Pumpkin Spice Margarita

I made pumpkin spice syrup to put in my coffee and then heard that Pumpkin Spice Margaritas are a thing, so I made one. And it was actually really good! None of this is my recipe (I got the syrup recipe from America’s Test Kitchen) but if you want to make a Pumpkin Spice Margarita too (or just the pumpkin spice syrup), here you go. The syrup is also great in coffee and should keep about a week in the fridge. Straining it took awhile and I’m not sure if it’s really necessary to strain it. Or you could just buy some pumpkin spice syrup and skip straight to making a margarita. 

First, mix up the pumpkin spice:

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground allspice

Next, make the syrup:

1 ½ cups water
1 ½ cups sugar
4 tsp pumpkin spice

¼ cup pumpkin purée 
¼ tsp vanilla extract

Bring water and sugar to boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in pumpkin spice and purée, reduce heat to low, and gently simmer for 20 minutes until flavors meld and syrup thickens slightly.

Using fine-mesh strainer with cheesecloth, strain mixture into medium bowl, squeezing cheesecloth to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids and stir in vanilla extract. (Pumpkin spice syrup can be stored in an airtight container for up to 1 week.)

Then, make the margarita: 

2 oz tequila reposado (I use Hornitos)

1 oz fresh lime juice

1/2 oz Cointreau 

1 oz pumpkin spice syrup

garnish: 1 cinnamon stick

If desired, make a spiced salt rim for the glass first. Mix some coarse kosher salt with a little bit of the pumpkin spices (at least cinnamon and/or nutmeg). Wet the edge of a 10 oz cocktail glass with lime juice, then dip the edge of the glass in the spiced salt. Add some ice to the glass. 

Add the margarita ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled then strain into the cocktail glass. Garnish with a cinnamon stick. 

Frozen Midori Sour Margarita

Here’s another margarita mashup, a cross between a margarita and a Midori sour. It’s one of my favorites and it’s not too sweet or too sour. It’ll taste better with Cointreau, and it’ll be a light lime green color, but if you want it to be greener you can use blue curaçao (or you could add 1/2 oz blue curaçao in addition to the Cointreau).

2 oz tequila

1 1/2 oz Midori

3/4 oz lime juice

3/4 oz lemon juice

1/2 oz Cointreau or blue curaçao 

1 oz simple syrup

about a cup or so of ice

Blend it all up in a blender and serve in a large margarita glass (the glass probably needs to hold at least 14 ounces). Garnish with a lime wedge, or a lemon wedge, or a piece of green melon. 

Frozen Tropical Fruit Punch Margarita

This one might seem a little over the top because of the number of ingredients, but what happened is that I freeze extra juice in half ounce cubes (I found the perfect ice cube trays for that) and after awhile I ended up with half ounce portions of all of these juices in my freezer except for the lime (you know what, I should start freezing lime juice too). And I have a squeeze bottle of cream of coconut in the fridge. So I thought why not try all of the tropical ingredients at once? And it turned out just as good as you might imagine. If you don’t have one of the juices just use what you have, it’ll be good anyway. 😋🏝🍹

2 oz tequila

1 oz lime juice

3/4 oz Cointreau

1/2 oz pineapple juice

1/2 oz mango nectar

1/2 oz guava nectar

1/2 oz passionfruit purée

1/2 oz cream of coconut

1/2 oz grenadine

1 cup ice (or more, if juices not frozen)

Blend until smooth. Use frozen juices if you can, so you don’t have to use as much ice. Add more grenadine or cream of coconut if it’s not sweet enough, or lime juice if it’s too sweet. You will need a glass that holds at least 16 oz. 

PS: I’m into origami and made the cocktail umbrella myself! This one is a lot bigger than a normal cocktail umbrella, but I love it (later I made one that’s much smaller).

Vinaigrette and variations

I have salad for lunch most days so I’ve come up with a few vinaigrette salad dressing variations to keep it interesting. I just start with the basic recipe (which is plenty good on its own) and add one or more things to it. You might want to adjust the amounts of mustard and honey to taste. For the Greek and cilantro-lime, juice the lemon or limes, then add vinegar to the juice to make 1/2 cup (and use this instead of the 1/2 cup of vinegar in the basic recipe).

