When is the best time to enjoy the Best Ever Hot Chocolate cocktail (pg. 162 Sandra Lee semi-homemade Cocktail Time) ?

Well, while that might be debatable, one great time to enjoy the Best Ever Hot Chocolate cocktail is book club night with the girls — where we not only get to discuss the book we’ve read that month, we also get to enjoy fabulous food and beverages!

As I was preparing the Banana’s Foster casserole and a big batch of Best Ever Hot Chocolate, my husband noted that we ladies always seem to eat great food.  To which I explained “that’s because we always cook”. …  Simple, no?

Anyway, before I get into the book discussion/review, let me give you the recipe for Best Ever Hot Chocolate, courtesy of Sandra Lee.

BEST EVER HOT CHOCOLATE

• 1 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet morsels)
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 oz.  vanilla vodka

In a saucepan, combine half-and-half, chocolate chips, and cinnamon.  Heat over medium heat* for 5 minutes or until chocolate is melted, stirring frequently.  (Do not boil)  Pour into mug.  Stir in vodka. Mmmmm.

* I simply put all the ingredients in the microwave, for 5 minutes, stirring after each minute. Easy, breezy.

Now on to the book club discussion. First, of course, we ate great salads and dips, followed by 2 deserts – the aforementioned Bananas Foster, and a fabulous strawberry pudding (made from SCRATCH!) Yum!

We do love our cocktails, we do love our deserts, but we also love our BREAD. But did we get any bread? No, we did not — Ms. J, we not only missed your lively discussion this month, but we missed your delightful homemade BREAD.

Moving, on… the book we discussed was THE LAW OF SIMILARS. Leland Fowler (a prosecutor), whose wife died 2 yrs. ago in an accident, suffers the stress of raising a small child on his own, with a chronic low grade sore throat that conventional medicine has been unable to heal. Leland turns to homeopath Carissa Lake–who cures his sore throat and the two fall instantly in love. Mere days later, one of Carissa’s asthma patients falls into an allergy-induced coma, and questions arise as to Carissa’s culpability. The attorney in Leland takes over, as he aggressively handles the situation, altering records and setting both Leland and Carissa on a path of destruction.

My feeling is THE LAW OF SIMILARS was boring - it contained only one story line and it drrraaaaaggged on forever. This could have been written in a 5 page magazine short story. And I still wouldn’t have liked Leland or Clarissa, or her idiot asthma patient.

But the Best Ever Hot Chocolate? That I liked. A lot. Semi-HomeTested ratings are LUSH IT, LUSH IT A LOT, or LEAVE IT.
The Book – LEAVE IT. The Best Ever Hot Chocolate cocktail however, is a definite Semi-HomeTested LUSH IT A LOT!

So, read a good book – I suggest TESTIMONY – which is our December book club choice, and curl up with a hot mug of the Best Ever Hot Chocolate.

Salude!

T-Cee

Blueberry Sangria. A ‘just right’ Sangria that’s a blend of blueberries and lemonade that is perfect for a hot summer night.  Sandra Lee (pg. 104 Sandra Lee semi-homemade Cocktail Time) you sure nailed this one on the head!

The ladies are here!  Lot’s of food and discussion.  I’ll get to the book review in a moment, but first, here is the Blueberry Sangria recipe:

Blueberry Sangria

• 1 bottle (750 ml) white wine
• 3 cups lemon/lime soda (I used died 7-Up)
• 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries
• 1 can (12oz) pink lemonade frozen concentrate, thawed
• 1 cup congnac (just get a cheap one – it’s punch!)

In a large pitcher, combine wine, soda, blueberries, lemonade concentrate, and cognac. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour. Pour into tall glass. Add ice. Drink up.
==============================================

We munched, drank, and caught up with each other. Who did what, with whom, and to whom. We ladies, we love our drama. Oh, and someone broke my toilet. Another story for another day. Ok, now time for the book.

This month’s Book Review/Cocktail Party was about the book Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.   It is a collection of real life stories of oppressed women in developing countries, primarily in Southeastern Asia and Africa as told to the authors of this book.

The book focuses on three areas of abuse against women: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence; and maternal mortality. But Half the Sky is about more than bringing these issues to light (these issues have periodically been brought to the public’s attention via different news reports over the years). The authors are very up front in their hope to recruit people to the movement to “emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as economic catalysts.”

The authors clarify how throwing huge sums of money at the countries has not worked in the past, as a great deal of the money never ends up reaching those in need. They champion targeting small amounts of money to specific efforts. They do a great job identifying education and micro financing for women as pivotal changes that can create exponential improvement in quality of life.

Half the Sky does an excellent job in all that, but unfortunately, the authors are clearly from a liberal bias, and do an unfortunate amount of America bashing. Additionally, while they say that both liberals and conservatives must work together on this, they manage to include political digs.

So, would I recommend this book? Yes, definitely. We all have our biases and this book is certainly intended to help oppressed women.

So, maybe this is where Sandra Lee’s ‘Cocktailing for a Cause’ will come into play. I will have to research this more – Note to Self: Call Sandra Lee. In the meantime, there are 6 more women spreading the word!

As to the Blueberry Sangria, did the book club group give this a Semi-HomeTested rating of LUSH IT, LUSH IT A LOT, or LEAVE IT?
The Blueberry Sangria got a unanimous Semi-HomeTested rating of LUSH IT A LOT!

Salude!

T-Cee

Don’t forget to leave your comment. Have you read Half the Sky? Did you try the Blueberry Sangria?

Hooray! It’s Wednesday night.  Book Club Night!! I just love this gathering of friends – we have so much fun that even if someone is not crazy about the book selection of the month, we still have a great time.

