i have a deep seeded passion for making cordials and flavoured liquors.  not just cause i love drinking them...holy! mmmm...but because i love the ritual of the process.  i never use a recipe. i usually make them on the new or full moon. i always choose the ingredients based on the elixir i am envisioning.  

for instance...i made one with two of my besties, kelly and teya, one night on the new moon. we decided to have this one be called "unconditional love".  we settled on using cocoa powder, damiana (an herb good for many things but widely used as an aphrodisiac), rose petals, etc.  we had 3 mason jars, one for each of us, set up in a triangle where each of us were sitting.  we had a big wooden mortar and pestle that kelly had brought back from mali, in the middle.  we took turns grabbing pinches of each ingredient and as we would grind it in the mortar and pestle, we'd share a story, poem, or time when we gave or received (or wish we had) unconditional love.  wow. very special were those moments.  some of the most potent ever.  sometimes we'd pull cards from the goddess deck for each one and write the name on the jar to infuse the beauty that she stood for into the cordial.  

now days, i mostly do them alone.  but they are still very special and i usually have an intention set, beyond a badass culinary pitchyao-chyao.  the day we moved into are new home my son, loji and i, walked around collecting a bowl of huckleberries and raspberries.  he and i made a simple raspberry, local honey and vodka cordial that night which was one of the yummiest of all time. we also made one with the huckleberries and fennel seeds...we agreed to call it Huck Fen. haha.

this cordial is so freaking good....oh. my. holy taste. buds. batman!  well, there are some different combinations i did with the 20lbs. of organic plums i bought. hands down my favourite fruit to use in flavouring liquors. sooo juicy. well, they might be tied with raspberries, actually. but whose thumb wrestling? 

since i believe in quality control, i poured a bit of each of my plum cordials to sip and decide which recipe to share. if my words start tripping over each other...it's because these are so delish, it's easy to forget they are almost straight booze. mmmm.....so, there's the disclaimer. carrying on...

instructions...

organic plum cordial with star anise and black peppercorns

• wash your plums. ;) the more the merrier.  they should be soft, ripe, plump and very sexy.
• start chopping, pitting and fill up as many mason jars as you can. you want them to be pretty full, but leave enough space at the top so that your spirits can cover about an inch above your fruit. 
• i used widemouth litre jars, but seriously, use what you have. i threw about 6-8 perfect beautiful star anise in each one. they are so awesome! if yours are broken up, it's all good. just put in a small palm full, you'll strain it later.
• pinch of whole peppercorns.
• 1/2 cup raw local honey. i know some of you are reaching for the plastic honey bear...don't do it. local honey is the jam! but i understand.  just do one thing for me, if you use the boiled down, refined store bought honey bear kinda honey this time (it truly is all good, if you do), promise that next time you will use the good stuff and have a lil taste test.  tell me how it goes. who knows...
• lastly, i use vodka in this one.  again, better is better.  but you don't need to go top shelf here.  i use rusian standard. i love that matte bottle. i have used grey goose, sky, finlandia...use what you use.  like i mentioned before, fill the bottle up so that the vodka covers the fruit.
• now...you want to store these in the pantry or a cupboard that is mostly dark and turn it upside down once a day for a week or two. this is important because if there are any air pockets, your fruit could go off. a little swish a day will insure this doesn't happen.  this also gives the honey a chance to dissolve it's magic into your future blissful sips.
• then, use a strainer, cheese cloth or jelly bag to strain the fruit out. reserve this and i'll tell you what to do with it in a sec....ooooo....so good. don't mash them when you strain the fruit or your end product will have a lot of sediment.
• return the delish liquid back into clean jars and put them back in their dark home (the pantry) to sit for another 2 or 3 months to reach optimal yummy times.

i usually do a massive batch in september to sit until the holidays and give them as gifts. i save special bottles and dress them up with this's and that's.  they like to feel pretty. they are magic potions.  the bottles in the pictures below, i reused tissue paper, some twine and some salt dough stars that i made with my little guy.  cute tags...key!

serve a couple ounces over ice with a splash of soda water or in little brandy glasses on their own for sipping. mmm, the nectar.

okay, now for some tid bits on what you can do with the fruit you strain from the bottles.  try and remove the star anise and black peppercorns.  if one or two make it to the party, it's okay. but...good to try right? 

put the fruit into the food processor.  you really want it to be drained as much as possible.  blend into a puree and pour into ice cube trays. i like to use the square silicon ones because they look really cool and are easier to get out.  because alcohol doesn't freeze, these will only freeze to a certain point, hence the straining as best you can. give them a couple of days in the freezer and if you need the trays, you can ejector seat those babies into a container or a ziplock bag and return to the freezer until you want to use them.  

they are really awesome to pop into a sangria.  i also enjoy putting one cube into a glass of white wine on a hot summer day. hello! that's a happy hour!

my husband was going away for a week to Berlin. i wasn't jealous AT ALL.  i really wanted to send him away with some love from home...the time release kind.  thought of making little love notes to tuck in his bag, pockets, and toiletries pouch, but wanted to have it be cuter then that. so, i was at the dollar store...i know! shush...it's bad...but not if what you need isn't sold anywhere else you live. buy local. totally. except when looking for ridiculously oversized pill boxes. then go to china..i mean, the dollar store. boom. they had one.  they also had a candy isle.   i paroozled looking for candy that would look like pills. i settled on good n' plenty, and regular and peanut m&m's.  

