*PEW PEW* !!! ELECTRIC LEMONADE !!! *PEW PEW*

This past weekend we had a garage sale party:



The second customer of the day came SPECIFICALLY for the nipple clamps. It was a great moment in garage sale history.

And at said garage sale party, I served Electric Lemonade, from the newest issue of Bust Magazine.

And it was a HIT.

Some said they liked it better than mojitos.

Some said they liked it better than sex.

Some said they liked it better than mojitos + sex with your mom + $1000.

None of the people who said this were me, mostly because I was too busy drinking them to say anything really.

I didn't take a picture, so the following picture is a simulation of Electric Lemonade:



Please note: Your Electric Lemonade will not shoot neon blue bolts of electricity as featured in the picture above. And the neon blue bolts of lightning that it DOESN'T shoot won't make a shooting noise that sounds like PEW! PEW! (Though if you drink enough of these, it might start to look and sound like it's doing both these things.)

Here's the off-the-top-of-my-head recipe. Obviously you can tweak measurements to taste.

INGREDIENTS:

• Vodka


• Lemonade (homemade or storebought--whatevs)


• Ginger ale


• Fresh mint


• Limes


• Ice

DIRECTIONS

Throw ice in a glass. Fill the glass about 1/3 full with vodka. Fill the remaining 2/3 with lemonade (but leave about an inch of room at the top for ginger ale). Top off with your ginger ale. Toss in a few sprigs of mint and some slices of lime. Swirl. And: PEW PEW PEW!

Black Punch and Disembodied Hand

My other favoritest item of Campy Horror Movie Night was a punch I made. I rarely drink pop anymore--I gave it up around the time I started eating vegan. But I couldn't pass this one up as it looks creepy and was almost idiotically simple to make.

I modified it from the original recipe some (it originally called for an additional two fricking cups of sugar, but on top of 4 liters of pop, that sounded like it might induce a sugar-coma, so I steared clear), so I'm not gonna try to track the original down again. But if you're gonna make this, you must *DEFINITELY* go with the ice-cube hand as well, because, well, it makes the fricking punch.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 unsweetened packet of grape Koolaid


• 1 unsweetened packet of orange Koolaid


• 2 Liter Pepsi (or Coke)


• 2 Liter ginger ale (I think I used Canada Dry)


• 4 c. cold water


• 1 or 2 vinyl gloves (obviously, the ones that aren't powdered inside)


• 1 bottle of rum

DIRECTIONS
Giving them enough time to freeze (overnight or so), fill up one or two vinyl gloves with water and tie the ends off. Toss in freezer (on a solid and not slatted-surface).

Mix all your ingredients together carefully in a punch-bowl. Remove frozen hand from freezer. Run it carefully under cool water. Cut off the end and slowly and carefully remove the glove from the ice cube. Toss in the bowl. It melts, but not as terribly quickly as the original recipe stated (the fingers go first of course), so you may wanna wait until enough people get to your party to toss it into your bowl, that way it can be appreciated in all its gruesome glory.

Place your bottle of rum on the side, that way people can either drink the punch in its virgin state or lube it up a bit and get plastered.

The best part of it all is that it tastes like Pixie Stix!

Orange-Bourbon Shishkabobs w/ Tofurkey Kielbasa, Blueberry and Wild-Rice Salad, and Mint Juleps, to Boot!

As mentioned earlier in the week, Saturday night I had plans to party it up Mark-Twain-style, and so we busted out the barbecue, the mint juleps, and the Mark Twain and had ourselves a sweltering, church-going, plantation kind of night! Why, you ask? Well, mostly just because I wanted to try out this Orange-Bourbon Marinade recipe I'd stumbled across and wanted to use for shishkabobs, which meant buying some bourbon, which in turn meant finding uses for bourbon, which in turn meant finally trying a damn mint julep, which in turn meant (of course) reading some Mark Twain.

Saturday afternoon, I whipped up this extremely simple (but flavorful) marinade and tossed some baby 'bellas, onion chunks, and diced up tofu into it to marinate throughout the afternoon and into the evening. I also boiled up some red baby potatoes so that we could throw them on the skewers as well and they wouldn't take excessively-long to grill.


ULTIMATE INGREDIENTS OF THE SHISHKABOBS:

Extra-firm tofu, chunks of onions, and baby 'bellas, all marinated in the Orange-Bourbon Marinade
One red-pepper, chunked
One green-pepper, chunked
5 red baby potatoes (pre-cooked and sliced in two)

Orange-Bourbon Marinade: RECIPE

E also found himself with a hankering for kielbasa that afternoon, so he picked up some Tofurkey kielbasa for us to grill up as well, along with a homemade batch of peasant-bread that he'd made the night before.


To top all that off, I picked up some no-cook fresh ears of corn at the market on Friday--I love this corn way the hell up... It is so gloriously sweet and tender that you can eat it right off the cob without ever needing to cook it. If you haven't tried it, you must.

And finally, I whipped up a batch of Blueberry and Wild-Rice Salad that I'd also been eyeing all week, and damn was it good. The most complicated part about the recipe was the dressing, but it was well-worth the grating effort. The only adjustments I made (or would make in the future) were that I used a variety of dried fruit (since I didn't wanna spend $6+ on buying a bag of apricots and a bag of cranberries) and in the future, I would probably cut the amount of oil in the dressing in half (if not more) as it was much greasier than it needed to be, especially for a fruit and rice salad. But seriously, well-worth the time and effort as it was wonderfully flavorful and summery-tasting.


Blueberry and Wild-Rice Salad: RECIPE

And of course, the night wouldn't've been complete without some homemade mint juleps... Man alive, these babies were strong--I'd imagine there's a helluva lot of drunken southern ladies sitting out on their porches, fanning themselves desperately on a nightly-basis if these really are the cat's pajamas down south. =)


INGREDIENTS (For one mint julep):

Ice
3 oz Jim Beam bourbon
5+ sprigs of fresh mint
1 t. sugar

Mix and try to make it through to that last sip, as it is the best one.

All in all it was a very spirited and fun evening, and I'd definitely recommend both recipes for grilling out with friends or family. I'd've said all that in a mock-southern drawl, but you'd just end up making fun of me. =)

OBLIGATORY READING: "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain