MAO's world-famous Sangria

(and the secret ingredient is...)

2 - 1L box of Ciao Sangiovese wine ( or suitable substitute)

2 oz. Limoncello
2 oz Triple Sec
4 oz Fireball (cinnamon whiskey)
1 large stick cinnamon, smashed
1 orange, cut into slices
Juice of 1 orange
optional - tonic water or soda

guests of honour
 

Wash the oranges well. Slice one into 1/4 inch circles. Lightly break up cinnamon stick. Place all in nice looking pitcher. Add wine and liqueurs and the orange juice (about 1/2 cup). Give it all a stir, cover top of jug with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 8 hours or 2-3 days until the party.

Add a splash (or more) of tonic or soda water for the designated driver or non-experienced drinker!

Of course, you can make a half recipe if you are entertaining a smaller group. I should have made a double batch for this group, but I only have the one big pitcher.





Mike, our new lawyer,  holding court

We had a fun, Maher-family gathering the other night in honour of my niece Lauren - she brought her fiancé, Diego, up to Thunder Bay to meet her cousins. Diego is from Chile and we wanted to show him some Canadian hospitality. We served  grilled homemade sausages, potato salad, a green salad, a pan of what I call 'cheater lasagna' (I'll tell you about that another time) and a couple of dessert squares. Lauren gave the guests gift bags of Grandma Maher's toffee which will be one of her wedding favours.

Grandma Maher's Christmas Toffee

She always put it in a large, glass pie plate, the 10 inch Pyrex one but I use a 7 X 11 glass pan. It's easier to make the sling (see the no-bake cheesecake) and neater to cut into square pieces without getting a bunch of weird triangles.  Make it at least 1 month before you want to give it; hide it (or you'll eat it all yourself) and age it -  it turns into a soft, crumbly goodness!

3 C  brown sugar (the lighter coloured one)

1 C (8 oz) butter
1 C  corn syrup (again the light coloured one if there's a choice)
1 can Eagle Brand Milk - the original stuff!
Combine and mix in  large, heavy- based pot, like a Dutch oven. The whole time, you need to be stirring constantly so it doesn't burn. Over medium heat (#6 on my ceramic cooktop), once it comes to a low boil (about 5 minutes), turn to low (#1) and continue stirring constantly - you don't want it to burn. I set the timer for 25 minutes once it starts to boil and continue to stir - if you have a candy thermometer, we're looking for just under 250F, or almost the hard ball stage - when you drizzle a teaspoon of hot mixture into a clear measuring cup of very cold water, it immediately forms a string and quickly hardens - don't go past this as you will never be able to cut it...
Pour into a well-buttered pan and refrigerate overnight.
Take out and warm to room temp to cut into squares, about 1 inch - Grandma was more generous, but I like the smaller size. Wrap in waxpaper squares or 5 to 6 inch square foil candy wrappers.

As I was making this, a test batch for my niece's (photo at left - Grandma and Lauren, 1981), wedding  in September, I recalled my mom's stirring instructions. You had to go around the outside of the pan and then make a figure-eight through the middle a couple of times and repeat the outside and over and over. We had plenty of kids -there were 10 of us (black & white photo above - Marnie, the baby, yet to come and Mike is missing...) waiting to take a turn when the current stirrer got tired. It did seem to take forever for the toffee to be the right colour - Mom didn't have a candy thermometer and relied on the colour to be right before she would do the test of dropping it in the cold water. We were willing to stir because we all wanted to be the kid on hand to test the dropped, cooled piece. Sometimes it would be overdone (too hot and it gets too brown, I think) and then there was no cutting the toffee. It was too hard, like glass and had to be broken into shards. Either way, we kids loved it and it was one of our family Christmas traditions. All her grandchildren remember her Christmas toffee and now, I'm the grandma making the toffee.
 

shrimp gratinee

I did promise real recipes, not something from the Kraft calendar!

Shrimp Gratinee

frozen shrimp, thawed and shelled
use the 21-30/lb size tiger shrimp, 4 to 6 per person for appetizer
In small fry pan:
1 large shallot,  finely chopped
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (this adds a nice tang and shouldn't be too hot for anyone afraid of a little spice - feel free to add more if you like)

Sauté until shallot is  soft, 10 minutes, low heat.
Increase heat on pan to med high, add shrimp and cook to pink, about 1 minute per side. Remove from heat.
Add zest and juice of a fresh lemon and sprinkle with
1/4 C (or more) grated cheese – cheddar/asiago/gruyere/fontina (any or all)
Place under broiler until bubbly and light brown. Serve immediately!

A quick, easy appetizer or snack! I always have a bag of raw, zipperback black tiger shrimp in the freezer so this is my go to. They will taste better if you remember to thaw them a bit ahead of time. I take them out a couple of hours before and put them in the sink in a colander and just leave them. When you pull the tails and shells off, put them on a paper towel to dry.

I make this on a Friday night to fill the gap before dinner - you can tailor it size wise, depending on what's coming later and how many people you're serving. Choose a frying pan that will be about the right size for the number of shrimp. You can make and serve it in the same pan or put the cooked shrimp and sauce into smaller, serving-sized ramekins before putting under the broiler to melt the cheese.

Don't forget to have some toast points or sliced baguette to sop up the sauce that is created by the butter/shallot mixture.

I always mean to try this as a pasta sauce, but I never seem to think of it at pasta time!

 

 

no-bake cheesecake, old school...

