It seems the obligatory drink at any baby shower worth its diapers is punch.  I can’t remember ever choosing to buy punch or even drink it on a regular basis, but for some reason I need punch at a shower.  There are millions of punch recipes out there, but I happened to stumble across one that I wanted to share.  Unlike most punches I’ve had, it’s not real sweet but instead somewhat tart.  Here’s the recipe for the next shower you hold.  Or maybe you just want to whip some up for a warm Sunday afternoon

The only variation I made to this recipe was to substitute regular ginger ale for cranberry ginger ale.  That was no scientific substitution, simply because the grocery store where I was shopping didn’t have cranberry ginger ale and I wasn’t about to go ’round town hunting it down.  I’m really not sure what that changed in the taste except, I suppose, making it less cranberry-y, but I thought it was plenty cranberry-y for me.  Also, beware of the can sizes when you’re shopping because what I would call the “regular” frozen concentrate cans are 12-ounces, not 6.  Now don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Pink and Bubbly Punch

• 2  6-ounce cans frozen pink lemonade concentrate
• 1  6-ounce can frozen pineapple juice concentrate
• 1 gallon cranberry juice
• 2 liters cranberry ginger ale
• 4 cups crushed ice

In a large punch bowl, mix lemonade concentrate, pineapple juice concentrate, and cranberry juice.  Add ice and slowly pour in the ginger ale.

- Clarissa

Now isn’t that just pretty?  Even better, it tastes as amazingly nice as it looks.  This is my new favorite after-dinner drink.  It’s not too strongly alcohol-tasting like an original martini, but it’s not too sweet and fruity like the typical girly martini.  Plus it looks fancy enough that it could easily impress dinner guests and serve as a dessert on its own.

The drink is also very simple to make with only three ingredients and equal parts of each.

• 1 part gin
• 1 part cream
• 1 part green creme de menthe

Pour all three ingredients into a cocktail shaker and shake with ice.  Then strain into a martini glass.  We found this recipe in our Complete Bartender’s Guide, but a quick Google search finds it on multiple websites as well.

Give it a try one night when you have extra cream on hand — you won’t be disappointed, and soon enough you may actually be buying cream just to make it.

- Clarissa

A popular garnish to a martini or a nice addition to an appetizer tray, these olives are absolutely delicious.  Well, that’s assuming you like blue cheese, oh, and olives.  With those two very strong tastes, you’d think the whole thing would be overpowering, but I felt they actually complimented each other quite well.

First, what would possess me to try making blue cheese stuffed olives?  A business dinner took my NG Hubby to the fancy Mickey Mantle’s Steakhouse.  A couple of his guests ordered martinis with blue cheese stuffed olives from the bar.  The bar didn’t have blue cheese stuffed olives, so they MADE them right there on the spot.  Adam (my NG Hubby) came home and said, “all I could think about was how ‘Next Generation Housewife’ of them to stuff the olives right there by hand.”

He described their method and then, of course, we had to try it!  Luckily we happen to have some huge olives on hand, and we always have blue cheese in the fridge.  Also convenient are my plentiful cake decorating supplies that greatly helped with the project.  Adam described that they took a bag “like you use for the cakes,” filled it with blue cheese, and piped the cheese into each individual olive.  How cool is that?

It really was quite easy and quick.  I prepared a pastry bag with a medium-sized decorating tip, and spooned a little blue cheese into it.  Before I had pastry bags, for this type of thing I used a ziplock bag and cut a tiny hole in the corner.  Here’s a pic of Adam stuffing an olive…

What a beautiful martini.

- Clarissa