Welcome to another glorious Friday!

I hope the sun is shining and you have the most wonderful plans for your weekend. Alfresco Friday is my celebration of the weekend. Usually our family will take advantage of the beautiful mild weather this time of year and have a picnic or BBQ at the beach, a park or a friend’s house.  In the spirit of celebrating the weekend I have made a Peach Sangria to share with my lovely readers.

Oh and a quick tip, the wine you use doesn't need to be expensive but it does need to be one that you like. The flavour will come through in the punch so you want a pleasant drinkable wine, not an expensive one. At Woolworths they have cleanskin dry whites available for under $3, this is what I used, and it was delicious.

Ingredients:

2 peaches sliced

2 nectarines sliced

750ml bottle of dry white wine

200ml Bacardi Rum

400ml apricot nectar

400ml lemonade (diet)

Method:

Place the slice fruit into a glass bowl with the Bacardi, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for between 2 and 12 hours. This is a good job to do before work.

To make the sangria you will need two jugs. Place half the fruit in each jug. Add half of the remaining ingredients to each jug and top with ice. Check the flavour and add more apricot nectar or lemonade to taste.

I could have give the recipe for 1 jug of sangria but that really wouldn’t be as much fun, and I do try and look after my readers. Feel free to halve the recipe if you are limiting your alcohol intake.

Have a happy weekend.

Alfresco Friday is back.  With the start of the warmer weather and the promise of another Summer at the beach, just around the corner, I felt it was time for the recommencement of Alfresco Friday.  This is a day when I post ideas for nibblies, picnic dishes, BBQ’suggestions or perhaps a recipe for a tasty Sangria or punch, anything to help kick start your weekend.

This weekend Little Miss A wanted to have a play day with her friends. Actually she wanted to have her first ever sleepover.  Her best friends just happened to be twins so we will be having two extra little ones for Alfresco Friday this week.  Anyway, Mr GG and I stopped in at the family’s house to organise the event, while the littlies were playing, were given a handful each of the most gorgeous homemade candied nuts to try.

With three little ones running around, our host was a little distracted, in the meantime Mr GG polished off all of my nuts, little A’s nuts, and a fair wack of both flavoured containers of nuts. Now I would hate to be one of those bossy wives who tells their hubby what to do but I was watching about 500gm of cashew disappearing at a rate of knots, and I was starting to panic. Very soon I would be able to see the bottom of both jars.

Eventually I had to whisper to hubby “darl... stop” He said, “I’m trying!!! I can’t stop, they are so good.”

I had to laugh because they were fantastic!  It had taken all my willpower to stop eating them too.

Needless to say I had to get the recipe to share with readers, and to satisfy Mr GG.  You can use any spices on the savoury candied nuts and the chilli can be omitted.

I decided this would be the perfect snack food to start this year’s Alfresco Friday, I hope you agree.

Sweet Candied Cashews

Ingredients:

350gm Cashew Nuts

1 egg white

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp salt

Method:

The method is the same for both sweet and savoury version. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees fan forced.

Line a baking tray with paper.

In a bowl combine the nuts, egg whites, salt and sugar, mix thoroughly. Pour the mixture onto a baking tray in a single layer.

Bake for 6 minutes and stir the nuts. Bake for a further 6 minutes until the toffee is bubbled and golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before breaking it into pieces to serve.

Savoury Spiced Nuts

Ingredients:

350gm Assorted nuts

1 egg white

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp smoked salt

1 tsp chilli flakes

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp sweet paprika

1 tsp hot paprika

Method:

The method is the same for both sweet and savoury version. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees fan forced.

Line a baking tray with paper.

In a bowl combine all the savoury ingredients, with the nuts, egg whites and sugar, mix thoroughly. Pour the mixture onto a baking tray in a single layer.

Bake for 6 minutes and stir the nuts. Bake for a further 6 minutes until the toffee is bubbled and golden brown.

Remove from oven and allow to cool before breaking it into pieces to serve.

Use the same method for the sweet candied nuts.

So please raise your glasses dear readers and say cheers to another season of warm weather, beaches and barbeques.  Have a cold beer or glass of bubbly and celebrate the weekend with me.

Whoo hoo I am off on holidays for eight days and to celebrate I have a cocktail and a song to go along with it! 

"If you like Pina Coladas

And getting caught in the rain

If you're not into yoga

If you have half a brain" 

I am sure almost everyone has heard of this song and has tried a Pina Colada before.  So join in the party, and sing a long while you prepare this delicious cocktail with me.

 "Yes I like Pina Coladas

And getting caught in the rain

I'm not much into health food

I am into champagne"

I prefer the original 1950’s frozen Pina Colado version which is made in a blender with crushed ice.  I make a little adjustment to the ingredients, I omit the coconut cream and swap it for Malibu.  The Malibu has the same flavour but with a little more kick and a lot less fat. Ordinarily if I was stripping down to a bikini on a Fijian beach I would imagine there to be many a cocktail involved, but alas there will be no such liquid pleasure for me this trip as I am on the FebFast.

