Tea was all he wanted, tea was something he survived on. A cup of strong black tea was his lifeline. "Khali pete cha khas na, omlette kore dichi (Don't drink tea on an empty stomach, have an omlette)", Ma would say, trying to rejuvenate her young brother in that half day every week. Ma had this theory about the stomach being totally empty four hours after you ate anything at all.

Getting ready to pour

She would make the omlette. Carefully breaking two eggs into a bowl and then beating the eggs with a fork. Sometimes she would add a tablespoon of Milk as she had read in Femina. She would beat vigorously, the fork making "ting-ting" noice against the bowl. She would add a handful of chopped onions and some chopped green chili. On the nonstick Trupti pan, she would spread the omlette and fold it, the center well done and the sides crisp.

Baromama would eagerly have the omlette amidst noisy sips of tea. He would praise her omlette making skills and launch on his favorite topic, his future dream project.

They say you can see your future in tea leaves

There would be many more cups of tea that he and Baba would gulp down throughout the evening. There would be arguments, Ma would give advices, distant relatives would be discussed as the water boiled and tea leaves brewed.

It has been more than a decade that she has missed such Saturdays. But she still waited for one of her trips back home, to snatch half a Saturday to see if Baromama still came home after half day at work. If Ma still waited for him at lunch.

That will not happen though. The early morning call across the oceans last Tuesday just confirmed, Baromama would not come home on the Saturdays she would visit Kolkata this summer, he would never come home again.

This is a part of my Food Fiction series. It might seem strange but it is the simplest food that has all the fiction entwined around it. This post goes to Aquadaze for Of Chalks and Chopsticks. What is your Food Story ? Send it over to Aqua.

Yogurt Berry Smoothie -- Berry berry good

Where I live, seasons do not sneak into your life. They march in, tooting horns, unfurling their beauty and making a big show. The calendars have fixed dates which proclaim "Beginning of Spring" and Nature takes cue. Schools close down for a week and a big hoopla is made of Spring. For a region marked with long, cold and really dreadful winters this would all seem natural.

But I am surprised at how not only Spring, but each of the four seasons gets its due recognition and how very distinct one is from the other. Coming from a country where the seasons fluidly merged into each other and it was not easy to pinpoint start and end of Spring by the weather alone, the dominating seasonal characters here astound me.

Last week BS had her Spring Break and the weather was gorgeous for most part of the week. We did spend a lot of time outdoors though my allergy tried to dampen the whole thing. My parents are here and LS's love for the shide and pak reached a crescendo with almost a daily visit to the park.

The Bengali New Year is this week and this time some of us families ushered in the New Year at a friend's home with a small function that had dance and music by the kiddos. Usually a get together for us is always about food but this time it was a little different. Some of my talented friends choreographed dance numbers based on songs of Rabindranath Tagore and the kids danced to it. With their very limited rehearsals, they did a fantastic job and it was a very nicely put together show.

To continue with the spirit of the season I have something light, purple and delicious today. A yogurt smoothie with triple berries. I was delighted to find this organic pack of triple berries(strawberry, blackberry, blueberry) at my local price club and have been using it for smoothies and shakes for some time. The price is very much within reach at $10. This shows how growing consumer interest in Organic produce is slowly bringing down the price. This easy to make delicious smoothie really screams Spring in your heart, so go ahead, fix a smoothie.

In a blender add 1/2 cup of Fat Free Yogurt, 1/2 cup of defrosted berries, 1 tbsp of honey and 1/2 cup of water/milk. Blend till smooth. Drink up

Similar Recipes:

Yogurt Parfait with Dates

Detoxifying Tea -- the Cleanse

Yesterday I had two uninterrupted hours to myself, bang in the middle of the day, a rare opportunity on a week day. I could have taken a much needed shower, cooked something more elaborate than serving up masoor dal, baked tilapia and aloo-gajar yet again or at least cooked something, anything. But did I do that ? No.

Instead I googled for "detox diet ayurveda 3 days". Don't ask me why. Maybe I overdid the Biryani that we got on Sunday and the body was sending toxic signals.At least I didn't ask for "detox diet in a packet". Ok hold on, let me google this. Guess what there IS a detox diet in a packet, what fun, packaged, processed and with all the chemicals.

But the ayurveda detox thingy is not easy. They don't do things fast, to do it the right way, you need 60 whole days, S-I-X-T-Y, who has that ? But they have a point, the body is like your child, no point hurrying it, it is best to go with the flow, to let things balance out gradually.

