Showing posts with label Beverages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beverages. Show all posts
True confessions here. I have never had a Shamrock Shake. Living in the UK for all those years, Shamrock Shakes were not something they ever had at McDonald's and to be honest in England they don't celebrate Saint Patrick's Day either for the most part.
It is largely left up to the individual I guess. They had a lot of other tasty stuff at McDonald's which we don't get here at home, but no Shamrock Shakes. I have always wanted to taste one. They look so refreshingly indulgent.
I found this recipe online and it is purported to be a copycat recipe for Shamrock Shakes. I can't give you any one link because all the copycats are the same and are on a host of different pages.
For my own purposes I used lactose free ice cream and milk and I made half a recipe because I am only one. But even half a recipe was very generous in its size. So although it says two servings in the recipe, I would say it would easily please three people with smaller servings, or if your children are really young, four.
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE SHAMROCK SHAKES
Only 4 simple ingredients, excluding the topping and garnish.
- 4 cups (2 pints) good quality vanilla ice cream (that's two containers of Hagen Das)
- 1 cup (240ml) whole milk
- 1/2 tsp pure peppermint extract
- 1/4 tsp green gel food coloring
To finish:
- whipped cream
- colored sprinkles to top
This is a fun dessert for the kids or even for adults. A bit indulgent perhaps, but what a treat!
First of all use the best ice cream that you can afford. One which uses real milk and cream, and vanilla. Nothing artificial.
As I said I used the lactose free products because of my IBS.
The danger here is in using too much green coloring and or peppermint extract. You don't want it to taste like toothpaste.
You can adult them by using some crème de menthe in the place of the peppermint extract. In that case you could use a bit more than 1/2 tsp. How much is up to you! Just remember you don't want to water down your shake too much!
You can also use liquid food coloring. How much depends on how green you want it to be! I used squirty cream, but the real whipped squirty cream not the artificial. The brand I used was Gay Lea. If you want the cream to hold up longer, do whip your own cream from scratch.
My sprinkles came from Sweetpolita. They are actually Christmas ones. I picked out any reds and pinks, so that I just had greens and variants of green. I thought the yellow stars were cute!
HOW TO MAKE SHAMROCK SHAKES
Nothing could be easier, but you will need a blender, or a stick blender for this fun Saint Patrick's Day dessert!!
These really are fun and delicious, but do be warned that each serving packs in a wallop of calories, over 600 per half recipe. Another good reason you may want to cut down the serving sizes and serve them to more people than just two.
Place the ice cream, milk, peppermint extract and food coloring into blender. Cover and blend until smooth.
Taste and adjust the flavor. If you want it to be a bit greener you can add a bit more food coloring and blend again.
Divide between two tall glasses, top with whipped cream and sprinkles and serve immediately.
But if you aren't worried about that sort of thing, by all means tuck in, indulge and enjoy! Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone!
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Shamrock Shakes
Yield: 2
Prep time: 10 MinTotal time: 10 Min
Something fun for Saint Patrick's Day!
Ingredients
- 4 cups (2 pints) good quality vanilla ice cream
- 1 cup (240ml) whole milk
- 1/2 tsp pure peppermint extract
- 1/4 tsp green gel food colouring
To finish:
- whipped cream
- coloured sprinkles to top
Instructions
- Place the ice cream, milk, peppermint extract and food coloring into blender. Cover and blend until smooth.
- Taste and adjust the flavor. If you want it to be a bit greener you can add a bit more food coloring and blend again.
- Divide between two tall glasses, top with whipped cream and sprinkles and serve immediately.
I saw these marshmallows at Asda the other day and I just could not resist picking up a package! They are so cute. Little snowman faces. I just couldn't pass them by without picking up a package! (or two)
Hot cocoa has never been my favourite drink. First of all I am not fond of chocolate milk, or chocolate ice cream. I adore chocolate candy and chocolate bakes, but when it comes to milk, I could take or leave it.
Add to that the fact that most hot cocoa powders you get to use at home and largely disappointing. You end up with watery hot cocoa with lumps and bits of cocoa powder in them, because no matter how hard you try you just can't get the cocoa to dissolve completely!
About the only place you can get a decent hot chocolate is at one of the coffee shops and then it costs more than a coffee and is far too sweet for my taste.
