Bourbon Brownies

Let's start this day off right, shall we?  Let's celebrate a day of revelries with two of my favorite ingredients: chocolate and booze!

In addition to celebrating St. Patrick's Day, let's also celebrate my triumphant return, with a little piece of love, originally called the Bourbon-Brownie Petit Four by Better Home and Garden magazine's test kitchen.  They say you can cut out about 64 brownies from this recipe (being that they're petit fours), but I doubled the recipe and struggled to get that since you don't want them to crumble away to nothing.  Let's say one recipe easily makes 2 dozen, and then you can be pleasantly surprised at anything above and beyond that!

Ingredients (brownie):
1/2 C butter
3 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/4 C bourbon
3 T instant coffee granules (I always use a bold roast)
1 C sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 C all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
Ingredients (glaze and frosting):
1 C whipping cream
6 oz milk chocolate chips
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, melt and stir the butter and unsweetened chocolate until smooth.  Remove and cool.
2. Preheat your oven to 350.  Line an 8"x8" pan with foil that hangs over the edge for easy brownie removal. Grease the foil and then set it aside.   In a small cup/bowl, combine the bourbon and coffee granules and set aside as well.
3. Stir sugar into your chocolate mixture.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined.  Then, stir in your vanilla and the coffee bourbon mixture.
4. In a separate bowl, stir together flour and baking soda.  Add to the chocolate mixture, stirring until just combined.  Spread batter evenly into your prepped pan.
5. Bake for 30 minutes, then cool on a wire rack. Lift brownies out of the pan.  You can cut off the edges at this point, or leave them if you'd prefer.  I cut mine off (as recommended), but the edges weren't so crusty that I think they would've ruined my squares.
6. Cut brownies into 1" or 1 1/2" squares.  Coat with Semisweet chocolate glaze (see following recipe).
7. Top each glazed brownie with piped Milk Chocolate Frosting rosette (see following recipe).

Glaze and Frosting Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, bring whipping cream just to boiling over medium high heat. Remove.
2. For Milk Chocolate Frosting, transfer 1/2 C of the cream to a small bowl and add milk chocolate chips - DO NOT STIR.  Let stand for five minutes, and then stir until smooth.  Cover loosely, then chill for about 2 hours, beat with an electric mixer until fluffy, then bag and pipe.
3. For Semisweet Chocolate Glaze, take warm cream and stir semisweet chips in until smooth (helps if you're doing this in the hot saucepan, then glaze over cut brownies.

For whatever reason, I was super annoyed with the frosting and chose not to use it.  The brownies were still amazing and no one would've ever guessed you needed frosting to enjoy these.  So rich and decadent, and while you could detect the hint of bourbon, it wasn't overwhelming.  More people noticed the hint of coffee than the liquor in the brownie.

Bourbon Meatballs

I'm always looking for new twists on recipes that I know will be a big hit.  For our down home cooking party, I made Pa's Bourbon Whiskey meatballs.

Ingredients:
1 lb bag of frozen meatballs (I happened to use beef this time since they were on sale)
1/2 C ketchup
1/2 C brown sugar, packed
1/4 C bourbon whiskey (I used some 5 buck chuck)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce.

Directions:
1. Place frozen meatballs in the crock pot
2. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over meatballs, stirring to coat.
3. Turn heat up to high for about an hour, stir 2-3 times.  Then, once the meatballs have somewhat thawed, kick the heat down to low and let it go until they're all cooked and thoroughly warmed (another hour or two), then keep on warm throughout the party.

Thirsty Thursday: Strawberry Mint Julep

 Today's drink actually takes some planning.

I apologize for that, but I do promise that your outcome will be amazing.  I picked up the original recipe from Cookie and Kate, but I thought it was a little vague.

As I made it, it turns out that mine will be a bit vague as well.

I made 8 (16oz) drinks, plus 2 non-alcoholic drinks.  My measurements will reflect as such.

 First off, the strawberry infused bourbon.

I had Jack Daniels in the house, so it was whiskey instead.

Rough estimate of ingredient ratio:
1 cup of whiskey
1/2 pound of strawberries

I started with about 2 cups (JD) and around 1 pound of strawberries.  I basically quartered my strawberries (cut off the stems), and kept throwing them into the bottle until the liquor was completely filled with strawberries.

From there, you put the bottle in a dark space (I chose my pantry) for 3-7 days.  Every day, give the bottle a bottom over top rotation to readjust the strawberries and mix up the liquor.  You don't have to shake it, just one spin will help the infusion process.

Mint Julep Ingredients for one 16oz jar:
7 mint leaves
1-2 tables spoons of honey
1/4 c of strawberry infused whiskey/bourbon (more if you don't want to add Sprite)
ice (to fill the entire glass)
about 1/2 c of Sprite (or not if you're more of a straight up person)

* For my jars, I used both wide mouth and regular jars.  I just used everything I had in stock.

 Directions (*skip to the very bottom for a non-alcoholic idea):
1. Add mint leaves to your glasses.  For my glasses, I had a variety of mint leaf sizes, so I added the biggest leaves first, then the mediums, then the small leaves last.  Not because I'm weird, but I wanted to make sure that the quality and quantity of the mint was the same across all the glasses.
2. Cover mint with honey.  I just poured it in, but I basically aimed to cover the entire bottom of the jar and all the leaves with honey.
3. Muddle the mint in the honey.  If you have fancy contraptions, go ahead and use them.  I had a hand held mixer's beater.  I just used that, muddling the mint until it was slightly broken down in the honey.
4. Strain the strawberries from the liquor.  I used a cheese cloth, but you can use any strainer that will keep out the strawberry particles.
5. Measure out the appropriate level of liquor and add to your glasses.
6. Stir the liquor, mint, and honey together.  This will sweeten the beverage and also insure you don't have a huge clump of honey at the bottom of your glass.

7. Now, fill up your glass with ice.  I wanted a nice cold beverage, so I filled it as high as possible.  Use your own discretion.
8. Top off glass with Sprite, and give it a final stir.

Since I was using mason jars, I then covered the glass with a cupcake liner and screwed on the lid.  This keeps the bugs out, and also will hold your straw in place. I pre-poke a little hole in the cupcake liner with a pen tip (skewer, ice pick, whatever is handy) and then place the straw in.

To re-mix the drink, my brother in law recommends blowing a light bubble in through your straw.  That will help in the process.

Finally, clink in cheers and good health, and enjoy!

Non-alcoholic Idea:

For the tween at the party, I made this version of the drink:

1. Follow steps 1-3 above, muddling the mint in the honey.

2. Quarter (or more) 4 fresh strawberries, and add them to the glass.

3. Mix together the honey, mint, and strawberries.

4. Fill up glass with ice.

5. Top with Sprite, cover and enjoy.

While this is not nearly as fun as the alcoholic version (in my opinion), it is still a fun mocktail that anyone can enjoy.  I though it might turn out too sweet, but I had one after the rest had run out and I was excited about how good it was.