This rosemary lemonade is one of my favorite drinks to make. It goes really well as a martini, too! Vodka and a little rosemary sprig. Cafe Flora also makes a cranberry-ginger cider (cringer) and the two mix well.

Rosemary Lemonade

From "The Cafe Flora Cookbook".
Makes 2 quarts

1 1-ounce bunch of rosemary, about 8 6-inch sprigs
4 cups water, plus more as needed
1 cup sugar

In a saucepan, cover the rosemary with the water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the rosemary water into a 2-quart pitcher, and dissolve the sugar in the hot rosemary water. Set aside to cool.

When the rosemary tea is cool, add:

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 6 lemons)
Enough water to make 2 quarts

Serve chilled.
DrinksRecipes

That's a lot of chocolate!! The following is a recipe that we've made twice. I have to warn you that small children (I won't name any names) who really like to eat chocolate cake, might eat a whole big piece of this--so watch out who you make it for. That said, it's a dreamy cake with a variety of chocolate flavors and textures and the mint adds a special fun quality.

Triple-Chocolate Cake with Chocolate-Peppermint Filling

From A Suite of Sweets: a collection of delectable dessert recipes, by Janice Gockel.

Chocolate Mint Cake

Ingredients

Filling
8oz Imported milk chocolate
1/2 cup Whipping cream
1 tbsp Light corn syrup
1/2 tsp Peppermint extract

Cake
1 cup Flour
1/3 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder, such as Scharffen Berger
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) Room temperature unsalted butter
1 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Dark brown sugar
2 tsp Vanilla extract
3 Large eggs (room temperature)
1/2 cup Buttermilk
1 1/2 cups Semisweet chocolate chips

Chocolate glaze
8 oz finely chopped Bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate (I suggest 70%)
1/2 cup (1 stick) Unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 tsp Peppermint extract
1 tbsp Light corn syrup

Garnish
12 chopped Peppermint candies (I like to have a nice variety of sizes--completely smashed to 1/4 round)
Fresh mint leaves (peppermint probably makes the most sense)

Directions

Filling
1. Place chocolate in medium bowl. Heat cream and corn syrup in small pan until nearly boiling. Pour hot mixture over chocolate; add extract and let stand 1 minute. Whisk until smooth.

Cake
1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter one 9-inch diameter cake pan. Line bottom with buttered parchment paper. Dust with flour.
2. Mix first 5 ingredients in medium bowl.
3. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in both sugars, then vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk in 2 additions each. Mix in chocolate chips.
4. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake cake until tester comes out clean, about 1 hour 5 minutes. Place the cake, in its pan, on rack for 5 minutes. Turn cake onto rack. Cool.
5. After the cake is cool, using electric mixer, beat filling until fluffy, 30 seconds. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake horizontally in half. Put a cooling rack on top of a baking sheet (a place for chocolate to drip on). Place 1 cake layer, cut side up, on rack. Spread filling over cake layer. Top with second layer cut side down, then chill the filled cake 20 minutes. While it's cooling, prepare the glaze:

Glaze
1. Stir chocolate, butter and corn syrup in heavy pan over low heat until melted and smooth. Mix in extract. Cool until lukewarm but pourable, about 20 minutes.

Assembly
1. Pour 1/2 cup of the glaze over the center of the cake. Spread that over the top and sides of the cake. Chill until glaze sets. Pour remaining glaze over center of cake, then spread quickly over top and side. Chill again until glaze sets. Sprinkle candies around top edge of cake, then garnish with fresh mint leaves.

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Here's a short video of Simon and Oliver together. Simon's very enthusiastic about being a big brother. He couldn't remember all the words to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, but his improvisation was also pretty cute ;)
Tags >> Blog - Simon - Oliver

Simon made Laura an impressive Mother's Day card, so I thought I'd describe it in video form. Enjoy...

Simon

I'm sort of unsure of what I think of the fact that my blog is so eclectic. I mean... the last few posts were a recipe, Simon singing a song, an article about music genre stations on Pandora, a review of a restaurant, and something about the Iowa Caucuses. Couldn't get a whole lot more varied than that... yet, they're topics of interest to me. And all the while, the most popular post on my whole site by far is an article bashing two-tone paint schemes in houses. So is this eclectic thing working? I'd have to argue probably not really... it's hard to know what to write about, when you can write about anything. Y'know, you'd think that you'd write more if you had more potential topics, but the opposite may very well be true. Problem is, it's hard to pick a single topic of interest, too, when you have a lot of interests. So what should this blog be about?
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