"A complete ayurvedic cleansing program includes 15 days of preparation and 45 days of actual cleansing. Ayurvedic healers recommend paying special attention to your diet during these two phases to avoid overtaxing your digestion and to enable purification to occur easily and completely. Maharishi Ayurveda does not recommend fasting or entirely liquid diets such as juices, because that may cause your digestive agni to become imbalanced."

Why Do You Need to Detox ?

According to Ayurveda, there are three different types of toxins that can impact the physiology: ama -- the waste product of incomplete digestion, amavisha -- the reactive form of ama i.e ama + other doshas and garvisha -- external toxins from the environment, exposure to chemicals etc..

Ayurveda recommends a program of internal cleansing at every change of seasons to clear the channels of the body of toxins that may have built up over the previous season. Detox is particularly recommended at the time when winter is phasing into spring.

The Detox Routine according to Ayurveda

The following is a general guideline of what to eat and to avoid during this phase.

To know more in details about the kind of fruits and vegetables that you can eat depending on your body type, check this Food Guidelines

Along with the diet you also need to follow a routine of sleep, exercise and massaging. And then there is the eating habit you need to follow, of never skipping a meal and eating slowly, chewing each morsel.

Basically "the Ayurveda Detox Diet is what your Mom has been telling you since you were six and you never listened until Google told you to".

But seriously what I like about the detox plan is the use of spices in cooking the vegetables.

"Ginger, turmeric, coriander, fennel and fenugreek help open up the channels of the body and support the flushing of toxins via the skin, urinary tract, colon and liver"

These were the main spices (along with Nigella seeds and mustard seeds) that were used in the everyday Bengali Food that my Ma made. She did not use garlic or onions much and neither does everyday home cooked Bangla meals call for that. Everyday Bengali food is light, subtly spiced, not much garlic, onion, red chili or cream and tends to retain the texture and taste of the vegetables. Ahh, if we could just add some fish to that detox diet, I could have sealed the deal

Main Reference: Ayurvedic Detox Diet -- Maharishi Ayurveda

Though I don't have the determination or resources to go on a sixty day detox diet right now and I need to use up the 20% discount coupons at the local restaurants, I decided to do my body some good by making and sipping the Detoxifying Tea throughout the day.

This is a very light and extremely easy to make tea. A big cup of this and small sips throughout the day will help you feel good about yourself and you will also get all the water. Just drinking this tea alone will do nothing to detox I am sure but here's to a better beginning.


Read more...

Detox Tea

Original Recipe

Bring to boil two quarts of water in the morning.

Add 1/4 t. whole cumin,
1/2 t. whole coriander,
1/2 t. whole fennel to the water and let steep for ten minutes with the lid on. I also added some fresh grated ginger and 3-4 Tulsi(Holy Basil) leaves.

Strain out the spices and pour the water into a thermos.

Sip throughout the day.

Disclaimer: I am not a Doctor. Biology was not even amongst my main 4 subjects in High School

One Masala Sprite Please

This is just a "Hello" post with no pics. I haven't had any time to post and my Bhai Phota(Bhai Duj) post is languishing in the draft dungeon. I will be back soon, maybe in a couple of days.

Meanwhile have been eating a lot, a lot. That is what happens when you have too many festivals all conveniently scattered over a single month. Back from a Diwali party of Chole-Puri, Pav-Bhaji, Rasmalai and assorted tid-bits late Saturday night, Sunday we were all ready to go to a lunch spread of Cholar Dal, Enchor-Chingri, Maacher Kalia, maccher matha diye Bandhakopi and the works. Then Sunday evening was a birthday party. This one was special because the hostess is a super cook. Her mutton biryani is US famous if not the world. It was only sheer gastronomic power that made me down two plates of that heavenly biryani even after a late lunch. I couldn't even look at the numerous other items on the buffet table.

What helped afterward is her Masala Sprite, a lovely drink which makes you feel it is digestive(?) and triggers your brain to eat more biryani.

To make Masala Sprite, is very very difficult. It is not everyone's "dayen haath ka khel". Follow the instruction below carefully to prepare a glass of super zingy Masala Sprite

First know what is Sprite. You might have been born to someone like me who deprives their child of such pleasures.

Buy Sprite. A case of canned sprite or a bottle will work fine

Pour sprite carefully in a glass. This can get tricky. Too much will cause overflow and too little dissatisfaction.

Now add a dash of chaat masala, little salt and lime juice and mix well. You have to experiment to get the right proportion. Do the experiment before hand, do not take sips from glasses served to the guests

Have a drink

And lets raise a glass of Masala Sprite to Desi Pundit. I have been invited as a community member to their community -- "a community of top-notch desi blogs, based on consistently creative writing, distinct opinions, and user-friendly design" and I will share some of my selected posts with them in the future. Thanks to Patrix and the team at Desi Pundit for the invite.