Todd, on the other hand, really loves a nice cup of hot cocoa, although in all truth he finds the packaged hot cocoa mixes a huge disappointment as well.
One exception is the Strawberry Hot Cocoa Mix that I make myself. That is perfectly delicious. I saw a recipe on a blog called Baking Mischief the other day for a creamy rich hot chocolate sized for one person the other day and so I printed it out and decided to try it for Todd.
Oh boy . . . this is the Cadillac of Hot Chocolates! Its rich and creamy and quite delicious!
I adapted it to our tastes and measures. I left out the espresso powder as we don't drink coffee drinks in our home as we are Latter Day Saints.
Do feel free to add it if that isn't a problem for you, its only 1/4 tsp. I also adapted it so that I could make it in the microwave without having to dirty a saucepan.
I confess I had a little sip and it was absolutely gorgeous! That's coming from me who doesn't really like hot chocolate, so you know it must be really good! Todd felt very special when I set this down in front of him.
Creamy and Rich Hot Cocoa For One
Yield: 1
The perfect cup of cocoa, rich and creamy and beautifully sized for just one. You don't get much better than this!
ingredients:
- 1 TBS white sugar
- 1 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder
- pinch salt
- 1 TBS boiling water
- 160ml whole milk (2/3 cup)
- 80ml heavy cream (1/3 cup)
- 2 heaped TBS semi sweet chocolate chips
- your favourite toppings (marshmallows, whipped cream, etc.)
instructions:
How to cook Creamy and Rich Hot Cocoa For One
- Combine the sugar, cocoa powder, salt and boiling water to make a paste in the bottom of a measuring cup. Add the milk, whisking to combine well. Put in the microwave and microwave on high for one minute. Whisk in the cream and return to the microwave and microwave on high for one minute longer. (Keep an eye on it. You don't want it to bubble over.) Add the chocolate chips and whisk all together to melt the chocolate chips. Transfer to your favourite mug, top as desired and enjoy!
There are ways that you could adapt this to someone who needs to watch their sugars. For one, leave off the marshmallows. Two you could use a granulated sugar substitute instead of real sugar. You could also use evaporated skim milk instead of cream and semi sweet milk instead of whole milk I would leave in the chocolate chips however. We can't take away ALL of the fun and goodness can we?
Our blackcurrants are coming fast and furious now. In all truth in about a week, they will be all done, and what's left on our bush will be left to the birds to enjoy. They don't mind one iota, and neither do I. Give nature back a bit of what it gifts you with is my motto.
I love to make fruit cordials in the summer with some of our soft fruits. I do freeze a lot, and I even freeze some of the cordials for the winter. If you pop them into an ice cube tray, you can just pop them out once frozen into a baggie and you have single servings of cordial to enjoy all winter long. You can't beat the taste of a homemade fruit cordial made with real fruit!
I have always loved the flavour of blackcurrants. Back home my favourite Halls cough drops were the Blackcurrant ones. Cordials are really easy to make. You just mix fruit, sugar, water . . .
Cook to extract the juice, and thicken it, then strain. This time I added a vanilla bean to infuse it with some delicious vanilla flavour. You can leave it out if you want, but I really like the special touch it adds to the finished cordial, both scent and taste . . .
You end up with a really thick strong fruity syrup, which makes a wonderfully refreshing drink when diluted!
When diluting I use a ration of one part cordial to 3 parts of whatever I am mixing it with. You can use sparkling water, regular water, fizzy lemonade, etc.
It makes a really refreshing and delicious drink poured over ice. I like it mixed with a fizzy drink like 7-up or Sprite . . .
You can spoon the syrup over ice cream if you wish . . .
Add it to vanilla ice cream and milk to make fruity milk shakes . . .
Its pretty wonderful no matter how you choose to enjoy it!
You can use just about any berry in the same quantities to make a cordial, or a mix of berries, always delicious!
Whenever I am making cordial I always think of Anne Shirley and her friend Diana getting drunk on Cordial that had fermented and turned alcoholic. Don't you just love the story of Anne of Green Gables?
Its one of my favourite stories. A simpler time with simple pleasures. Just like this simple homemade cordial . . .
