BOOZE....Homemade Sour Cherry Cordial Concoctions

This past week has been a bit of a tough one...we had the big heat wave, and perhaps aided by that, the old refrigerator that came with the house is down and just about out. First the refrigerator went to the very minimalist of cooling, and now the freezer is acting more like a refrigerator.  Soo... we crammed a bunch of stuff in a mini-refrigerator we had in the garage, and we are eating and cooking our way through the freezer contents. Thankfully we found a new one, but it can't be delivered until Wednesday...UGH!!

Now, for this weeks blog I was so excited that my husband and I were going to make Cherry Cordial... his parents have a bit of an orchard, and are kind enough to share the bounty.  This past week the fruit was SOUR CHERRIES, and we had a bunch fresh and frozen.  Now that the freezer has stopped freezing, we decided to make a bunch of BOOZE with it.  Now, remember I said I was excited to have this as the weeks project for the blog, well, hubby went, pitted all the cherries and made the first batch without me. :-(  He apologized, and reminded me of all the frozen cherries, and a few days later the fridge went and the rest is history.

So.... I'm going to share the first two recipes for the 'cordials'.  We came across some labor intensive ones, but being Mr. and Mrs. Lazy, we went for Super Simple, Easy Peasy! Note: I call these Cordials because that's the name we use.  I saw some call it Cherry Bounce, Cherry Liqueur, Wisniak, etc...

Anywhoo... here's recipe one.

Mr. Lazy Diva's Family Sour Cherry Cordial Recipe

The recipe was about 3 equal parts of the ingredients.

1/3 Sour Cherries (no pits or stems)

1/3 Sugar

1/3 Whiskey (we just bought a cheap bottle and it used the whole thing)

Put all the ingredients in a jar and let sit for three months, DO NOT SHAKE!  (I only emphasize that because he seemed appalled I would even suggest shaking the jar!)  lol! Some recipes you do shake every few days, or at least once. This according to him, is not one of them.  After it's all set you can strain, and put it in bottles and it should keep a few years. 

NOW, With the slow decrease of freeze in the freezer, we took out some more cherries, and together we started this recipe.  Now I don't know why I had Brandy in my head, but I swear I saw a recipe that called for Brandy, so for this second batch, that's what we used. I guess in a few months I'll know how it tastes! 

The Lazy Diva's Sour Cherry Cordial Experimental Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

6 cups of Sour Cherries (no pits or stems)

4 cups of Sugar

8 cups of Brandy (or I suppose any Alcohol)

STEP ONE

Add the Sour Cherries and Sugar to the jar, then stir, and/or SHAKE the jar to mix it all up.

STEP TWO

Close the jar and put in a cold place for 24 hours.

STEP THREE

Add the Brandy and stir or shake it up a bit.  
(At the liquor store hubby reached for the smaller bottle, but I suggested the medium bottle.  SO GLAD I DID!  I thought I'd have left overs for another recipe, no such luck! Guess we should pay attention to ounces, not bottle size in the future!  Plus, I always have to look at a conversion chart.  From this I'm assuming 8 cups is about 1.75 liters?)

STEP FOUR

The Whiskey recipe is on the left, it has not been stirred or shaken.
The Brandy recipe on the right has been shaken really well...not hard to tell apart at this point!

Put aside and let macerate for at least one month.  

THE WAITING GAME IS ON!  

STEP FIVE 

Strain and put in bottles. (Apparently 'Adults' can eat or use cherries in recipes.)

As I mentioned, we hope to try some more of these.  Next up will probably be one of the above with VODKA.  When they're ready we will try them, and put them in nice bottles. Apparently they keep for a few years.  I'll try to give an update and let you know how they all turn out!  My husband is all about home brewing some alcohol this summer, not sure why, but he's got it into his head.  His parents will have plums soon, and apples in the fall, he's got big plans.  PLUS, he found this book called "True Brews" that has all these labor and ingredient heavy recipes for beer, wine, sake, soda, mead, kefir, etc...   So, you may see some of those highlighted in the blog too if one of us becomes ambitious!  (I bought all the ingredients, but I don't know if I have the time or patience for some of them! lol!)

Well, that's the blog...  Thanks for reading!!

UPDATE:  They came out great!  Both batches tasted really nice, I didn't even notice the fact that it was sour cherries.  Also, we tried to do a dessert with the strained cherries, and while good, they were STRONG!  The 2016 batches are currently infusing as I type!

BUBBLE PALOOZA... Making Bubbles with the Fam!

So, I've been talking about trying to do the DIY Bubble Mix project for some time, this Saturday, I kind of took the plunge.  I say 'kind of' because I pretty much threw 'scientific experimentation' out of the window. We just winged it, and had some fun! 

Being in my 30's and mom of several furbabies, I would have felt kind of funny doing this one alone in my kitchen.  I do admit that we've purchase the catnip bubbles for the kitties, but I was out to make some BIG bubbles, (I'll try catnip ones another day, lol!).  Plus, the reason I wanted to try the bubble making project was because my 2 year old niece, LOVES bubbles. So I headed over to her house with the ingredients, and her parents and siblings were great assistants.  Even in the heat and humidity we were so drawn to the bubbles, we played for hours!

Looking online there are several Bubble Recipes... they are pretty much all the same.  Many of them just vary on the third ingredient.  I think honestly that the third ingredient varies due to people just using what is easily available.  The basic recipe that most agree on includes Water, Dawn Dish Soap (We did test the dollar store brand and it was a big FAIL,  I have heard Joy works well too,) and Glycerin. Glycerin is available at the pharmacy among other places.  I bought this bottle at CVS, but I've seen it at Walgreens, and Rite Aid I believe.  I also saw on one site that Wilton makes some too! 

