I’ve lived in Iowa my entire life and yet I still don’t know how we as a human species endure winter year after year. You’d think having some Swedish ancestry would help me cope considering they hail from the literal arctic, but I still despise winter with every fiber of my being.

To help break up the dreariness of winter I decided to make what I hoped would be a refreshing spirit-lifting recipe reminiscent of spring. I found a coconut lime cake recipe from Cotter Crunch that sounded very tropical and spring-like and also happened to be vegan, but I didn’t really want to go through the effort of making the coconut cream frosting even though it sounded delicious. Since I wanted the cake to stand out a little more instead, I used a glaze recipe from Daisy and the Fox and also made the candied limes from their recipe for decoration. I know, THREE whole parts?? I am so brave.

Time started: 8:30 pm

What I’m drinking: I’m not generally a huge fan of wine, but my mom sent me back from Thanksgiving break with four bottles of homemade rhubarb wine so I figured I might as well tackle some of that. I drank part of a bottle a couple weeks ago but it didn’t exactly go down the easiest, so this time I mixed it with some sprite and that was a pretty decent starter drink. After I finished the wine, I mixed Toasted Caramel whiskey with vanilla coke and it might have actually been the best thing I’ve ever done. SO GOOD, 10/10 would recommend. Then as a bonus spur of the moment drink, since I was using limes I figured I pretty much had to do a shot of tequila. Had to, not want to; don’t ever accuse me of not giving this column my all because tequila SUCKS.

Estimated difficulty: 4/5

Listen, I’ve never candied a lime—I didn’t know what to expect. Also three steps seemed pretty ambitious.

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): The grater we have did not work very well as a zester and I was struggling to get a decent amount of lime zest until I realized I could just kind of scrape it off with a knife. Also, doing shot of tequila. Always a bad decision.

Time finished: 10:30

Results

My drunk opinion:  It’s okay, the parts with a lot of glaze are good. It kind of tastes like coffee cake.

Rylee’s opinion: “Is there ginger in this?” (…No) “Oh, well it smells like gingerbread. I don’t know how to feel about it.”

My sober morning opinion: It’s slightly better this morning, but it still reminds me of coffee cake. Not very refreshing or springy.

Final deliciousness rating: 6/10

I combined two different recipes for this, so if you want to test it out the cake recipe is from here (it’s a gluten-free recipe but I just used regular flour instead of gluten-free flour) and the candied limes and glaze recipe are from here. The only other modification I did was adding lime zest to both the batter and glaze.

Looks like next month’s column will arrive just in time for Valentine’s Day, so that should be interesting, feel free to check back then.

(Bonus: me complaining about taking a shot of tequila)

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

Episode 3: (Almost) Vegan Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Episode 4: Peppermint  & White Chocolate Brownies

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 5 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

When looking for a recipe to test out this month I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go the pumpkin route again or not, because technically pumpkin is still very much in season. However, since last month was pretty aggressively Pumpkin Month, I figured I’d branch out. November, when it’s not an election year, doesn’t generally have much going on other than Thanksgiving, so I figured I’d try to find a recipe that related to the holiday somehow without having to make a pie. (Because honestly pie isn’t even that good. Sorry, I’m not sorry.)

I don’t know about anyone else, but the main dishes I truly care about on Thanksgiving are the stuffing and the cranberry sauce. Everything else could accidentally burn to a crisp, but as long as the stuffing and cranberry sauce was safe it would be a pretty good Thanksgiving for me. (Although if you managed to burn a can of cranberry sauce what were even you DOING??)

So, for this month’s recipe it was a toss-up between a spiced apple cake and cranberry chocolate chip cookies, and ultimately I went with my heart’s desire for cranberries. Both recipes were from Hot For Food, a vegan food blog that aims to make vegan cooking easy and accessible. I would highly recommend checking out their blog or YouTube channel if you are interested in veganism or just want to switch up your everyday recipes because they make some pretty stellar dishes.

While the recipe for the cranberry chocolate chip cookies is vegan, the dark chocolate chips I picked up turned out not to be vegan, so I guess I made (almost) vegan cranberry chocolate chip cookies.

Time started: 8:15 pm (also it was a Sunday night because I like to live on the wild side.)