No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake, old school!
For 9 X 13 inch pan.
Crumb crust
1/2 C  butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
Melt in ‘Mike’ for a minute or two and stir to dissolve sugar. Blend into
2 C oreo crumbs
Pat firmly and evenly into pan.
Cheesecake filling
2 pkg Dream Whip, prepared as per pkg instructions with
1 C 2% milk and 1 tsp vanilla
250g / 8 oz cream cheese (room temp)
1/2 cup sugar
With hand mixer, beat cream cheese, add sugar. Fold in prepared
Dream Whip and mix.
Pour over top of crumb base and let set in fridge
while you make topping.
Strawberry Topping
1 pkg Strawberry Jello - dissolve in 1 C boiling water and stir until dissolved. Add
600g/3 C frozen sliced strawberries and stir well.
Put in fridge and let set slightly, not more than 5 min - jelly should mound slightly - and then spoon thin layer over cheesecake.
Cool & refrigerate for at least 4 hrs or overnight.
Here's the recipe, but what you might like to know - this is an old recipe, from the 70s or earlier, maybe. My niece asked me for it, something that her grandma, my mom, used to make. Well, to be honest, at my house the recipe was non-existent - I have graduated to a more sophisticated style of baked cheesecake. In fact, when my 'baby' sister, Marnie came forth with the recipe, I wondered if one could even buy 'dream whip' any more. It turns out that you can. I forwarded Marnie's hand-written, scanned recipe to Lauren and then spent an almost sleepless night worrying about the pitfalls of the recipe - the topping merely said mix jello with frozen strawberries - I knew that wasn't all there was to it! I decided that I felt so bad about giving her a recipe without test-knitting (I mean test cooking) it myself that I would make it to be sure it worked okay. Went and bought the supplies - what do you know? - the box of frozen strawberries that I remember from the original recipe is no longer available (thank heaven!) - it was sliced strawberries packed in syrup (very sweet) in a box about 2"X5"X6" (just guessing here). I settled for a 600g bag of sliced strawberries, nothing added.

I'll start at the beginning...when  I'm making something in a cake pan I always line the pan with a sling of tinfoil - I have two weights of foil - the heavy duty one, 18" wide, for using on the grill/BBQ and the regular, thinner one, 12" wide, For this project, use the lighter weight - if it was a baked item, I use the heavier foil. Pull off a long piece of foil for the length of the pan, plus up each end and maybe 2 inches each end more. Fold it in from each side so it rolls up the edges of the bottom of the pan by about a half inch and overshoots each end to make handles. Press into bottom of pan. Pull off another sheet to cover the width (you shouldn't have anything to fold in on this part) and leave handles at each side and press in over the other piece. Usually I will now spray the sling with that non-stick cooking spray but because this is no-bake, I used my fingers to lightly butter the bottom so the crust will release easily. Reason for foil sling: I can lift out the finished product, place it on a cutting board and use a large knife to press down from the top to cut into squares evenly instead of trying to cut it in the pan which creates problems. Also if I am making several things, this makes the same pan easily emptied after the item is chilled, for another product and you can usually fold the foil over the top and store it in the fridge again on a plastic tray or whatever you have to support the size of the cake.

Now, for the crust - it's cookie crumbs and for a no-bake item I always found this crumbles too easily, breaks up and generally is crummy! I melt the butter and sugar together in the microwave, to dissolve the sugar and caramelize it into the butter - so make sure you use a big-enough measuring cup or bowl - mine is the 4 C one because this is going to boil in the 'mike' and you don't want it overflowing the container. Put it in for 30 seconds, stir it a bit - do this several times until you see the sugar is incorporated - oh and I always use brown sugar here - it adds more flavour whether it is the regular graham crust variety or the oreo one. Now, add the 2 cups of crumb to the same container, stir it around to moisten all the crumbs well, then dump it into the pan.

Here's another trick - pull off a sheet of waxed paper or cling wrap, lay it over the crumbs and now you can press down on it to smooth it out, press evenly to get a nice layer that should cut and stay together when serving. Stick this in the fridge and proceed to the cheese filling.

Make sure your cream cheese is at room temp - if not, unwrap it and 'mike' it on defrost for maybe 10-20 seconds, depending on how new or old your mike is - mine is old and I do try to be careful - you just want to soften the cream cheese, and warm it a bit so it is spreadable, not chunky. Make the 'dream whip' as the package instructs - it does help to chill the bowl and make sure your milk is cold. I used my 2-litre measuring cup here - just showing off ;-) - I got it at Ben Franklin in Grand Marais!  Do the dream whip first and then you can use the beaters without having to wash them to mix the cream cheese and sugar ( I used brown sugar again, same reason, more flavour) in another bowl. Once the cheese mix is smooth and creamy, use a spatula to fold in the dream whip, mix it thoroughly and dump into the pan over the crumb crust. Smooth it out and put back in the fridge.

Now for the topping. I cleaned my 2L cup and put the jello powder in. Add the jello and whisk it until all the gelatin beads are dissolved. Add 3 cups of frozen sliced strawberries and stir for a minute or so - the strawberries will thaw and cool the jelly. Let it sit briefly until the jello mounds - don't leave it too long because it will set rapidly at this point. Spoon it over the cheese mixture and you're done!

A pretty easy, family-friendly dessert that should take no more than half an hour to make the night before you want to serve. Cut it in 3 lengthwise and then 4 times for 15 good sized pieces or smaller if you need.

I had to taste-test it, of course. It's perfectly fine for a family gathering, good for the nostalgic value and not too sweet!