Yield: 450ml or scant 2 cups
Black Currant & Vanilla Cordial
Sweet and fruity. Mix 1 part cordial with 3 parts water, sparkling water, sparkling lemonade, etc. for a deliciously refreshing summer drink. You can actually use any berry to make this, or a mix of berries.
ingredients:
- 300g Black currants or other berries (3 cups)
- 160g sugar (1/2 cup plus 5 TBS)
- 325 ml cold water (1 1/3 cups)
- 1 large vanilla pod, split and caviar scraped out
instructions:
How to cook Black Currant & Vanilla Cordial
- Pick over and clean your currants. Place into a saucepan. Add the vanilla pod and its caviar. Sprinkle the sugar over top. Pour in the water. Bring to a simmer over moderate heat. Mash the fruit as it cooks with the back of a wooden spoon. Cook, stirring occasionally over low heat until the fruit has cooked and the sugar is dissolved. It won't take long. Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely. Strain through a fine mesh sieve. Strain again and then pour into a glass bottle or jar with a lid. You can keep this in the refrigerator for up to one month or freeze for longer. (If freezing it is more practical to freeze in smaller amounts so that you can thaw out only what you need. I like to freeze it in ice cube trays and then once frozen, pop them into a zip lock baggie. Presto, individual servings!)
At any rate, I hope you will give this delicious fruit cordial a go and that you will enjoy it. Such a simple thing, and so very wonderful . . .
“Oh our hay it is mown and our corn it is reaped,
our barns are full and we’ve garnered the seed…”
Even in our time it is still a hot and dusty work. This recipe I am showing you today would have been a traditional drink that would have been served up ice cold to the workers as a means of refreshment in the field.
There is actually no real "Beer" involved. Not many farmers would have wanted to risk the bringing in of their hay by serving actual "Beer" to their men . . . nor could they afford the expense of quenching the thirsts of their hot and tired workers by serving them real "Beer." Instead, it is a drink which is meant to be thirst quenching without dulling the senses.
It actually does resemble a dark ale in looks, but that is where any true resemblance to beer stops. It might have faint echoes in flavour to the real thing, but not being a beer drinker myself, I cannot actually say this for sure!
It has a very faint malty flavour . . . probably from the use of molasses in this mixture, which also gives it it's dark colour . . .
More sweetness comes in the form of granulated sugar . . . but again there is a hint of sour from the use of white vinegar. Todd, who has been an ale-drinker in days gone past, says it is quite a pleasant drink. This is also a nice whiff of ginger, which is known to be refreshing!
Having said that I don't think it is ever going to overtake homemade lemonade in the scheme of popularity when it comes to thirst quenching drinks in our house! Then again, we are not out working in the fields and getting all hot and dusty!!
It is a recipe I have adapted from a very old paper-back recipe book I have had in my library for many years called The Farmer's Daughter Cookbook, by Kandy Norton Henley. In its day, it was called a delectable treasury of nostalgic home cooking!
Published in 1971, I have had this book for nigh on to 47 years now. (Oh that does make me feel old!) This is a recipe that I have always been curious about, and with the hot weather we have been experiencing, I decided to finally give it a try! (Better late than never!)
Todd quite likes it and has really enjoyed it after mowing the lawn, maybe not as hearty a chore as bringing in the hay crop, but still quite sweat inducing!
I have a huge jar of it in the refrigerator, and I dare say he will be enjoying it until we run out of hot weather. He normally isn't much of a cold drink lover (I wear that crown), but when it is hot he does enjoy something colder!
*Haymaker's Beer*
Makes a generous
4 litres/1 gallon
This
thirst-quenching refreshing drink would have been a treat on a hot day
to the farm worker's who used to help the farmer's get their hay crop
in.
4 litres water (16 cups)
385g sugar (2 cups)
240ml molasses (1 cup)
240ml white vinegar (1 cup)
1 to 2 tsp ground ginger
Mix all of the ingredients together until the sugar is dissolved.
Chill in the refrigerator until very cold. In the hayfield, this is
every man's drink.
Needless to say I did not make a whole gallon of this drink. I cut the recipe down by about 3/4, only making about 1 litre of it. I don't have a whole haying crew to please, after all, and I mostly wanted to make it more out of curiosity than for any other reason. Having said that, however . . . I am glad that I did! Here's mud in your eye!
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