The basic recipe:

3/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

black pepper to taste

Put everything in a salad dressing container and shake, whisk, or blend to combine.

Variations:

ranch: add 1 tsp ranch spice mix

curry: add 1/2 tsp curry powder

Italian: add 1/2 tsp Italian spice mix

tomato-basil: add 1 T tomato paste, 1 T finely minced fresh basil

fresh herb: add 1-2 T various finely minced fresh herbs

Greek: juice of 1 lemon + vinegar, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp dried dill

cilantro-lime: juice of 2 limes + vinegar, 1 T finely minced fresh cilantro

Frozen Fuzzy Navel Margarita

A fuzzy navel is just peach schnapps and orange juice, but I added some things to make a fuzzy navel margarita and it turned out great. Yum! 

If you happen to live in an area with an HEB, they have peach nectar on the juice aisle in little juice boxes. For the orange juice, I just juice a mandarin or clementine (I always have a big bowl of them on the counter) instead of a regular orange and it’s often the perfect amount. 

2 oz tequila
1 oz orange juice
1 oz peach nectar
3/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz peach schnapps
1 oz simple syrup or peach syrup
1/2 cup frozen peaches
1 cup ice

Blend until smooth. Garnish with an orange wheel or peach wedge. 

Grapefruit Gin Sour

I made grapefruit syrup and then made a gin sour with grapefruit juice and the grapefruit syrup. It was super good. I only used one grapefruit, about 1/4 of it for the ounce of juice for the cocktail, and the rest of it for the grapefruit syrup (which made about 4-5 ounces of syrup). 

To make grapefruit syrup, gently heat equal parts fresh grapefruit juice and granulated sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved (instead of a saucepan, I used a Pyrex measuring cup and heated the mixture about 30 seconds or so in the microwave). You don’t actually have to heat it at all, but it makes the sugar dissolve faster. Just don’t cook the juice. For a little extra flavor, zest the grapefruit and add the zest too. If using zest, let it steep for 30 minutes or so and then strain out the zest. Extra syrup can be used for more cocktails (such as a grapefruit margarita, a paloma, a grapefruit mojito, or in a Hemingway daiquiri instead of plain simple syrup) or would also be great in sparkling water. 

2 oz Hendrick’s gin

1 oz fresh grapefruit juice

1 oz fresh lemon juice

1/2 oz grapefruit syrup

1/2 oz elderflower liqueur (or triple sec)

Shake with ice and fine strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a bit of grapefruit or with a lemon wheel. 

Also good: just 2 oz gin, 1 oz lemon juice, and 1 oz grapefruit syrup.

Grapefruit Mint Margarita

I had about 1/4 of a grapefruit, my mint plant is huge, and the new elderflower liqueur I bought (St. Germain) smells like grapefruit, so I made a grapefruit mint margarita. It was really good, definitely worth repeating. If you don’t have elderflower liqueur you can use Cointreau (or another good orange liqueur) instead. If you don’t have mint just leave it out and you’ll still have a perfectly good margarita. I’m thinking of making grapefruit syrup next time, to use instead of the simple syrup.

8 mint leaves
2 oz tequila

1/2 oz elderflower liqueur (or Cointreau)

3/4 oz lime juice (about 1 lime)
1 1/2 oz grapefruit juice
1 oz simple syrup

garnish: mint sprig 

Muddle the mint with the lime juice, then add the other ingredients and shake with ice until cold. Strain into a cocktail glass with fresh ice. Garnish with a mint sprig. 

UPDATE… For a frozen version, increase the grapefruit juice to 2 ounces and the elderflower liqueur to 3/4 ounce, be sure to strain out the mint leaves (after muddling with the lime juice), then blend with 1 cup ice. I also used 1 ounce homemade grapefruit syrup instead of the simple syrup. It was very good and a very pretty color. 