(p.s. sorry about the quality of the pix, i was under lamplight in the middle of the night while he slept doing this the night before he left...shhh)

i took one of our little guys paintings, we have a mountain high stack of them that i use for gift wrapping special prezzies and such when he's not looking. kidding. he loves it. 

i cut little strips from it to write little love notes on and saved the rest for wrapping. mostly i wrote things that i love about him and am grateful for.  it's good to do this...it's not a thing most people do in their day to day interactions, so, i was hoping it was a big ball of yum for him to open up. 

i then scrolled the tiny memos up and tied them with twine.  i separated the different colours and shapes of candy and put the same ones in each compartment of the pill box and included a lil note for each day.  

when he opened it, i told him what each pill was for.  he had to take the pink when he woke up and right before he went to sleep to tell us good morning and good night. the green ones he could take whenever he missed loji so much he couldn't handle it anymore. and so on and so forth...there might have been some racy instructions for the others. ehehm...clearing throat... i told him that he had to be patient and only open one scroll a day. 

he loved this so much. when he got back, he told me it was the sweetest thing ever and that he enjoyed it so much.  he told me he was saving the box so we could both do that the next time either of us goes away again. i am hoping this means there is a relaxing mom trip to mexico in the near future. 

right here, is a quick lil post about what you can do when you've got some old hardcover books, a young adventurous artist, and just about anything they can paint, draw, or colour with.  i got this box of books from the recycling depot for another project and brought one out because loji wanted to watercolour but i couldn't find our watercolour paper.  so...hmmm...book pages...obviously.  when i suggested he pick a page, he looked at me with these sneaky unbelieving eyes....like, "you're seriously gunna let me paint in this book?"  "go big buddy. make that book super awesome. it's better filled with your beautiful art that blended up to make more blank paper. "  to this he went to work. he had a lot of fun. 

when he was done painting, we would just leave the book open to dry.  he'd walk by it later and notice it was dry and flip to another page and begin a new masterpiece. i am excited to see the book get filled right up with colourful pages.  at with point, maybe before, i'll make a cool book cover for it.  perhaps give it to his daddy for father's day next year.  or just keep it for the archives. love this already.

alright...alright...i know....you feel abandoned because where in the h-e-double hockey sticks have i been?  i know.  i do.  i have missed you all very much.  okay...lets get on with it...or i might just cry. that's how much i've missed blogatroning.  that's how much i missed you. f'realz yo!

so, father's day.  it is pretty awesome when you have someone in your life that completely deserves adorning on such a day.  for all the others, get a tie, cuff links, old spice, or a head in a box (whoa, morbid reference from the movie Seven...holy! dunno where that came from.  dad issues much? kidding! i kid...i kid!) 

i got my husband's first father's day prezzie before we even had a child together.  he wanted to have a little one sooOooooOo bad and i was not on board.  i loved him so much that i wanted that sweet dream to come true for him and whether it was with me or someone else, i just knew that he would be the best dad ever.  so, i got him a blue ribbon that said #1 Dad!  we were at the music festival i used to put on, near Portland, OR, in our airstream rv, and it was father's day.  i played a harry houdini and pinned it on him mid-kiss.  we both shed a couple tears and..well...err...the magic spell was cast.  i was pregnant with our little man shortly after that.  

i love pining over what to do and how to show and reflect our daddy love for him at this time of year because he truly is the best papa i have ever seen or experienced.  this is one of the crafty bits we made for him last father's day. it was strung up right outside our bedroom door.  

i got my 2 boys, Malakai and Lorijah, and sat down to tear strips of paper and color them all bright and happy.  i asked them what were some of their favorite things about their dad, things they liked to do with him, funny moments, memories.....it took a bit of prodding at first, but as i asked more specific questions, the yum started pouring out.  it was so fun and sooo sweet.  my cup runeth over.

they also helped me safety pin the little love notes to the cool cord i had brought out for this.  we pinned a few this's and that's here and there, like paper cranes, foam flowers, and strips of colorful netting (from a sack of lemons) to "up" the cute factor times a million and then boom. it was done. 

i strung it up in the wee hours.  when Loji woke, we put his present under a bright scarf with magnet letters spelling HAPPY FATHERS DAY on a tapestry on the ground, under the garland.  we made a breakfast picnic on the floor and set it up so when he walked out, after his big cozy sleep in, we were all there hanging out waiting for him. so cute. 

recycled materials people!  the sweetest presents are the ones from the heart; made with love.  you don't need much to let those around you know you adore and appreciate them.