michelada

My drink texting (not drunk texting) with Chris Borden of Seattle got me onto beer cocktails. Here's the state of my research as of right now. I have many variations, and I certainly don't know what is the difference between a chelada and a michelada. And I also love to add some Clamato (tm)!

• juice of 3/4 to 1 lime
• many shakes of salt (ie, a large pinch)
• two shakes of Old Bay (tm) seasoning
• two dashes of very hot hot sauce
• three dashes of Worchestershire sauce
• one can or bottle of ice-cold Modelo (tm) or Pacifico (tm) or Corona (tm) or equivalent.

Mix everything but the beer (so that the salt dissolves) in a pint glass and then pour the beer in slowly. Enjoy! Serves one.

pressure-cooker hoppin' john

For New Year's, I fried up a quarter pound of chopped bacon, one chopped carrot, one chopped onion, and some chopped celery in the pressure cooker and then added 1.5 cups of rice and 1.5 cups of black-eyed peas, 3 cups of leftover turkey broth, 4 cups of water, less than a tsp of harissa, lots of pepper, and 1 tbsp of salt. I cooked it at pressure for 24 min and then let it come down in pressure naturally. We ate it with spinach sautéed with onions, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil, and some bacon bits.

We ate it with hot sauce and celebratory champagne. The crowd of four was very happy; it would have served at least six lumberjacks. Next time I would switch to 2:1 ratio of beans to rice, drop the liquid by at least one cup, and reduce cooking time by a couple minutes.