Like Jillian said, 4th of July weekend in DC means one thing and one thing only to me - I gotta get the hell outta DC, and fast. So some of our friends planned a camping trip to the middle of nowhere Virginia. We loaded up the Benz on Friday morning and headed out to commune with nature for a few days. So I thought, how can I bring Aunt Sandy to the great outdoors? Do I make a dish? Do I make a drink? Perhaps both? Then I remembered that Aunt Sandy's culinary delights can cause indigestion the likes of which isn't usually seen outside of Mexico, so that's probably not a good idea. Drink it is! Also, while the Benz is a luxury vehicle, it does not have a ton of trunk space and 5 of us plus one dog was going to mean a lot of togetherness for several hours - better not have too many ingredients. So I thought back to an episode of Semi-Homemade when Aunt Sandy did something that made my heart weep, she mixed beer with lime juice concentrate. I've been "enjoying" this foray into liquor cocktails for this little experiment, but truth be told I'm a beer girl. Good beer should stand alone. No need for frills or garnish, just beer. So watching the botox grimace version of delight on Ms. Lee's face when she poured limeaid into a pitcher with Corona, I must say that a little piece of my soul died.
Sister is taking a nap, Liz is camping and I am sitting around watching yesterday's semi episode, "Girl's Hoe Down." I don't understand how a Cowboy Cooler (tequila and beer) is appropriate for a girl's evening, but I digress. I was equal parts inspired and bored so I went on foodtv.com to see what I could make with my ever expanding liquor cabinet (I hope one day to have a liquor closet like Aunt Sandy, which is inevitable the way this experiment is going). This led me to the Waikiki Cocktail: one ounce of dark rum and guava juice are shaken with the juice of 1/2 a lemon and 1/2 an orange, a teaspoon of sugar and a dash of grenadine. What is the difference between a dash and a splash? Anyway, pretty sure I added just a dash, I shook the ingredients in a shaker, poured it into a martini glass and dropped in a maraschino cherry. Anything with cherries gets my vote of approval without even tasting the potentially hazardous concoction. Even if something is undrinkable, there is always that perfectly red cherry so pumped full of processed crap that even the worst drink couldn't penetrate its plastic skin. Delicious. Seriously though, I love the lil' buggers. Anyway, upon my first smell I was bombarded by the dark rum. Not a huge fan of rum, I grimaced and took my first hesitant sip. The drink doesn't taste like rum (thank god), it tastes like sweetness....but not in a very good way. It starts out tart, but then the sugar overload seeps into the tastbuds. You can taste mainly the guava and the lemon. I think the teaspoon of sugar is beyond unnecessary considering the dash of cloying grenadine and juices. 
My sister's visiting so I am making meat dishes without Liz. I have been excited because so far 2 of 3 meat dishes have been good: shrimp in spicy coconut sauce and the chicken caesar salad pizza. Batting at 66% (and considering I can count the number of good recipes to date on one hand) this is the most successful category of russipies and I was pretty stoked. Having not eaten all day, my sister declared she was starving and craving chili fries. I knew exactly what recipe to choose, because I remember the Fountain Fantasy episode and I explicitly remember thinking, "Holy mother of god, that's a lot of chili sauce and packet seasoning! I would never, ever make this.
" Well I did make it. I made it and I ate it. And about 30 minutes later... I regretted it. But that's getting ahead of myself, first The Chili Fries start with crinkly frozen french fries (because the crinkle cut is the most childish and easiest to identify as a store-bought product). While the fries are in the oven, you brown ground beef. Aunt Sandy didn't say to drain the fat from the meat, so we didn't. Then you add an entire bottle of heinz chili sauce and an entire packed of chili seasoning. A reasonable person might think these ingredients are overdoing it already, but not Aunt Sandy. This concoction can't possibly be flavorful enough; something is needed to mask the processed taste. So she has you add mustard, onion powder and worcestershire sauce. This is how Aunt Sandy pawns this off as homemade: "Nobody's every going to know this wasn't homemade. Your guests are going to think you slaved in the kitchen for hours." I would never serve this to guests. Once combined, this gorgeous concoction bubbles on the stove for 30 minutes (which is quite a long time for someone who loves super simple russipies). After that, you know how chili fries work. Needless to say, this was not very good and I wont be making it again. My sister and I were pretty hungry though, so I am quite ashamed to say...we ate it...all.
To balance and cleanse our greasy palates we made the Gin Plush. The russipe says it makes 1 serving, but it's apparent that's a lie the second you start making the drink. Honestly, I should have known better based on prior experience with Aunt Sandy's cocktails and the fact that she clearly is a lush. The recipe calls for 1/3 cup gin (a clear hint of the serving size) poured over ice and mixed with 1/4 cup of each: guava, pineapple, orange juice and club soda. I found it bright, refreshing and was quite happy it made more than stated. Slightly tart with a nice tropical flavor, this is perfect for a hot summer evening. While I would totally make it again for people, my sister needed to add lots of sugar. She likes girly drinks, which I thought this was. Regardless, I was super happy to finally find a drink of hers that I can make again!
Up next (because a plate of fries was not enough for us. We were on a ground beef binge with half a pound just sitting there and waiting to be used) we made Fiery Tex-Mex Chipotle Cheeseburgers. I must start of by saying I am a bit of a purist when it comes to making burgers so this russipe scared me. I like the taste of meat (hah) so I only add salt and pepper and that's usually it. I can handle a black bean burger or something like that, but I don't like changes. Lately, I have seen the weird burger recipes from the likes of Rachel Ray and Giada. The burgers that are called "burgers" but aren't really, like the "Open Wide! Tur-Chicken Cub Burgers" (wtf kinda name is that?!) or the "Danish Burger with Herb Caper Sauce"(ick). Don't call it a burger just because it's on a bun. Anyway, this Fiery tex-mex chipoodleeee....(forget it, there are too many words in the title) already started off on my bad side. Okay. That said, this "burger" is made by mixing ground beef with 2Tbs of Tex-Mex chili seasoning, 2 chipotle chilies and 1/4 of beer. Two things:
1. What do you do with the rest of the seasoning packet?! I have seen Aunt Sandy do this numerous times on her show, so what happens to all those lost half-empty packets?
2. I had no idea there was such a thing as Tex-Mex chili seasoning, but it was right there in my grocery store next to the regular chili seasoning. If anyone can tell me how the two are different, I would really appreciate it.
The burgers are grilled and put on buns with pepper-jack and a basic chipotle mayonnaise. We had an avacado fiasco at the grocery store, so that didn't make it on the burger and is still sitting in its brown bag- hard as a rock.
The positives:
*I love chipotle and it masked the flavor of the season packeted burgers (I may or may not have used more than the recommended amount of chipotle and didn't remove the seeds at the directions suggested...oops!).
*They were messy.
*They were moist.
The negatives:
*They didn't taste like burgers.
*The beer in the burgers made them mealy and mushy.
*They had the consistency of a bad meatloaf, which weirded me out.
*I am unsure if it was the over processed chili fries, the too-juicy burgers or the amount of sodium-filled chili seasoning packets we consumed, but neither of us want to eat chili for a long time. Something didn't sit right and it felt like a big lump in the bottom of our stomachs for quite a while. Not good.
The lesson gleaned from this cocktail time? Seasoning packets are bad; gin plushes are good.
