Lazy Coder Cuisine, simple snacks, drinks: (fake) Key Lime Pancakes, Chunky Monkey (drink)
It has been a while since I have written about food or drinks. That does not mean I hadn't been experimenting with simple to make delicious food and drinks. Rather it is just an indication that one driving force in these experiments has been one of 3 cornerstones of good programmer productivity, laziness. And while that approach can lead to good discoveries, it does not lead to writing of those discoveries.
But since I just made another nice discovery, and since I am in semi-active blog-writing mood (due to having forced myself to write previous tech-heavy article last night!), let's review 2 simple pieces of good stuff: simple "fake" dessert (or just sweet complement to breakfast), and a simple alcoholic drink. And I am hoping this act of documentation might lead to my remembering more of document-worthy results I have had... if not, I will just need to write some more about blackberry beer or something. But I digress.
1. Key Lime Pancakes
Ok. First a disclaimer: this is not really Key Lime anything -- no limes are involved, nor anything from the Key west. Name is just inspired due to similarity of taste to Key Lime Pie. So consider this a "fake" recipe, something simple to make that imitates a better known dish. :-)
Making Key Lime Pancakes is rather simple -- very lazy-friendly -- and goes like this:
- Make basic pancakes (laziest way: use Walmart's pancake mix, only add water; more refined is to google for buttermilk pancake recipe, use that), make sure to fry them in butter (my preference is salted butter, I assume unsalted is ok for lower sodium intake)
- Spread thin (or, if you prefer, thick) layer of Lemon Curd (ready-made one works fine; I used Trader Joe's affordable yet good variant) on pancakes
- Add whipped cream -- use canned version for additional lazy points (as usual, Trader Joe's has good price/quality ratio), that is, spray some whipped cream on top of lemon curd
- Enjoy!
And there you have it! Actually I wish I had taken a snapshot of the result, but either way that would not convey the taste. Sweet taste of food coupled with irresistable satisfaction from making it happen with very low effort AND with limited budget. Good stuff, will be one of desserts included in Tatu's Fenno-American Cookbook, should one get written one day.
Since this is rather sweet stuff (albeit with nice acidic overtones), it's best to cleanse one's palate with something... which leads us to the second recipe.
2. Chunky Monkey, the Drink (aka Banana Jack)
One experiment I did over a year ago was to figure out if I could think of a new whiskey based drink. Specifically, a bourbon-based one -- there is no need to commit cardinal sin of spoiling malt whiskys with alien substances.
Of different combinations, only one deserves mention, with recipe like:
- Pour some Bourbon (like Jack Daniel's), say 5cl
- Add some banana liqueur; ratio to use depends on how strong banana taste one likes; 2-to-1 seems like a reasonable ratio, so 2.5 cl
This drink can be served cold (if so, pour on ice cubes; not shaved
ice), but I actually prefer it warm: whisk(e)ys are sensitive to cold in
my opinion.
The reason this is a nice drink is that sweetness nicely
mellows whiskey taste, similar to how Manhattan cocktail works. And when
choosing component ratios properly, drink should not be overly sweet or
artificial (one risk with banana liquers)
I hope name I chose has not already been taken. I guess I could alternatively also call it "Banana Jack".
3. Send me patches!
One of best things that ever happened to me and my open source projects was that others started using things I wrote. And sent bug reports, improvements ideas and comments.
In same spirit, if you think of improvement ideas, please do send patches! :-D
