Cocktail sauce is one of those things, like salad dressings, that is so easy to make at home and yet so much more delicious than store bought that once you do it, you’ll never want to buy it pre-made again.

Cocktail Sauce

• 1 cup ketchup
• 1 tbsp horseradish
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1-2 tbsp lemon or lime juice
• 1 tsp worchestershire sauce
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne

1. Combine all ingredients to taste.
2. Start with the above (or less) measurements then add a little at a time til it’s as tangy and spicy as you like it.

If you want tongue tingles, add more horseradish.  If you want spice and hotness add a bit more cayene.  Add more ketchup to tone it down and add sweetness.  Lemon or lime juice makes it tangier and more acidic.  Play around with the ingredients until you get it just the way you like it.  I add more cayenne and horseradish to taste.

Beyond Merlot Series

Some wines are hard for me to enjoy.  On their own they can be too lackluster-Merlot or Pinots-or too overwhelming-like many Syrahs, to my taste.  What is mediocre alone, however, becomes deliciously complex when combined.  Some of my favorite wines are blends.  Lucky for me, blends are the scruffy mutts of the wine world, often suffering the degradation of the cheap aisle. While I usually prefer simple combinations of two or maybe three wines, Joe Blow Red is a hodge podge of Syrah, Petite Syrah, Merlot, Zinfandel, and Cabernet Sauvignon.  Which works for it.  The bold, spicy wines are tempered by the softer, fruitier grapes.  This wine was fruity and smooth, with just enough acid to keep it interesting.  It is easy to drink, not syrupy sweet, and at $7 a bottle worth another buy.

If you are new around here you may not be familiar with the Beyond Merlot series.  The last post I wrote for it was in October last year.  It didn’t seem very popular and then the recession started to make itself felt around here.  I just didn’t think much about writing about wine.  Not that we aren’t enjoying a glass of wine these days, only our choices have been limited to the under $10 a bottle area of the store.

So how do you feel about Beyond Merlot?  Are you interested in wine recommendations from the cheap aisle?  Are you interested in wine at all?

Anyone who knows me knows that I eat a lot.  I eat often throughout the day to keep my energy up and the headaches away, and so I try to eat relatively small meals and snacks when I do.  For example, Breakfast can stretch over four hours.  I wake up and have a latte.  An hours or so later when I start to feel hungry I eat a banana.  Another hour or so later I eat this little yogurt parfait.  A few hours after that it’s lunch time and so on…

I haven’t posted this before because it is barely a recipe.  I use a less sweetened version of my dessert berry topping, my favorite yogurt, and a crunchy topping-voila! Yogurt Parfait.  This breakfast actually evolved from an attempt to add more fruit and vegetable servings to my overall day.  Instead of eating yogurt alone, I started adding the frozen berries and a little fiberific crunchy contrast.

Buy a bag of frozen mixed berries (I buy the organic since they are so much cheaper than fresh organic berries) place them in a seal-able container and sprinkle 2 tbsp to 1/4 cup of sugar over (no need to thaw).  You can leave them on the counter and they will start to thaw and produce juices in about an hour or you can pop them in the fridge and they’ll be ready to go in the morning.

Next I use 0% fat Greek yogurt.  I like the Greek yogurt because it is thick and custardy while still being fat-free, also the amount of protein per serving is much higher than regular yogurt.  It also has less sugar.  I like to use either plain yogurt or vanilla flavored, mrChaos prefers the vanilla.  I add about two tablespoons but you can control the sweetness of your parfait either by adding more or less berries and juices or more heavily sweetening the berries.

On top I usually sprinkle about two tablespoons of grape-nuts, crunchy granola or even a crushed granola bar in a pinch.  Just watch your topping since this is where the calories can really come in.

The end result is a healthy breakfast that feels like a special treat.  The berries will keep in the fridge for about a week and I get about 6-8 breakfasts from a 10 ounce bag.  They will continue to produce juices as they are sitting so they can be stretched pretty far. Click here for the recipe »

We’ll be in Hawaii for my mother’s birthday this year, so I will have to wait to bake her this cake.

To learn how make this awesome carrot cake go here.