Ingredients:

3 cups of ice

¾ fresh pineapple

½ cup pineapple juice

100ml Bicardi

100ml Malibu

Method:

Use your magic pineapple corer to slice a fresh pineapple. It will give perfect pineapple rings and a hollow shell for the cocktail.

 Put all the ingredients together in a blender starting with the ice, and sing… 

“That you like Pina Coladas

Getting caught in the rain

And the feel of the ocean

And the taste of champagne

If you'd like making love at midnight

In the dunes of the Cape

You're the lady I've looked for

Come with me and escape”

So for my escape I am joining my brother and his lovely bride-to-be in Fiji.  The gorgeous couple have eloped and invited their nearest and dearest to a tropical island paradise to share the ceremony and celebrations. Just between you and I, naturally I will be blogging all the lovely food finds, and a few of the celebrations as well.

I hope you enjoy the cocktail, and best of luck getting the song out of your head, it has stuck in mine for quite a while now!

Todays Alfresco Friday is a bit of a preview for some upcoming stories.  I won’t give you any more hints… except to say that I have been sampling some different flavours recently and that will be reflected in some of the dishes coming up on the site.

Friday, however is the day we put the working week behind us and welcome the weekend.  What better way to do that than with a jug of Sangria amongst friends. The recipe below is the way I make this Spanish punch.  It follows the same style as the first Sangria I tried about twenty years ago (oh dear… I am giving away big hints about my age now!!)

Ingredients:

1 red apple

1 green apple

1 orange

750mls Red Wine (clean skins)

250ml Brandy

250ml Triple Sec

1 litre orange juice

1 litre diet lemonade

ice to serve

Method:

Slice the orange into rounds and then semi circles. Dice the apples leaving the skin on for colour.

Place the fruit into a container which has a 3 litre capacity and a lid. I used three, one litre capacity containers, as I will be taking only one with me on a picnic tonight.  The other two will remain in the fridge for later use.

Add the wine and the spirits to the fruit.  Seal the container and refrigerate.  It is best to let the fruit marinade overnight as the flavour in the wine is stronger. It can however be served sooner.

When ready to serve pour about 750ml of the Sangria concentrate into a 2 litre jug, add a scoop of ice and then 500ml orange juice and 500ml diet lemonade.

This method makes about 4 ½ litres of Sangria.

The concentrate can be stored for at least a month in the fridge prior to use.

Don’t forget to be healthy and eat the fruit as well! We all need our two serves daily!

It’s alfresco Friday and New Years Eve! So what else could I make but a yummy cocktail to help my readers get the celebrations started?  My favourite cocktails are those which include a good amount of fruit and ice. There is nothing like a chilled fruit drink to cool you down through summer; it is also packed with vitamins and fluid to stave off any effects of over consuming alcohol. This yummy cocktail is just like a fruit slushy with a little kick.

Ingredients:

4 cups ice cubes

2 ripe mango flesh

¼ cup vodka
¼ cup Triple Sec

1 squeeze lime juice
1 cup diet lemonade

Method:

Put ice into the blender or food processor. Cut up the mango, remove the stone and discard the skin. Place the flesh in the blender with all the remaining ingredients. Process until smooth.

Pour into a glass. Garnish with fruit and serve immediately.

Try stopping at just one! These are so easy to drink.

In case your wondering why I use lemonade in cocktails I will explain.  Usually cocktails require a sugar syrup to be made and chilled in the fridge prior to use.  I have found that using lemonade negates this step and the cocktail is not quite so sweet.  By using diet lemonade you can reduce the calorie count of these delicious fruit cocktails significantly.

It is Alfresco Friday again and it is my birthday!  I have already celebrated this birthday once, thanks to my gorgeous husband who organized a big surprise party for me last month. But it looks like I am a little spoilt, and we are celebrating again with a weekend getaway to Red Rock with friends and family.

So in the spirit of Alfresco Friday I was planning to make a Watermelon punch to bring along.

All over the internet there is instructions on how to make this particular punch out of a bottle of vodka or bacardi, and a whole watermelon. It goes something like this;

Ingredients:

1 whole seedless watermelon

700ml bottle of Bacardi

Method:

Cut a small circle in the skin of the watermelon which is just large enough to allow the neck of the bottle to be inserted.

Insert the bottle as far as possible into the watermelon.

Find a cool spot for the watermelon to sit whilst the alcohol empties into the watermelon.  Depending on the size of your watermelon this can take up to 1 week.

You can cork the hole if (like me) you were intending on traveling somewhere with your watermelon.

Fill the crate containing the watermelon with ice for a cool refreshing punch.

What they didn't say is after 1 week with a bottle stuck in you melon, it may have only been able to absorb 50 mls of alcohol. I thought this would be a great party trick, but in the end, I don't think such a small amount of bacardi in such a big watermelon would really get any party started.

So sorry guys, the thought was there but I guess my alfresco friday is a bit of a dud this week.  Maybe I should have called this week MYTHBUSTERS. Because ... I think THIS MYTH IS BUSTED!! This seems to be just one of those great internet party tricks which "a friend of a friend" has done.  I don't think anyone would really call this a punch.

Readers will be happy to know that both the watermelon and Bacardi was put to good use, and the party will continue.