And this month was no exception.  Wow – where do I start – with the great White Wine Cooler (pg. 92 Ms. Sandra Lee semi-homemade Cocktail Time)?  With the great food?  With the fun and laughs we had?

Well, I’ll start with the food…  ummm, 2 different fresh from the garden tomato and basil salads – one with feta cheese,one with black olives and artichokes.  Then there was jumbo shrimp with spicy cocktail sauce!  Finished up by fresh Strawberries Romanoff with just a touch of Gran Marnier, and topped off, of course, with fresh whipped cream!

Now the book – we read HOTEL on the CORNER of BITTER and SWEET by Jamie Ford.  I LOVED this. (Most of the rest of the group did too,with one saying it was good, not great.)  I really enjoy reading about different cultures as long as it has an interesting story line with believable characters.

This is the story of a Chinese man, Henry, who recalls his youth when he fell in love with a Japanese girl, Keiko, right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Henry’s family had lived through much fighting in China, and his father was bitterly opposed to all things Japanese.  Their hope was to bring Henry up as an American, resulting in Henry going to an American school on ‘scholarship’ which ironically is where he met Keiko.  As Henry and Keiko’s innocent love begins to blossom, Keiko’s family is sent to an internment camp.  Years later, Henry deals with his past and his son’s future as his son breaks away from Chinese tradition.

The story was beautifully told and moved at a quick pace.  I definitely recommend reading Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

Now for the cocktails. We had White Wine Coolers – a delightful concoction of white wine, peaches, Gran Marnier and orange juice.  I omitted the sugar, from Ms. Sandra Lee’s recipe, because the juice from the canned peaches made it sweet enough.  This was a refreshing and light cocktail.

Did the group think the WHITE WINE COOLER  rated a LUSH IT, LUSH IT A LOT, or LEAVE IT rating?  We gave the White Wine Cooler a Semi-HomeTested rating of  LUSH IT!

Let me know what you think of the cocktail and/or the book. Looking forward to hearing from you…

Salude!

Hooray for Book Club night. We are known as the MAHI (Margueritas And Hot Intelligent) chics. However, since the MAHI Chics have agreed to be my guinea pigs for my Semi-HomeTested Cocktails, we drank PASSIONPOLITANS. See Sandra Lee semi-homemade Cocktail Time, pg.84.

I chose this cocktail because between the pineapple and cranberry (I used diet) juices and the mix of tequila (I used Jose Cuervo gold instead of the recommended silver), vodka (I chose Smirnoff), and passion fruit rum, it sounded amazing. That, and the recipe made a batch of 10 cocktails! Thirsty group that we are, I thought that would be handy. I must note, that the other change I made to the cocktail recipe was, I omitted the gin and doubled the passion fruit rum – no one I know likes gin.

OK, about the book, The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. She is married, has 2 kids, and has tremendously close ties to her mom and 2 brothers, but is especially close to her dad, Greenie. Both Kelly and Greenie develop cancer and this is her story of how it affected all of them.

We MAHI chics enjoyed the book – the funny and sad parts – and had a great discussion about family ties, both within the context of the book and in our own lives. We saw Kelly as very strong yet immature and decided that she was incredibly honest in laying this out in the book on her journey out of the Middle Place and into adulthood.

This morning, I found a brutally honest essay Kelly wrote online about her parenting skills – I think most parents can relate to it in some way.  I think if my kids saw it, they might find a similarity or two – OK, maybe more than two.  Thank you Kelly!

So, back to the cocktails. LUSH IT, LUSH IT A LOT, OR LEAVE IT? Everyone loved the PASSIONPOLITAN and decided it gets a Semi-HomeTested rating of LUSH IT A LOT!

Salude!

It was book club night and both the Startini Dream and Berry Encore cocktails were a big hit.

These 2 delicious berry flavored vodka martinis (Sandra Lee semi-homemade Cocktail Time book pg. 66) – one is a black cherry and the other a blueberry concoction – both with a touch of orange liquor – were very similar in taste but the majority vote that night was for the Startini Dream (black cherry).  For those of you who prefer a less sweet drink, simply decrease the orange liquor and increase the citrus juice.

Our book discussion was Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  Some felt that the book started very slow and then picked up, while I thought it started fine, but totally bogged down in the middle and thankfully the last 1/3^rd of the book was fabulous.

It follows the life of twin brothers growing up in Ethiopa who are as much in tune with each other as they are different – Marion the serious and thoughtful one and Shiva who skates through life with seemingly no thought to others.

There are many characters, and just as in real life, they each have secrets and pasts which ultimately shape their futures.  For ex., the twins Marion and Shiva are born out of wedlock to an Indian nun and a British doctor.  Add unrequited love, betrayal, parents unwavering love for their children, political upheavals, and barbaric attitudes and consequences for women to the mix and you have a really interesting story.  However, as I said, it just bogged down in places.  I usually like a book better than the ensuing movie, but I suspect that if a movie is made from Cutting for Stone, I would enjoy the movie more.

But with our martinis in hand the discussion was lively and isn’t that what sharing books with friends is all about?

And oh yeah, I did make my version of Sandra Lee’s White Pizza – only I made fresh pizza dough and homemade Alfredo sauce (I really do not like jarred Alfredo sauces and it is ridiculously easy to make).

So love the book or leave it, make your pizza from canned ingredients or fresh, but DO make the cocktails.

My Semi-Home-Tested rating for both the Startini Dream and Berry Encore cocktails are a definite LUSH IT.

Cast your vote of ‘Lush it’ , ‘Lush it a Lot’ or ‘Leave it’ in your comment.

Salude!