Rum Punch

Rum Punch

     Awe Yes! These past few days have felt so great. It has felt like summer has finally come. Now that summer is here it's time for sitting outside on the deck and enjoying a cold drink.

     Now some of you may just like to have a cold lemonade. And that's all good, but some of you like to have an ice cold beer and that's good too. But if I can at all persuade you to try something new try this drink. I guarantee you will like it.

This drink will make you feel like you are in the tropics. Or at least you can pretend for a while that you are in a nice tropical place. We drank these drinks when we visited Florida on our trip and we loved them.

     I watched the bartender carefully so I could replicate the drink at home. It is super easy to make and only one bartender had a little twist of their own that I'll share with you.

     So what are you waiting for go get some ice and read on to make this fabulous, refreshing drink.

Rum Punch
orange juice
pineapple juice
Malibu Rum
grenadine

Fill a glass with ice. Mix equal portions of orange juice and pineapple juice together in the glass. Add a healthy shot of Malibu Rum and then drizzle some grenadine on top and stir. Now it's time to enjoy your drink!

* the bartenders twist was to add a little bit of sprite to the drink.

Frozen Mocha Smoothie

Frozen Mocha Smoothie

     Today I'm up early and ready for work way too early. So now I'm stuck here waiting to leave for work. Now it's not that I wanted to get up at 5:30 this morning. My dog had a little to do with that. You see she was crying by my bedside this morning to go outside. It's kind of hard to ignore when she's right next to your head wimpering.

     I knew letting the dogs sleep at 7:00 last night was a mistake. I get that when we are home they don't take a nap in the middle of the day like usual, but they can't go to sleep that early or they will wake up early or in the middle of the night. Of course now they are both lounging in their favorite spot right now. No worries for them, they get to sleep today.

     Since this would be a great day to have a little extra energy I decided that I should share my recipe for Frozen Mocha Smoothie. It is similar to the one I get at the gym. I had to kind of play with the ingredients a bit to get it just right. I use my little drink mixer to make it. It is like the bullet drink mixer, but you could use a regular blender too.

     I put protein powder in my smoothie, but you wouldn't have to necessarily do that. You could opt for a little yogurt if you wanted. I just happen to have protein powder on hand. I also use almond milk, but regular milk is fine too. I think you'll like this especially if you like coffee.

Frozen Mocha Smoothie
4-6 ice cubes
1/4 C cold coffee
1/4 C almond milk, more if it seems too stiff
2T protein powder
2T mocha flavored instant coffee

Mix in drink mixer or blender until well blended. Add more almond milk if it seems too thick.

Bombsicle AKA Lemonade & Raspberry Vodka

Raspberry Lemonade

     Awe yes! The weather is a balmy 87 degrees out, 84 in the shade, so of course one needs a refreshing drink to cool off with in the sun.

     My go to drink lately has been this beauty. I believe the makers of UV vodka call it a Bombsicle. It is suppose to taste like those frozen red, white and blue popsicles that we all loved as a kid and I would have to say that this tastes very close to those beloved popsicles.

     These drinks are easy to make and are so refreshing when it is hot outside. This has been my go to drink this summer. It is a great drink to make because it is so easy and does not call for anything exotic. All you need is some lemonade and some raspberry vodka.

     Now I always keep on hand frozen concentrate lemonade and of course some UV Blue, aka raspberry vodka. I'm a little hooked on these flavored vodkas this summer. I suppose you could go with any kind of lemonade, but I just prefer the frozen kind.

     There are so many different kinds of UV vodka and so many different drinks that you can make with them. Just last week they had samples at the liquor store and they gave me some different options for the cake vodka and the salty watermelon vodka that I just may have to make these and post my results. I can't think of a better thing to do on a hot summer day than to sample some new drink ideas.

    Well anyways, the recipe follows this post. Give it a try and remember to drink responsibly. Always have a DD or enjoy a drink in the comforts of your own home :)

Bombsicles
Frozen lemonade
UV Blue
Ice

Fill a glass with ice and add lemonade. Add a shot of UV Blue. Stir and enjoy.

French Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to have a cup of coffee or two to start my day. I always buy coffee beans, preferably Caribou coffee beans from Sams Club, and I need flavored creamer.

Even though I buy flavored creamer I also buy coffee syrup at Sams Club to add to my coffee. It just seems for my tastes the flavored creamers are usually lacking in full flavor for me. I don't know maybe my taste buds are jaded.

As we all know these flavored creamers can get a little expensive, so I found a recipe for making your own creamer. It is fairly inexpensive to make and tastes just as good as those premade creamers in the store.

All you need to make your own coffee creamer is sweetened condensed milk, milk or heavy cream, (I buy mine at Aldis) and coffee syrup. I used french vanilla flavor, but if you look at Sams Club you will find an assortment of flavors. My mind is already wandering to the different kinds of creamers that I could make. They have blue and red raspberry, coconut, chocolate, caramel, cherry lime, Irish cream, hazelnut and Kahlua. I probably missed a few too. And remember if you buy these syrups you don't just have to use them in your coffee they have other uses too. I use the raspberry in my lemonade to make raspberry lemonade. Super yummy!

Just mix these ingredients together in a old creamer container or in a mason jar and you've got your own homemade coffee creamer. So on those mornings when you run out of creamer you can quickly reach in the cupboard and make up your own.

Homemade Coffee Creamer

French Vanilla Coffee Creamer
14 oz sweetened Condensed milk
14 oz milk or heavy cream
4 t Vanilla Coffee Syrup
a container for mixing it in like a mason jar or old creamer container.

Pour all of the ingredients into your container. Put the cap or lid on tightly and shake vigorously for a few minutes until combined well. Refrigerate.

adapted from www.mrshappyhomemaker.com

Malibu Sunrise

Malibu Sunrise

Well today is going to be record high temperatures for Minnesota. The temperature is suppose to get to 97 and we have a heat warning out for the afternoon. Sounds like it is going to be a day/night for air conditioning or lounging in the pool or lake.

It also is a perfect time to enjoy a beverage or two outside, under an umbrella of course, and I have the perfect drink for such occasion. The Malibu Sunrise. It is a very refreshing drink and you can adjust the amount of alcohol you would like in it to suit your tastes.

The ingredients are simple. You need orange juice, ice, Malibu rum, and grenadine. I could sip on these all day long. Malibu rum is coconut flavored and it really makes this drink. So go pick up these couple of ingredients and make yourself one tonight and enjoy.

Malibu Sunrise
Orange Juice
Malibu Rum
Grenadine syrup
Ice

Put some ice in a tall glass. Add a shot or two of Malibu Rum. Add orange juice. Drizzle grenadine syrup on top for color. Mix with a swizzle stick and enjoy!

Mudslide

Applebee's Mudslide

Oh the fun of having your oldest be of legal drinking age! 

I had gone to the library a few weeks ago and got a ton of cookbooks, so my son decided to peruse a couple of these and found a recipe for Applebee's Mudslide. It was fairly simple to make and low and behold I had the four ingredients it takes to make it.

I think the whole idea of ice cream and chocolate in the drink was a little enticing for a novice to drinking alcoholic beverages and I was game. The recipe said that it makes one 16 ounce drink, but we split it between the two of us just so we could give it a try and we didn't want the ice cream to melt before we could drink them.

The mudslide was really good and so we are going to share the recipe with all of you. We found this recipe in More of America's Most Wanted Recipes. We will be sharing more recipes from the first book in a few days. But for now here's Applebee's Mudslide.

Applebee's Mudslide

2 C vanilla ice cream

2ounces Kahlua coffee liqueur

1 T chocolate syrup

Whipped cream

1. Combine the ice cream and the Kahlua in a blender and process until smooth.
2. Swirl the chocolate syrup in a 16 ounce wineglass (we used 2 smaller glasses), holding the glass by the stem, until the sides of the glass are well coated. Pour the ice cream mixture into the glass and top with whipped cream. Add a straw (or a spoon) and enjoy. Serves 1