What I’m drinking: Ben and Jerry’s recently partnered with New Belgium to make a Cookie Dough Ale that is brewed with chocolate and vanilla. It sounded pretty crazy and I didn’t know what to expect, but since the collaboration was meant to help “protect our winters and combat climate change” it seemed to go well with the fact that I was making a vegan recipe. (Living and eating vegan is actually really good for the environment.) The beer was interesting to say the least, the first sip does taste a bit like cookie dough but then the aftertaste is jut beer. It wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’d necessarily pick it up again. Oh, and I also had a shot of whiskey.

Estimated difficulty: 2/5

Cookies are generally a pretty simple task but I wasn’t sure if the vegan side of things would be slightly challenging.

Challenges (besides being intoxicated): I actually didn’t run into any troubles with this recipe. It was probably a bit too easy, so I guess I’ll have to stay away from cookies from now on.

Time finished: 10:30

Results

My drunk opinion: I don’t know if I just can’t taste things very well when I’m drunk, but I couldn’t really taste the cranberries. Otherwise, they were really good oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies.

Mollie’s opinion: It was pretty good, I’ll give it to you. (She was skeptical about the cranberries and the veganism. She also brought some home to her roommate so…)

Rylee’s opinion: Really good, could use more of a crunchy factor though.

My sober morning opinion: The cranberry taste is pretty subtle, but I would definitely make them again.

Final deliciousness rating: 8/10

If you’d like to test out the recipe for yourself you can find it here.

Christmas is just a month away so prepare yourself for some ~*~holiday baking~*~

Previous Episodes:

Episode 1: Orange Chili Brownies

Episode 2: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones

The post Whisks + Whiskey: Episode 3 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Most of the tables were enjoying dinner when I arrived, so I decided to order some nachos; they were awesome. As a vegetarian, it was lovely having a wide selection of menu items for once! The organic, vegan nachos were delightfully flavorful and fresh. I also appreciated the mason jars used for water glasses. No surprise that Trumpet Blossom was featured for one of the Mission Creek dinners!

Paul Metzger took the stage and played a 12-string banjo for about 45 minutes–without stopping. He used many of his own creative techniques to pull interesting sounds out of the instrument. The timbre he created was often similar to a sitar, especially when he used a violin bow.

Since the set was straight music on a simple, intimate stage, the focus was entirely on the music. Metzger had raw, innovative talent; I’ve never seen anything like his banjo technique. During extremely dissonant notes, he would often shake his head quickly back and forth so that his beard would dance with the music. It was easy to tell how passionate he was in his free-form playing.

Since it was such a serious, focused performance, there was not a word spoken during his entire set. The only other sounds were occasional clinks from the bar or rustling of chairs. Overall, people were intently focused on Metzger’s rapid fingers. He thanked the audience with a quick word, and left the stage.

After a short intermission (where I could finish my crunchy snack with disrupting my neighbors), Glenn Jones took his place center-stage. Right off the bat he showed his incredible technique on acoustic guitar. As someone in the beginning stages of learning guitar, I was completely blown away.

When Jones switched to banjo, he explained that he had been scared of Appalachian-style playing rules for so long that he had not attempted banjo; after watching Paul Metzger awhile back, he decided to get a banjo and “do whatever the hell [he] wanted with it.”

However, he also remarked that banjo is not a well-loved instrument. While looking for a banjo mute on tour, a man in a Michigan music store said, “I think a sledgehammer is the best mute for a banjo.” That man should’ve heard Jones’ performance; I bet he’d change his mind.

An emotional moment during the performance came about with a song called Mother’s Day. Jones revealed his disgust for “Hallmark Holidays” created to take advantage of consumers, but Mother’s Day is now a mournful reminder of his mother’s passing. He was writing the song when he got the call that she had passed, so he knew that particular song “would always be evocative of that moment.”

Jones complimented the Mission Creek sound tech, saying this was one of the best shows of the tour. The show was mellow, but I was incredibly impressed by both of the performers’ talent.

One of Jones’ last songs was a banjo piece, dedicated to Paul Metzger. After Metzger’s set, he sat in the booth directly in front of me, so I snapped a cute picture to highlight their friendship. It was a good show with expressive, pure music–now I’m going to go practice guitar so that maybe one day I can be half as good as Glenn Jones.

The post Mission Creek: Glenn Jones @ Trumpet Blossom 4/8/16 appeared first on KRUI Radio.