The first thing I made was my punch. :) If you have ever been to one of our parties, you have mostly tried one of my punches. I was going to do the pink lemonade margarita punches I made last time, but since everything else was vodka based, I opted to do my usual "super bowl" punch. I call it a superbowl punch because the first time I (remember) making it was when the Seahawks were playing against the Steelers... (and were robbed)! Anywho... enough about that. I sadly didn't take any pictures of this punch, and I was REALLY surprised at how fast it went! It usually lasts awhile, but that night it was gone probably within 1-2 hours. Here is the recipe:
1 can of pink lemonade from concentrate (thawed)
1 can of raspberry lemonade from concentrate (thawed)
a fifth of vodka
a bottle of champagne
Mix it all together and when you serve it, but a scoop of sherbert ice cream on top! It is delicious! It's strong... but it actually tastes really good, too. I made the mistake the first time I ever made this by using 100 proof vodka. I wouldn't recommend that if you want your guests to be able to drive home (and not get sick)!
I also made Vodka Slushies! They were tasty as well, and pretty easy to make! My freezer isn't big enough to hold a large casserole dish flat so I dumped the ingredients into a 2.5 qt. deep baking dish. Again... I forgot to take pictures because it went so fast! Everyone really liked the texture and flavor! I put these in when I started my last batch of jello shots (see below).
For this recipe you use 48 oz (or 1.5 qts) of cranberry juice, two cups of vodka, and one can of orange juice (thawed) from concentrate. Mix it all up and put it in the freezer.
I have friends who like tart things and they LOVED this! It was a bit too tart for me, so I mixed in some triple sec (so it's almost like a sex on the beach slushie) and it was also really yummy!
The jello shots were a process... I probably spent over 3 hours making jello shots this year
They look really cool... I know. And they are SUPER easy to eat. I made 72 jello shots in 4 different flavors. It was a process though.
To start off, I used two different pages for the idea. I originally used This blog for the idea. However, I really didn't like all of the extra pulp in the orange peel. It was a pain, and it was REALLY REALLY messy!! So since we had bought a box of oranges from Costco I was also going to try this orange candle idea. It seemed simple enough, and I was curious if it would work (and how good it would smell)! More on the candle later.
Jello shots in and of themselves are super easy to make. You follow the recipe on the box and when it calls for cold water you add cold vodka instead. If it's one cup of boiling water and once up of cold water, you use one cup of boiling water and one cup of cold vodka instead. That's the easy part!
The first batch I used the original idea for scooping it out, at least for the first orange. I realized how messy it was and quickly switched to the candle method. Here is what you do:
Take an orange:
Cut the peel in half. JUST THE RIND! If you cut through into the orange it gets messy again. Then you insert your thumbs into the peel and slowly peel away from the orange. You have to be careful so you don't tear through the peel though, otherwise you just wasted an orange. After the first batch I realized there was going to be a problem with this.... If you cut the orange in half there will ALWAYS be a whole in one of the halves... It took me 3 oranges to figure this out. So the raspberry batch had a few small jello shots (since they leaked into the bottom of the pan).
What you do instead is cut it in half, but do it by starting on one of the "holes" at either the top or bottom. After you do that, there is no more leaking! A batch of emptied out oranges will look like this:
You'll notice there isn't much orange. It's been taken out!
Then you fill the orange with your jello:
(This would be 3 of the batches chilling)
If you notice in the picture above the back right orange had a small tear in the side when I was peeling it off of the orange, it is smaller, and leaked all over the pan. Sad
And tada! The jello is done, several hours later... I would recommend letting them chill at LEAST 4 hours to make sure they are easier to cut when you are ready to serve them.
These were a hit for everyone at the party. ALL of them were gone! Usually when I make shots in dixie cups we have leftovers. Not that night!
As for the orange candle. It looked really cool, but it didn't smell like anything. We used olive oil to burn it. Here are some pictures:
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