Food Lust People Love: July 2024

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Sparkling Blueberry Cocktail

When it’s hot outside this sparkling blueberry cocktail made with lemon juice, flavored vodka and blueberry juice will cool you off and cheer you up!

One of my favorite things to do, especially in a new country or town, is to explore a local grocery store, going up and down each aisle so I don’t miss anything. Sometimes I find things I didn’t even know existed, like the blueberry juice I use for this cocktail.

Sparkling Blueberry Cocktail

If you can’t find any store-bought, a simple Google search for homemade blueberry juice turned up pages and pages of recipes and videos. The lemon juice, blueberry juice and club soda should be chilled for the optimal cool drink.

Ingredients

Ice cubes

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 oz or 60ml blueberry juice (store-bought or homemade)

1 1/2 oz or 44ml Absolut Wild Berri vodka

Club soda to top up glass

To garnish: lemon wedges and fresh blueberries

Method

Use a cocktail stick to skewer a few fresh blueberries. Pop it in a glass with 3-4 ice cubes along with the fresh lemon juice.

Measure in the flavored vodka then add in the blueberry juice.

Garnish with a lemon wedge and top up with club soda.

Enjoy!

Did you know that it’s National Blueberry Month? Yeah, I didn’t either until our Sunday FunDay host chose blueberries for our theme today. Many thanks to Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm! Check out the blueberry recipes below. You've got the rest of the month to make them!

Asian Sweet and Spicy Salmon with Blueberry/Pineapple Salsa from A Day in the Life on the Farm
Blueberry Cactus Bread from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
Blueberry Lemon Cornbread from Palatable Pastime
Blueberry Pecan Rugelach from Karen's Kitchen Stories
Keto Microwave Blueberry Muffin from Sneha's Recipe
Pickled Blueberries from Culinary Cam
Sparkling Blueberry Cocktail from Food Lust People Love

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Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Miso Butter Noodles

These Miso Butter Noodles are savory and rich, with crunchy snow peas and slivers of green onions. Add some shichimi togarashi for a little spiciness.

Everyday my husband forwards me his email from New York Times Cooking with lots of great recipe links and meal ideas. I don’t read them every single day so sometimes I find myself catching up a week or more.

A while back, there was a recipe for miso butter pasta which caught my eye. Goodness knows that there were plenty of times I ate plain buttered noodles growing up and the addition of miso would add a welcome savory hit for my now very adult palate.

I saved the recipe to my “recipe box” then promptly forgot about it. Then a couple of weeks ago, our daughter made miso butter chicken for dinner and it all came back to me. Miso butter noodles was again on the list.

Miso Butter Noodles

The original NYT Cooking recipe used dried pasta and, in addition to the salty miso, Parmesan cheese. I decided to lighten mine up by adding the snow peas and green onions to fresh egg noodles and omit the Parmesan. Excellent decision. Makes about 4 servings.

Ingredients

2 green onions

5 1/3 oz or 150g snow peas

1 lb 4 oz or 565g fresh egg noodles

1/3 cup or 75g butter

4 teaspoons miso

Generous couple of sprinkles shichimi togarashi or crushed red pepper

Optional for serving: Shichimi togarashi or crushed red pepper

Method

Slice the green onions (white and green parts) and snow peas into narrow strips.

Bring a large pan of salted water to boil, add the fresh noodles and cook them over medium-high heat for 1 minute.

Remove the noodles to a colander with tongs and rinse.

Add the strips of snow peas to the pot. Cook for 1 minute then drain them, reserving 1 cup or 240ml of the cooking water.

Rinse the snow peas in cool water to stop them cooking and set aside.

Add half of the reserved water into a saucepan, along with the butter and miso.

Whisk over medium heat until the butter is melted and everything is combined into a homogeneous liquid.

Add the drained noodles into the pan.

Use tongs to vigorously stir them over low-medium heat for a few minutes, until the liquid emulsifies and smoothly and evenly coats the noodles.

Add in most of the green onions, saving a few bits for garnish, and the parboiled snow peas strips.

Stir them in and cook briefly until they are heated through. Sprinkle with shichimi togarashi or crushed red pepper and stir again.

If at any point the sauce gets too dry and the noodles stick together a bit, stir in a bit extra noodle water to make it smooth and glossy again.

Serve topped with the reserved green onions and some more shichimi togarashi or crushed red pepper, if desired.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the 14th addition to the 2024 Alphabet Challenge, brought to you by the letter N. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the N recipes below: