autumn drinks.

Get a couple of lemons. Slice them up pretty thin, rind and all, put them in a saucepan. Add a few cups of water. Get the water to boil, lower to a simmer, and simmer for a few minutes until the water is good and hot and lemony. Pour the lemon water through a strainer into a mug, filling it up about half to two-thirds of the way. Add brandy and honey to taste. Drink.

This is good for anytime, but is great especially for if you're sick with a cold. The lemons give you vitamin C, the hot water and honey sooth your throat, and the brandy helps you relax and sleep.

Yeah, its good but technically its their winter seasonal.

Stud oranges with cloves and roast them until black. Toss the oranges, some sticks of cinnamon some orange and lemon peel in to the pot with the wine/ale/cider, grate some nutmeg into the pot (you can add fresh ginger and star anise if you like too). Heat but don't boil for as long as you can, fortify with brandy, whisky or rum as you serve.

Bottle of white
Bottle of red
About a dozen or so cloves
Two tangelos or an orange, halved
Pinch of cinnamon [the cinnamon I've been using isn't in stick form, but is too tasty for me to want to abandon it for this recipe]
Dash of ginger juice
Fifteen to twenty grains of paradise or black peppercorns
Palmful of sugar [hadn't originally planned on this, but it was much more popular once I sweetened it a little]

Simmer all that for at least an hour; if you simmer longer than two, scoop the solids out or things will start to turn bitter.

Fortify with port, vermouth, Armagnac, or whatever you have handy -- I like Armagnac for it, but the second time I made it, I realized no way was I parting with that much Armagnac just to mull some wine for a bunch of people who were already half drunk :)

The grains of paradise/peppercorns are what do it for me.

1 part Kahlua
1 part amaretto
2 parts warm milk

sip while wearing fuzzy sweater.

Raison D'Etre
Voted 'American Beer Of The Year' in January 2000 by Malt Advocate Magazine.
A deep mahogany ale brewed with beet sugar,
green raisins, and Belgian yeast.
As complex as a fine red wine. 
8% ABV 36 IBU

mmmm

I second pumpkin ale, although I was surprised to do so. Autumn is also a good time of year for cherry lambic.

Hee.

Ohh boozy spiced cider is the best, THE BEST. Linds, let's have some sort of cold weather party, can we can we? We will make ALL THIS STEW omg and watch TV wrapped in blankets.

Which is basically just a cover for my urgent need for beef stew and/or pot roast.

YES YES 100times yes. i can't wait to make stews! i also want to try to teach myself how to make meat pies. i want to make an apple and sausage pie so i can decide if that is a delicious or disgusting idea.

There's some very good chicken sausage with apple in it, they have it at the grocery store. I'm sure the same is true for all pork products, too -- pork was made to go with apples.

it's true. i had awesome cider-glazed pork chops the other day. mmmm

and apple and sausage STUFFING is great.

Made my first stew at the weekend, after drinking a pink of the excellent and strong Kingsdown Black Cider in the market. Mutton with beetroot and yellow carrots, slowly stewed in a bottle of wine with lots of rosemary with matzo dumplings made with butter an stew juices. Must do a pork and cider one this weekend, or maybe a pie.

Oh crap, I have pork chops in freezer that now I wish I'd put to thaw today.

I wonder if you could do with pork the coq au vin thing but with calvados and cider instead of brandy and wine. I think this should be a tasty experiment.

Or maybe a mixture of cider and perry for sweetness.

ooh i want to make coq au vin. i was just thinking of it the other day.

Cold weather party sounds BEST IDEA EVER.

I like the idea of M/White's DARK AND STORMY as an autumn drink mesel'.

you cold also do, err, like a 'carnitas' style chicken -- roasted , then shredded & cooked in a bit of clean fat with some cider & maybe cabbage/shredded apple in small quantities. the problem as i see it isn't one of taste, it's one of texture: at the temperature you'll need to get the meat pie to, you'll likely end up turning the apple to brainy moosh.

could

And what is wrong with that?

