BarBQBoozers

Before you say: bulgur, not for me, please continue reading (yes you too Burgerman!). After all, there’s also booze involved so it might get interesting after all, don’t you think? Yep, I think it will get very interesting… very! Let’s just say it’s worth a “shot”! And you have to believe me, bulgur isn’t as weird as you think. It’s like rice, but smaller and it has a bit of a nutty taste (hey now that’s perfect for the BarBQBoozers!!). So now we have nuts and booze, do I still have your attention? But wait, things can get even more nuts, yes we’re going to add walnuts. Oh that’s not what you had in mind? Tell me what you had in mind, and we’ll see if we can mix it in… right now, at this moment, all options are still open! How about cucumber? Always one of my favorites, in recipes.

Yeah well, let’s get this thing going. This recipe is perfect on a hot day because you prepare it in the morning, assemble it in the evening (that only takes 5 minutes) and dinner is served! Piece of ehm..cucumber I'd say!

What do you need to feed 4 persons?
4 cups Bulgur
1 red bell pepper
 1 yellow bell pepper
1/2 cup little cornichons/gherkin
½ cucumber
4 ounces Feta 
1 spring onion
1 roasted red bell pepper
As much slices of salami or pepperoni or other cured meat as you wish
1 cup peeled walnuts
fresh parsley

Boil  a large amount of water. Add this to a large bowl or pan and add the bulgur, give it a good stir. There has to be 4-5 times as much water as bulgur in the pan, because it expands. Oh you bet it does!

Close the lid or cover it in another way. Set it aside for 1 hour.

In the meantime, you can cut the veggies into bite size pieces (bite size, you know), cut the meat into slices, cut the feta cheese into pieces and make the sauce (recipe follows). Store the veggies, meat and cheese in the fridge. You can put this all together in one bowl.

As I said,  we also have to make a sauce, a hot one…oowww baby!!

For that you need:
1/2 cup olive oil and and 1/2 cup olive oil (yes, divided)
1/2 cup Vodka
1 large red onion, diced
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more if you like it hot)
1 tablespoon paprika powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
5 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cube for chicken broth
1 tablespoon dried italian herbs
1 teaspoon black pepper
salt
juice of half a lemon

Heat a saucepan and add the first 1/2 cup of oil. Cook the onion on a low heat. Add all the other ingredients plus 3/4 cup water, but leave out the second cup of oil and the lemon juice. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for 2 minutes. Then add the second 1/2 cup of oil and the lemon juice. Let it cool to room temperature.

By the time this is all done and you didn't work too quick (you had some Vodka didn't you??? hehe I knew it) one hour has passed and you can drain the bulgur and let it cool.

When dinner time has arrived, scoop the bulgur on a large plate. Top with the veggies/cheese/meat mixture and add the walnuts and the parsley.

Serve the sauce separately.

This should be the result on your plate:
Without the sauce:

With sauce:

Looks great doesn’t it?? And the good thing is that it tastes awesome!!! Believe me….will ya please???

If you want you can serve it with some grilled tuna.

Cheers and enjoy!

Hey wait...Bianco? Yes there’s Martini Bianco in this recipe! Why? Because I like Martini, and that has nothing to do with the appearance of a certain George Clooney in their ads…absolutely not…nope…sigh...!

A white bean salad is always good to serve in the summer, easy to make and you can use lots of different ingredients. And don’t forget, it’s quick. Ha! And that gives you more time to relax and to enjoy a glass of wine sitting in the sun! I’m making this up right now because with the bad weather we’re having over here I can hardly remember how it feels!! Not the wine, noooo I know how that feels…neh I mean the sun of course!

Note: the tomatoes I used are called “wild tomatoes” not because they’re “wild” (I can not imagine how that would be, but messy I guess! oww...!!) but it’s a nice name that tickled my imagination (sorry). These cute things come in different colors and shapes and are very tasty! You can choose any tomato you want, just make sure they have lots of taste, otherwise this dish will be disappointing…it all depends on the taste and the Martini can’t fix it all!! At least, not this time!

What do you need:

1 can butter beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup finely chopped tomatoes, see note above
4 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
½ teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning
½ teaspoon chipotle chile pepper seasoning
¼ cup finely chopped feta cheese
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil leaves
¼ cup Martini Bianco
Bit of salt

Preparing this dish is easy: mix it all together!

Keep it in the fridge for at least 1 hour. That will give you the time to ehm... grill some meat? Open another bottle? Watch an old but inspiring episode of Desperate Housewives? Oh hey wait....we got an hour?? okay...I say stick with the meat..!

Talking about meat: this salad is perfect as a side dish for grilled meat! And look!!!! When dinner was served there was also a ray of sun!! Now, how's that huh?!

Cheers and enjoy!!

Do you have that too? That some booze always reminds you of great parties you had and lovely warm days and ehm...nights?? Yeah well I do, and that's why I'm here to booze up your day because today I have a Campari Pasta Salad for you! Campari always takes me back to Milan, Italy, the place where it all started. Not for me (ehm...) but for Campari. Sorry no juicy details this time, or it must be the amounts of ehm... Campari with orange juice I had there! This mixture is made by the devil, I'm sure. You can drink it like soda and all of the sudden....BAM! Recipe for disaster maybe?? Not necessarily and certainly not this recipe, I'll keep it a bit more on the soft side (oh well that's new!). Sometimes that's good and sometimes you need to step back a bit, you can't play with fire 24/7, it's sooo exhausting!

