Ooops!

It has been brought to our attention that we may have tried the Gin Plush russipe before. And it turns out..... we had- during the chili seasoning disaster. When planning for this Friday's cocktail time I asked Liz if we had already done the gin plush, because it sounded too familiar. Liz said no and I believed her. Liz was wrong. But, in her defense, she didn't know she was wrong. Liz had never tried the gin plush, it was something my sister and I did one summer evening.

We, the Semi-homemakers would like to take this time to apologize for repeating a cocktail (to be fair, it was the most delicious Sandy cocktail we have ever had, both blog entries vouch for this so this mistake is not so bad) and we promise never to repeat a russipe again. Scouts honor.

The One Where Nothing Was Bad.

Hey boys and girls and welcome to another edition of semi-edible! Today our menu is light on food, heavy on cocktail and lo and behold we liked ever single thing we made. At this point, Jillian and I thought this day would never come but the Fiesta Fondue, the Academy Cocktail, and the Gin Plush were actually sodalicious!

So first up, we began with the grand semi-edible tradition of enjoying a cocktail (the best part of the day I'll have you know) while we "cook." Enter the Academy Cocktail: mix 1 cup vodka, 1 cup orange liqueur, 2 cups white cranberry juice, and 1 juiced lime. Now I realize that the ingredients listed call for white cranberry juice, but in the photos you'll notice that the drinks are pink. Yeah well that's because I totally failed to notice

that it wasn't regular cranberry juice that would have set this drink apart from a traditional Cosmopolitan. It wasn't until Jillian was putting together the cocktail that she noticed the lack of white cranberry juice. Whoops. Oh yeah and I also failed to add an orange to the impromptu grocery list so instead of a super cool orange peel garnish we have a super cool apple peel garnish. And I think it really improved the visual appeal of the drink. Anyway, the drink is served in a merlot glass over ice and for once, a cocktail was not overpoweringly boozy or sweet. Neither of us cringed or had to plug our noses to finish it! We would even make it again! We were drinking a cosmopolitan after all. Hooray!

Ok so now that we had enjoyed a delightful cocktail it was time to move on to solid food - usually the downfall of these experiments (because while the cocktails often leave something to be desired, they still have a booztastic purpose). The Fiesta Fondue

brings back an oldie but a goodie- Campbell's Condensed Cheddar Cheese soup! We haven't seen this sodium packed slime since the Cheesy Cauliflower Gratin that no one liked. Jillian aptly likened the cheese soup to handi-snack cheese, which she loved as a kid but I didn't. But I digress. To the cheese soup add 8oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese, 1 cup of whole milk, and a cup of chipotle salsa. You basically just heat everything up until it is smooth and then transfer it to a serving dish and enjoy. The dip is paired with dippers. Aunt Sandy suggests tortillas, bread, carrots and jicama. All of these ideas are great, but we couldn't find jicama. Anyway, it should be said that the dip is quite salty, but with a whole can of condensed cheese soup that is to be expected. We enjoyed a baguette, pita chips, carrots and broccoli for dippers. The worst thing about the dish was Jillian's genius idea to use apples as dippers. We both acknowledged that the apples were a bad idea. Overall, we like it. We both sat there dipping for the rest of the night.

So it is usually at this point in the post where our next endeavor reminds us not to get our hopes up about Aunt Sandy's culinary abilities and we muster the courage to continue with this blog. To add to this twilight zone-esque cocktail time, the Gin Plush was really good! And I genuinely mean it. You stir together 1/3 c. of gin and 1/4 c. of guava, pineapple, orange juice and club soda. Add ice cubes in the glass and serve! As a side note, I want to make a statement about kitchen safety. Opening club soda bottles is serious business and should be done with care. I unfortunately learned this the hard way when awash with elation from our first 2 successes that I failed to use proper care when opening the brand new bottle. The result was an explosion of club soda all over my crotch. Fail. Anyway this drink was very refreshing, not too boozy and not too sweet. The acidity of the pineapple and the bubbly of the club soda made this sodalicious. I'm not typically a fan of gin but it was really really nice!

So there you have it. 2 drinks and a appetizer. All Edible!!! So until next time keep it light, keep it refreshing, keep it safe, and occasionally keep it edible!

Way to Go Governor Cuomo!

The Semi-homemakers want to congratulate Aunt Sandy’s paramour, Andrew Cuomo, on becoming the new Governor of New York! We would also like to extend our sincere condolences for the humiliation that Aunt Sandy’s Harlem Christmas specials will surely bring him.

See the political couple here – party boobs in tow.

Tears of a Vampire

:::Insert requisite unnecessary laughter here::: Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Semi-Edible! I'm Aunty McFred and today we have for you 5 sodalicious russipies that are sure to bring Halloween revelers' digestive tracts to a screeching halt!

First up we have have the Black Cloud Cocktail. This delightful cocktail is comprised of 1/2 cup of orange soda, 1 cup of orange jews (please pronounce jews for authenticity), 1 shot of orange liqueur, and 2 shots of black vodka. This supposedly makes 2 servings, but really, you can get 3 out of this.

Jillian generously layered a shot of black vodka atop each drink and gave us a stick of black licorice for garnish(except me because I don't like it). Now I'm not usually the biggest fan of orange and vodka (at least not since college) but this really wasn't that bad. The first sip is the worst, because of the shot of vodka floating on top, but you do get the orange which kinda takes to edge off. The only problem with this drink is the effect that layering black vodka on something orange...it turns brown. A rather unappetizing shade of brown. The fact that we used orange juice with pulp didn't help. But overall, not too bad. And festively pleasant.

The first dish, the Spider’s Nest Dip bore a striking similarity to 7-layer bean dip. So it sounded pretty innocuous...good even. The Aunt Sandy spooky twist on this is the sour cream “nest” in the center of the dip – you know, so it’s festive. So first the layer of refried beans goes in the bottomed of the microwave safe dish followed by a healthy layer of cheese. This then goes into the microwave to achieve melty goodness. Jillian popped it into the microwave for the allotted 1 minute and...nothing happened. It wasn’t enough time to even soften the massive mound of requisite cheese so she put it back in. But with this she blew right past the softening phase and right into the totally melted. Oops. Oh Well.

We then layered on the drained salsa, olives (mmmm pre-slices black olives), and then the sour cream, cream cheese taco seasoning packet mixture. This was topped with a layer of store bought guacamole. After the guacamole layer comes the fun part. Too bad Brycer wasn’t here because he would have really loved creating the spider’s nest (Brycer: Aunt Sandy don’t they call that a web? Aunt Sandy: Cocktail time!!!). You put a healthy dollop of sour cream in the center, then pipe it in concentric circles around the dollop. Then you take a toothpick and drag it from the center to the outside creating a "nest" er...web effect, and voila! Festive appetizer!

So starving and excited at the prospects of this appetizer, we all dug in with our blue corn tortilla and....snap! The chip broke off in the melted cheese. We tried bigger chips but to no avail. Nothing was getting through the solid layer of melted cheese. Our dreams of the perfect bite were totally dashed (note the 4 chip pile-up in the photo) We had to resort to using spoons. So lame, but tasty! The taco seasoning, for once was not overpowering and I think using slightly better than bargain-basement store-bought guacamole didn’t hurt. Sure the chip problem was annoying, but nothing a spoon couldn’t solve. Overall this was.... EDIBLE!!!! One might even say enjoyable!

So since we had a win – we followed up with dessert, the White Pumpkin Cakes. Sadly, neither Jillian nor I own mini bunt pans (we have our fingers crossed that we get them this Kwanza). But anyway, combine Pillsbury pumpkin quick bread with 2 eggs, water, and vegetable oil. We had the option of substituting apple cider for water, but someone (Jillian) thought it said apple cider vinegar on the russipie. She was wrong, so we didn’t buy any. Place in muffin tins – don’t forget to coat the muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray! And bake for 12 to 14 minutes. First off – it’s really about 20 minutes to get them golden brown, an instruction that I overlooked I think thanks to the Brown Cloud Cocktail, and got seriously annoyed with checking them every 2 minutes. But after 20 minutes they achieved golden sodaliciuos status and were set out to cool.

So after I missed the direction about the timing, I was extra careful in reading the directions for the icing. 2 cups confectioner sugar, 2 tablespoons orange liqueur. Nope, not right. Let me read that again. 2 cups confectioner’s sugar, 2 TABLESPOONS orange liqueur?! Ok. I combined the 2 ingredients and got something that looked like small hail and smelled like old lady perfume – worn by an old lady alcoholic (aka, Aunt Sandy in 5 years). Nothing near the “glaze" I was promised in the picture. Now, I know it doesn’t take much liquid to make confectioners sugar turn into frosting, but you do need more than 2 tablespoons. So after reading the reviews, I added some water, and made the glaze.

Again – epic win!!!! These were quite good, considering her track record for desserts! Because they were so good, it prompted Jillian to ask “How different is this from the box recipe?” I said I had no idea, I didn’t read the box. So I looked. The answer? No different. The russipe we “semi homemade” is exactly the same as the back of the box. Thanks Pillsbury for making pumpkin flavored bread products so good even Aunt Sandy does not require us to “improve” upon it.

Finally, Jillian made Bat Sandwiches for an impromptu rooftop gathering with friends. It's not really a russipie- you make a sandwich out of white bread, mustard, prosciutto and monterey jack cheese. Then you cut out the sandwiches into bat shapes. They were tasty (despite the weirdness of the monterey jack with prosciutto), cute and uneventful. Every meat-eater ate and enjoyed them and Jillian got to eat a lot of crusts in her free time, because each sandwich made one bat-sized sandwich. Lame.

So with 3 wins and a semi-win, you know we were bound to have out semi-bubble burst. Enter the Vampire Kiss Martini. 1 part chilled vodka, 1 part champagne, 1 part Chambord. 100% nasty. It tasted like extra dry Robitussin. But actually worse because Jillian really likes Robitussin and hated this! Nothing about it was good. And drinking it made me super sad. I actually tried to drink this while plugging my nose, much like I take liquid medicine to this day and nearly choked to death. Our friend Tony, ever polite, said it was kinda good. That's kinda false, but thanks Tony. What we didn't understand was that on the episode this cocktail is featured, Aunt Sandy uses vanilla vodka and pours some jager on top...that's it...where is that russipie?

As always- keep it spooky, keep it icky, keep it Semi-Edible, and be sure to keep Cher in your heart and mind!