Butter Rosemary Almond Biscuits and coffee flavored vodka

These biscuits (cookies) are a variant on a recipe from my grandmother, handed down to me by my mother. So when I was last in England talking to her, I asked whether she made them by the "creaming method" or whether she made them like pastry. She also told me to use "proper butter" not the unsalted stuff! I ignored that admonition, but added salt anyway!
In the first post on the subject, I had assumed the creaming method, but 2 weeks ago, she corrected me and said that she always makes them like pastry. So for a Day in Dinner I made them like pastry. I also increased the rosemary slightly to get a bit more flavor.
Ingredients - Biscuits
4 oz powdered (icing) sugar
6 oz all purpose flour
4 oz slivered almonds, toasted
a pinch of salt
2 T rosemary leaves
8 oz cold unsalted butter - cut into 1/2 inch cubes.
Method - Biscuits
Place the flour, almonds, salt, sugar, rosemary into the food processor. Pulse several times until the almonds are ground finely and well incorporated. Add the cubed butter and pulse to incorporate. Continue to pulse until the dough comes together into a single piece. Don't overmix as you will end up with too much gluten.
Turn the dough out, form into a disk, wrap in cling wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, up to a couple of hours.
Heat oven to 350F
Roll dough out into about 1/8in to 1/4 in thickness. Cut into 1in rounds.
Bake on a lined cookie sheet for 7 minutes, turn the temp down to 325 and bake until brown (another 7 mins or so). Rotate the pan when you change the temp.
Allow to cool on a wire rack.
Ingredients - Coffee Infused Vodka
2 Cups good quality vodka - we use Tito's because it is the nearest we can find to locally made.
2T Roasted coffee beans ( medium/dark roast works best).
Method
Pour the vodka over the coffee beans in a glass bottle. Leave to steep at room temperature for at least 2 weeks, turning occasionally. When the vodka is the color of  Scotch whisky, place the bottle in the freezer. It will keep almost indefinitely. You do however want to drink it very cold.
Serving
Serve the vodka in chilled vodka glasses (1 oz per person) with three coffee beans in each glass, accompanied by 2 or 3 of the biscuits.

The Hallow-tini party

We held a party for about 50 people last evening (October 30). The idea was to serve "martinis" where the gin/vodka were chilled (freezer then dry ice) and a dozen or so mixins were made available. Using medical pipettes, guests could doctor up their drinks to make flavor combinations that they wanted.

We had a variety of hot/spicy flavorings and some milder ones. The glasses were small, so folks could have several and try lots of flavors. Since the theme was halloween (and slight geek) we named the flavors appropriately. The one that had the best cross over name was dragon drops (drag and drop?) which was vodka infused with dried habaneros. We had some habaneros left from last years crop so dried them.

The spicy flavors were

• Habanero vodka
• Tabasco pepper vodka (made with the peppers not the bottle)
• Black pepper vodka
• Ginger vodka
• Kaffir lime vodka
• Joy (pickled jalapaneos) pickle juice

 The milder flavors were:

• Blue Curacao
• Lime juice
• Tia maria (dessert anyone)
• Sweet pickle juice
• Vermouth

Of course we had cocktail onions and stuffed olives too.

We decorated the yard (thanks Lisa) with appropriate pagan symbols, and fired up the fog machine, played suitable music, hired fantastic help and served the drinks and food.

Outdoor food

• Empanadas from the Argentinean bakery
• Various wings from wing stop
• chips/salsa (hardly touched!) Too much fun

Indoor food

• Pumpkin soup served in its shell (recipe in a following post)
• White Chili (recipe in a following post)
• Lasagne (recipe in a following post)
• Mac and cheese (recipe in a following post)
• Cheeses - details in a bit + crackers
• Soprasetto salame
• Olives, roasted red peppers, cippolini onions 

Desserts

• Party tray from Corner bakery
• Fantastic cookies made by Claudia
• Halloween M&Ms

The cheeses:

• Delice de Bourgogne -  A triple cream cows milk cheese from Burgundy
• Pierre Robert  - Another very decadent French triple cream
• Keen's - Cheddar from England
• Morbier - A raw milk cheese from france
• Gorgonzola - from Italy

A good time was had by all.

A seasonal cocktail...

At this time of the year, clementines are cheap and prevalent. They are juicy, have a great sweet/tart citrusy flavor and are seedless. So, how to use them in a cocktail?

Ingredients (for 2 quite potent drinks!)

6 pieces of candied ginger (+2 pretty pieces for garnish)
5 OZ Vodka (being in Texas, we use Tito's)
a few mint sprigs
2 OZ simple syrup
Juice of 2 Clementines

Method

Steep the candied ginger in the vodka for about 30 minutes. Put plenty of ice in the cocktail shaker, and add the mint and simple syrup. Muddle together for a while until the mint has infused the syrup. Add plenty of ice, followed by the vodka (leaving the ginger in) and the Clementine juice. Put the lid on and shake hard until thoroughly chilled - about 6 hard shakes.

Strain into a small martini glass, and garnish with some candied ginger on a cocktail stick.

Note use less mint than you think, the aggressive mint flavor can overpower the Clementine. Yes we did learn that the hard way and had to make a second drink