Hurricane Margarita

So I ordered some passionfruit purée and made a hurricane cocktail with it (yum) and I had quite a lot of extra passionfruit purée so later I decided to try making something with the ingredients from both a hurricane and a margarita, and here you go. It’s very good. A+ recommended. Apparently Texas Roadhouse also has a “hurricane margarita” but this is not that recipe. Their version has pineapple juice instead of passionfruit, and a lot of grenadine. Incidentally, I used homemade grenadine in mine, it’s really easy to make and it’s a lot better than the store bought kind. And I used freshly squeezed orange juice and lime juice (you don’t need much for this recipe). If I have one, I'll just juice a mandarin orange instead of a regular orange. 

 
1 oz tequila
1 oz aged rum
1 oz passionfruit purée 
1/2 oz orange juice
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz grenadine

1/2 oz Cointreau

Garnish: orange wheel and maraschino cherry

Shake all of the ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, then strain into a cocktail glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with an orange wheel and a maraschino cherry. 

Ranch Dip or Dressing

There is a preservative sensitivity in my household, and it’s a preservative that’s used in a lot of bottled salad dressings, so I’ve been trying to find an easy everyday ranch dressing recipe to use instead and this one’s pretty good. I like it best as a dip but you can thin it with milk or water to make it a salad dressing. I wanted to use a dried spice mix I can keep in the pantry (instead of having to find and chop up a bunch of fresh herbs and whatnot), and I didn’t want to have to use a lot of other ingredients, so it’s just sour cream or mayonnaise, spice mix, lemon juice, and salt. I prefer sour cream, my husband prefers mayonnaise, or any combination of the two is pretty good. If you’re avoiding dairy, you can use just mayonnaise - most kinds of mayonnaise have no dairy in them. 

For this recipe, you’ll have to mix up a batch of the spice mix and you’ll have extra leftover, but it’d probably be really good as a seasoning for chicken or pork, or vegetables, or a cheese ball, or on popcorn. It's also great if you add it to a basic vinaigrette. Or save the extra for another batch later. I make a lot of it so that I can make multiple batches before I have to mix up more spices. 

SPICE MIX
2 parts dried parsley
2 parts garlic powder
2 parts onion powder
2 parts dried onion flakes
1 part dried dill weed
1 part ground black pepper
1 part dried chives

Use a teaspoon to measure out each part to make enough for one batch (plus a little extra), or use a tablespoon to make enough for five batches (plus a little extra). Grind up the dried parsley, onion flakes, and dried chives with a mortar & pestle or spice grinder if you want a smoother consistency. Don’t grind up the pepper too finely or it’ll be too strong (or measure out whole peppercorns and then grind them up). Mix well. Store the extra in a spice jar. 

DIP / DRESSING
1 cup sour cream or mayonnaise
2 tablespoons spice mix 
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste (not needed if you use only mayonnaise)
juice of half a lemon, or to taste
milk or water to desired consistency 

Mix together the sour cream or mayonnaise, spice mix, and lemon juice. Add salt if using sour cream. If you use sour cream and want to thin it out to make it a salad dressing, add splashes of milk or water and mix well until it’s the desired consistency. If it tastes like it needs a little more of something, add more lemon juice and salt. Chill for an hour to let the flavors develop. 

Makes about 1 cup. Should keep for up to a week in the fridge. 

Melon Martini

I wanted to make a green cocktail for St. Patrick's Day, and came up with the following. And it’s so good! Tart and fruity but not too sweet, and a pretty emerald green color. I’m definitely going to be making more of these, even when it’s not St. Patrick’s Day. You can use gin or vodka (or maybe white rum or tequila). I prefer gin and used Hendrick's. I used both lemon and lime juice, but you can use one or the other or any combination of the two. If you don’t have blue curaçao, you can use triple sec instead but the drink will be a lime green color instead of an emerald green.

1 oz gin or vodka

1 oz Midori or other green melon liqueur 

1 oz fresh lemon or lime juice 

1/2 oz blue curaçao

1/2 oz simple syrup 

garnish: maraschino cherries or an orange slice

Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker until very cold, then double strain into a martini glass. Garnish with maraschino cherries or an orange slice.