But I did choose a hot pasta type for this!  

Pasta with red peppers, ever had that? Hmmm let me tell you my expectations were a teeny tiny bit too high (but that happens more often, live and learn I guess!) because after boiling the pasta, the nice red color had turn into a bleachy red and hot...no not really. See, this proves that even Italians can disappoint you, who would have thought that!! Hmm...back to the recipe.

Don't you just love the color of the dressing??

Nice pink (okay I admit, I fell for the taste...)! It's ½ cup mayonnaise and ¼ cup Campari and a bit of pepper.

Oh wait, damn, we have to boil the pasta first!  

Not a big deal....add some salt to a pan, boil some water, pour it over the pasta, cook and drain. This time you're allowed to rinse it with cold water, I won't spank you for this. Butt only in this case! (nope, not a typo, just wait what happens after some Campari!!!).

Then we're going to have a drink, because we have to be sure that the pasta has cooled off enough don't we?? So grab a glass, fill it halfway (who cares!) with Campari, add some OJ and cheers!

After one glass (it can be dangerous and that depends on how tall the glass was, yes I know you!) we're going to have to do some chopping:

1 can of tuna (no need to chop that)
 2 cups mini tomatoes, chopped in half
1 cup feta cheese, chopped in pieces
¼ cup chopped green olives
a few chive strings, finely chopped
1 tablespoon dried chili flakes (in case you want it hot)

Mix this all together with the pasta, add the dressing and some pepper and put it in the fridge for about an hour (or until you finished the bottle of Campari).

 And look what happens when you put it on your plate:

THE SUN!!!!! Amazing huh....yeah it's like the Italians say “that's amore” or something like that... who needs a dictionary!

Cheers and enjoy while I'm going to book a ticket...yes...to Milan, I'm in desperate need for some hot Italian amore!

We’re going to slow down a bit, after all it's summer and we want to keep you away from the stove. It’s time for Coleslaw! And then I mean Coleslaw for Adults. No sorry it’s not some kinky coleslaw, (in my opinion cabbage isn't very sexy...but I could be mistaken...), what I’m talking about is booze! And yes, you can use booze in coleslaw! Never tried?? Doesn’t matter, we are here to do the testing for you, and we do it with pleasure!!! Cheers!

Nothing beats this as a side dish, okay almost nothing and you have to agree that making this recipe is as easy as chop chop chop (if you want you can substitute the word chop for plop if that sounds more familiar to you). Besides, we don’t have just one recipe, nope, we got two! One is such a lonely number, and you can handle two can’t you? But you’ve got to learn to have some patience, because we’re going to tease you: we won’t give you the two recipes at once, we’re going to spread it out…!

For this first recipe you need:

Cabbage (half)
1 large carrot
1 cup dried cranberries
Mayonnaise
Old Bay Seasoning
Vinegar (I used white wine vinegar) (of course)
Sugar
Tequila
Pepper/salt

Make a dressing of ¼ cup of mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon Old Bay Seasoning, 3 tabespoons Tequila, 1 tablespoon vinegar and 1 teaspoon sugar, some salt and pepper. Taste the dressing before you add it to the salad, you might want to add something more (Tequila for example).

Let your food processor do the work of shredding the cabbage and the carrot, add the dressing and the dried cranberries and put it away in the fridge for at least one hour.

Coleslaw Number Two (always the best) is going to be very special, so keep an eye on our Blog!

Cheers!

We had a two day heat wave over here in The Netherlands, ow yes, we´re really having a great summer so far!! And with temperatures of 95 and higher, I´m not really in the mood to cook something. All the extra heat is a bit too much sometimes! But I wouldn’t be a good BarBQBoozer if I didn’t have a great solution for that: a boozy pasta salad, made the day before (yes sometimes you have to plan things ahead…you know how it goes!).

And while thunder provided some back ground noise I enjoyed this dish… until a strong wind and lightening made it clear that I was heading for a rough evening and that had nothing to do with the booze this time!

Now let’s see if I can remember how I made this Vodka Salad…eh Pasta Salad I mean…

Marinate a chicken breast, using your favorite chicken seasoning and olive oil. I used Rooster Booster, mixed with dried Italian herbs.

Boil the pasta of your choice. Drain and rinse with cold water. Set it aside.

Grill the chicken, and cut it into bite size pieces (oww…!) and let it cool.

In the meantime, cut a zucchini into pieces and marinate this in the leftover marinade you used for the chicken and grill these too. Let these cool too.

Make a dressing of ¼ cup mayonnaise, ¼ cup Vodka, 2 tablespoons tomato paste, some salt/pepper and a few drops of Worcestershiresauce. This is some dressing I tell ya!!

Cut some small tomatoes (I used wild tomatoes in different colors), green olives, artichoke hearts, dried chili flakes and fresh basil leaves. Add one small can of tuna (drained) and 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese.

In a large bowl mix everything together. Put it in the fridge for at least one hour (or longer, you can even make this one day ahead as I mentioned before! Awesome idea!).

Serve with some extra grated Parmesan cheese and a few basil leaves. Ooooh this is a deliciousss creamy dinner!!!

Okay Burgerman, hope this will satisfy you on a hot day, remember there´s enough Vodka in it so I guess it will!! Oh and I made too much, so guess what's on the menu today???

Cheers!