A Kale and Cilantro Birthday Party

I just celebrated my birthday, and had a little impromptu cocktail hour. What goes better with fancy drinks than some vegetable treats.

Bouquet of Cilantro

I've been getting large bunches of cilantro in the box for a while and usually make salsa. This time when I saw the cilantro, I had thoughts of turning it into some sort of a birthday cocktail. I found this cocktail that I used as inspiration. When I found the recipe I didn't realize that one drink requires one cup of cilantro, which consequently I ran out. Instead of tequila we used Bacardi Limon but mixed with simple syrup, lime, strawberries, and cilantro, while tasty, was really syrupy. We than opted for a champagne (sparkling wine) cocktail mixed with everything (except the rum) and it was delightful.

The muddled cilantro, strawberries, and lime.

The drink came out a pretty light pink color and the cilantro gave a nice surprise amongst the sweetness of strawberry and sugar. I would make this again during the summer and forgo the alcohol and use sparkling water or make a strawberry cilantro lemonade. That sounds delicious right now. I did realize that in this new year I will not become a mixologist, I am going to leave that to the pros, but it was fun to experiment.

I also made some kale chips, which I have made plenty of times before but somehow have never put them on the blog. They are easy to make, crunchy and delicious. All you do is take your destemmed kale and coat in a little bit of olive oil. Put on two baking sheets in a single layer at 250 degrees and let them crisp for about a half hour. One of the sheets got a little more brown then the other because we were sharing oven space. They are not as pretty as the others but they still taste just as good.

Kale chips in their crispy glory.

This is the latest box. It if full of lots of dark greens and purples. If you read this and live in Long Beach consider joining the CSA. There has been low turnout of late and it would be disappointing to have the Long Beach drop off stop. If interested please go to South Central Farms.

The box of pretty purples and green.

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