One of my favorite parts of the Bride and Groom First and Forever Cookbook is cocktail recipes! I'm going to have to buy a good amount of hooch to try all the booze-y recipes (and some other recipes that also use liquor as an ingredient), because it turns out a bottle of vodka, two half-empty bottles of triple-sec, a mostly-empty handle of rum from our undergrad days and some mini bottles of German schnapps does not a "liquor cabinet" make.
Sauza Margaritas
As you can see, I did not purchase Sauza tequila. Because I don't like tequila and Sauza only came in large bottles, so I bought whatever non-off-brand I could get in a flask-sized bottle, which happened to be Jose Cuervo. (I suppose whatever is left of it can be donated to a good cause, like my sister's wedding. She is having a dry wedding, kind of against her will, and is already talking about us bridesmaids carrying flasks.) I am typically very "meh" about margaritas, and I felt approximately the same about this one. However, Matt actually does like margaritas, and he said these tasted good. P.S. You should listen to this song while you drink Cuervo margaritas.
Daddy's Oatmeal Cookies
I'll admit, I'm not the biggest oatmeal cookie fan. And I have been wrong all my life for not liking them. These were the most delicious oatmeal cookies I've ever had, and I ate a lot of them, because it made a humongous batch. Also, I cheated a little and didn't actually make these myself. Matt made them. For himself. On his birthday. Because I'm a bad wife.
Lemony Tarragon Crab Dip
I used imitation crab, because that was all I could find at Kroger. I made this dip for a book club potluck, and it was super fast to assemble, and pretty tasty to boot. Only downside is the cookbook said to serve it with salt and vinegar chips, which I don't particularly care for, and apparently none of the people at my book club do either, so now I'm stuck with a big bag of gross chips.
It doesn't look like it, but I did make the layers pretty even. It was just hard to get to the edges.
1-2-3 Mexican Dip
Another day, another potluck. This one was a Mexican-food-themed church potluck, though, so I went to town making this cookbook's version of a seven-layer dip. (It only had three layers, though: beans, sour cream and salsa, with various spices and onions and peppers mixed into the main components of each layer.) It got many compliments, and then Matt was disappointed when I took all the leftovers to work with me and left him with none.
Bow Tie Pasta With Asparagus, Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Boursin
I love asparagus, and so I am glad it is spring because the asparagus is fresh and fat and relatively cheap. This pasta dish was good — both Matt and I liked it — but as I was eating it, I thought, "This is not a pasta dish that I will remember a week from now." It's not anything spectacular, but if you're looking to get more veggies in, it's hard to beat the ease of asparagus in pasta. Just boil your pasta and throw the asparagus into the pot for the last two minutes.
Mary's Bloody Marys
I don't like celery, so I didn't garnish these. (The book said you could also garnish with a dill pickle or pickled asparagus, but by the time I got around to making these cocktails, we had just gotten back into town from a weekend away and it was just too-bad-so-sad.) Even so, the celery salt on the rim was tasty, and the drink itself was pretty good, tomato-y with a little bit of a spicy kick at the end. Matt made pancakes and eggs for brenner, and it was lovely. Though I didn't finish my cocktail, and Matt didn't like them at all.
Completed: 75 of 147 recipes.
What's in your liquor cabinet? Do you like salt-and-vinegar chips? What's on your DVR/in your Hulu queue/on your Netflix list?