Here I found this recipe saved randomly in Outlook, might as well post it nyer:

APPLE PIE BACON CHEESE ETC GOO

- Get one pie dish, cover the bottom with rashers of bacon
- Peel & core 2 apples
- Grate those, and a big chunk of cheese
- Crumble up 2 slices of bread (3 if apples are large)
- Melt a big lump of butter in a saucepan
- Mix in the bread, grated apple and about half the cheese, stir it around until you have a squidgy mess. Add more butter if needed.
- Bung this mixture in the pie dish, squidge it down and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top
- Bake in oven at 180C/350F/gas mark whatever for about 20 minutes

NUM NUM NUM.

my colon had a spasm at the thought of that!

ed, your stew sounds incredible btw. i would love a more concise recipe if you've got the time.

Sarah, you need to find a way of setting it on fire, possibly dousing it with apple brandy ion removing it from the oven, so the cheese browns nicely.

It vas very easy.

4 shallots, two onions roughly chopped and fried till golden
4 cloves garlic
half kilo o mutton browned with the golden onions
Bunch of Beets peeled and quartered (or 8ths if big)
Bunch of carrots (yellow in this case but orange or purple would do) roughly chopped
1 bottle of red wine
2 bay leaves
big big big pinch of dried rosemary
1 chicken stock cube (would have used veg stock or lamb if I had had any)
salt and pepper to taste

Simmered that for a couple of hours, lid on for half lid off for half

Dumplings, side of a matzo meal packed recipe:

2 eggs
4oz. matzo meal
2 tablespoons fat (butter in my case)
5 table spoons of liquor from the stew

form into balls and toss into the stew cook with the lid on for 20 minutes or so

Alternatively, english dumplings

4 oz. of plain flour
4 oz of suet
finely chopped rosemary
cooking liquor enough to form a stiff moist dough

kneed a log of air into that mixture and then form into balls and cook in the stew with the lid on for 30-45 minutes

log = lot

Ooooohhhhhhhhhhhh and I don't even LIKE beets OR cooked carrots.

you could put in other hard veg; swede, turnip, parsnip after the first frost. The combination of beets and red wine make it the most insanely purple dish ever.

aqlso mutton could be a leg or shoulder of lamb, beef skirt, or even a piece of topside silverside, braised as pieces or as a big cut although I think I would marinade a big cut of meet in the wine beforehand.

that sounds like a great sunday afternoon dish.

It was mine (and monday lunchtime and evening and after I had had all the meat and dumplings out of it I had the remaining veg and liquor on some ravioli)

i have never had hot buttered rum. is good?

Come on and soothe me, Hot Toddy!

I accidentally poured my theraflu into my French press today. ftw

THIS RECIPE IS THE JAM

Hot Buttered Rum:
1 ½ oz. Cruzan Single Barrel Rum
2 heaping teaspoons hot buttered rum mix***
Mix ingredients with small amount of hot water in heated coffee mug and stir well with a spoon. Once mixed thoroughly, top off mug with hot water.
Serve with a swizzle stick.

***Hot Buttered Rum Mix***
1 lb. light brown sugar
1/2 lb. salted butter
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon high-quality vanilla extract
Yields approx. 1 1/2 lbs

I made this last night and, while I was drinking it, could not imagine wanting to drink anything else ever.

That is an INSANE amount of HBR mix, how long does it keep?!

about a month - it's really just a compound butter w/ sugar

hot toddy: WANT

i have to make this

Honestly I think I might just drink tequila all winter, it's so good and I'm sorry I stayed away all these years. Fortunately, tequila will take me back, even after all my indiscretions with less festive spirits.

how do you take your tequila?

Over ice, with lime. It's totally unseasonable.

guys GIN HOT TODDY c/d

gin hot toddy sounds RONG

i've been drinking so much mulled cider with whiskey, mmmmm

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4844/xmastequilaev1.jpg

laurel's drink is also know as a "crazy eddie."

tequila, perhaps more so than any other spirit, is always ready and waiting with open arms to welcome you back into the fold.

also known, i mean.

If more bars had mulled wine or boozy cider I'd be drinking it, but they don't.

i've heard about some in our hood, laurel...we should get drinks before you move away to the land of $4 pbrs

Lindray, you know better than to think I would ever drink PBR. Actually I hate PBR. Get in touch about ciderz, though -- Friday payday will assist.

the land of $4 pbrs

omg what

perfect autumn drink = cup of tea (w/ cake)

ed, do you think that mutton stew would work with short ribs instead?

I'm going to a Drambuie-sponsored cocktail thing tonight, is that going to be any good? Lauren, you know me and scotch, what do you predict?

it's kind of nasty imho.

Hmmph. Rats.