Third ingredient substitutions include Light Corn Syrup, Sugar, Corn Starch and Baking power, etc....  I stand behind Glycerin.  My sister-in-law did do a batch with the Corn Syrup, and they were more miss, than hit.  So.... here's the recipe we used.

The Lazy Diva's Bubble Recipe

Ingredients:

6 cups of water
1/2 cup Dish Soap (plus a squeeze or 2)
1/4 cup Glycerin

Pour all the ingredients into a bowl or jar, and SLOWLY stir.  You do NOT want it to be bubbly.  Bubbles ironically do not help make bubbles.

INGREDIENT ONE - WATER

I used  filtered water.  Soft or Distilled water is supposedly best, but I decided for today, it didn't matter.

INGREDIENT TWO - DISH SOAP

I went with DAWN, it had the most mentions online.  In order to save some dish washing, I grabbed an 1/8 cup measuring cup, and my 14 year old assistant wanted to help.  I told her we needed 4 full pours.  After one she asked if she was done. LOL! In the end we had some confusion on the number, but I'm pretty sure we hit the full 1/2 cup.  Then I added an extra squeeze for the heck of it. 

INGREDIENT THREE - GLYCERIN

In a couple of recipes I saw, it was just an 1/8 cup, between my assistant and I, we poured twice...  oh, well. It worked!

INGREDIENT FOUR - PATIENCE

We didn't have any!  We were too excited, and someone missed her nap! Supposedly the longer you wait, the better.  We didn't want to wait... but I did reserve some for the next day!  Day Two, I do think the bubbles were slightly better... so patience does pay!  

INGREDIENT FIVE - WANDS

Princess wand was fun, but they were tiny bubbles....

Now I bought some store bought 'princess' bubbles with a little tray and a few wands.  The kids also had some random wands AND an awesome big circle bubble wand.  If it wasn't so hot, or if we were more crafty I would have made wands, but these were great.  The big wand is the BOMB!

We love Big Bubbles.....

Now with the big wand, the competition was on for the big bubbles.... I think we all had a great time.  The poor porch play room carpet was a bit soaked before we moved outside, but soaps clean, so it was all good!  I took TONS of photos, but not a lot of those contained whole bubbles.  It was part bad photo timing... plus it was all about the long pulls!

Now some more BUBBLE PICTURES!

Day Two: The Bubble Formula was even better!  

The two year old had much more success the second day, and had some great pulls!

Well, that's this weeks blog... special thanks to my family!  We had tons of great pictures, I could have added tons more, but I showed some restraint!  

Sweet and Tangy Balls.... of Meat!

So the Fourth of July is just days away as I'm writing this and with my work schedule, I have very little free time.  We call it 'move-up' where we essentially cram 5 days of work into 4 days,... but also go in on the weekend, just to get an extra(?) day off. That's my excuse this week and I'm sticking to it! I've got to sleep sometime, so I'm just going to throw a quick recipe on the blog, and hopefully will do more in the weeks to come. I did the obligatory color changing text that some feel necessary to mark the holiday...lol!

Not sure if we are doing a party ourselves this weekend, but I decided to do recipe test run. I looked at a bunch of recipes, and decide to combine a few elements and see how it came out, I thought it was a success. The classic meatball appetizer recipes are usually Chili Sauce and Welch's Grape Jelly (and I underlined Welch's because apparently some people are emphatic that it can NOT be any other kind.).  As I was getting ready to prepare everything I noticed on the Heinz bottle it suggested a can of cranberry sauce instead, which I thought was interesting. But of course I also HAD to use the Welch's too!  Plus, I saw a recipe that called for lemon juice, and I thought with adding the extra jelly, I'd need a bit more tang....  so, here is the recipe I made this weekend.

The Lazy Diva's Sweet and Tangy Crockpot Meatballs

Ingredients:
1 bag of Frozen Meatballs
1 jar of Chili Sauce
1 can of  Jellied Cranberry Sauce
1/3 cup of Grape Jelly
1 squirt of Lemon Juice

1)  ADD ALL THE INGREDIENTS EXCEPT THE MEATBALLS TO THE CROCKPOT

I suggest using a crockpot liner, but it's up to you!  I turned the crockpot on high, and stirred and broke everything down.  Then I let it heat up for a few minutes and stirred it again.  

2) ADD THE MEATBALLS

Stir the Meatballs and the sauce together, and try to make sure everything is coated.

3) COOK FOR AT LEAST 3 HOURS ON HIGH

If you're sticking close to home while this is cooking, just go in and stir it a couple of times to make sure everything is coated.  I had 4:30 hours until hubby came home, so I was sampling 3 hours in, but it was officially 4 1/2 hours of cooking in that we ate.

4) ENJOY!

We totally ate these as a meal!  I just left them in the crockpot and turned them down to the 'warm' setting.  I knew someone would be revisiting these again later in the evening.  In the end I went to bed and forgot about them, so when I got up in the morning, some were a little overcooked.  The meatballs were more solid and the sauce had simmered down.  SO GLAD I USED THE LINER!!!!  My husband happily had some for breakfast, and then finished them up for lunch.  They didn't taste burned, the meatballs themselves I think tasted better.

I enjoyed them, and got another compliment on the meal.  If you're looking for an appetizer for the holiday, these were pretty good.  If we do end up having friends over, I think I know one item that will be on the menu.  Practically no prep time, and it's very little effort.

Well, that's what I came up with this week......

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!  HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY THE HOLIDAY!