2 recipes from a blender

Man.  Blenders and food processors are great.  Don't ever let anyone bullshit you into thinking they're not, because once you have one (or both), you'll never look back.  Yes, there's lots of components to clean, and yes, there's blades that can slice up your fingers, but if you don't feel like chopping, dicing, or mixing, these will do all of that work for you.  You can taste as you go, and change the flavor profile of a sauce or drink with just the touch of a button.  Here are two of my favorites:


The best peanut sauce ever...

I don't know if any of you readers own the Moosewood Cookbook, but I found a copy of an older edition awhile back, and I found a recipe for fragrant rice noodles with peanut sauce.  This is one of the simplest, most delicious peanut sauces I have ever made. You'll need:

1/2 c. peanut butter (the original recipe calls for creamy, but I prefer chunky)
1 scant c. vegetable broth
2 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. salt, soy sauce or fish sauce (I strongly prefer the third option)
the juice from 1/2 lime, along with most of the rind, grated
3 gloves of garlic (or 4, if you're like me)

Throw ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend. 

This is tremendously versatile and quick.  I like to add cilantro and ginger to mine, but you could also add white wine, beer or coconut milk as part of the liquid or maybe some Sriracha or other hot sauce to make it zingy.  Typically, I eat this on rice noodles or Asian wheat noodles, but it would be reeeeallly tasty as a dip for grilled chicken or shrimp, or possibly as a marinade (you'd probably need some more liquid if that were the case).

A drink the whole family will enjoy...

Irish cream!  A friend made a bunch for a Christmas party, and my grandmother makes it at home, so I wanted to try my hand at it, too.  I went to go find some whiskey for this a couple of weeks ago, and when I asked an employee at Pearson's what he recommended (I hate whiskey unless it's mixed with lots of stuff, and thus I know nothing about it), he got down a bottle of Bailey's and said, rather condescendingly, "Well you know...this stuff is called Bailey's, and it's a pre-mixed Irish cream..."  Wellll no shit, Sherlock.  Did he really think I had never heard of Bailey's?  I adore car bombs and Irish coffee. But where's the fun in just buying a bottle?

There's a way to make this with eggs (my grandma does), and I imagine that would make it thicker, but I didn't feel like straining it or making a mess, so I opted for the simpler version, found on allrecipes.com.

Take:

1 c. cream (light or heavy--I used light to make it less rich)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 - 2 c. Jameson's, or whatever whiskey you have on hand (how much you add depends on how much you like whiskey)
1 tsp. instant coffee granules (I thought it needed more, but I love coffee)
2 tbsp. chocolate syrup (mine was homemade--probably should have added a touch more)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
A dash of cinnamon would be really good in this

Slop all of the ingredients in a blender, blend, pour contents into an old bottle.  Bring to a party where everyone is so liquored up that they forget it's there so that you look like a good house guest, then take it home and enjoy it as a dessert for a couple of months to come.  I like to mix this with coffee and Kahlua.  In fact, I'm drinking it as I write this.