A New Year's Espresso Kahlua Granita!

I should now declare to everyone that is willing to listen that I have had some really bad New Year's Eves. They range from the bizarre to the hilarious in retrospect but rather dismal on the night. There was the time when I went to Queen Viv's house and came across her flatmate-a disagreeable beast who loathed me on sight. In the middle of dinner she took a shower, came out in a white bathrobe and then proceeded to get even more drunk and well you may know where this is headed...

There she was sitting on the chair stark naked under her bathrobe. Her arms were flailing and her bathrobe went askew with every gesture. Then the robe fell open with her sprawled legs and she pointed her lady parts at me while I tried to carry on a conversation with everyone else in the room while simultaneously facing away from them-not an easy thing to do. It has now been referred to as the "white bathrobe" incident. And this is apropos of nothing but the white bathrobe lady is an in-law of one of the biggest directors in the world today, and I have no doubt that he won't be casting her in anything unless it is as "the hot mess".

So you see I don't hold much hope for New Year's Eves. I thought of Queen Viv who told me last week that she finds it hard to stay awake. Well for me, I find it hard to drink since I am such a lightweight and really only like sweet alcoholic drinks. I thought of a way to cater to both of us-and that was with an espresso Kahlua granita served with ice cream. I found inspiration in one of the cookbooks I was sent over Christmas, the Kitchen Coquette. Knowing that espresso and Kahlua would help keep sleepy souls awake and keep sweet loving souls soused, it was an easy choice.

The granita didn't set quite solid as it had alcohol in it and the photo in the recipe looked nothing like it-perhaps another example of something used for styling but not being the actual recipe, I'm not sure. However the taste of the sweet granita and creamy ice cream was a lovely pairing. If you want a crunchy, hard granita, I would omit the kahlua to get a granita that sets hard and make and pour a little of the Kahlua over the ice cream at the end.

This year we will be no doubt improve on past NYEs but I did want to share with you a picture from the blooper reel this past year. I thought that the photo above was so funny that I laughed for a good ten minutes before forwarding it to Mr NQN. I had effectively photobombed a lovely touristy group photo of everyone smiling by looking like a complete b***h! Everyone else but me and the confused looking gentleman at the left looks happy. Mr NQN was in hysterics as he knows how I am not at one with adventure or nature but I doth protest, I actually was having a good time at this point and the camera merely captured my annoyance at forgetting my sunglasses. Nevertheless, this is going up on the photo wall in the house :)

I hope you all have a lovely New Year's Eve, and I sincerely hope that none of you get flashed by inebriated messes-unless of course that is your intention. I'm not judging! ;)

So tell me Dear Reader, what is the best and worst NYE you've ever had? And have you ever been flashed by someone?

Espresso Martini Granita

Adapted from Kitchen Coquette by Katrina Meynink, published by Allen & Unwin $39.99

Serves 4

• 1 cup water

• 1/2 cup caster or superfine sugar

• 1/2 cup espresso (I used my Nespresso CitiZ with the new seasonal "dark chocolate" coffee pod)

• 1/2 cup Kahlua or Baileys

• Four scoops of ice cream to serve (I used some Booza ice cream balls in halva flavour)

• chocolate shavings to serve

Step 1 - In a small saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the water and bring to the boil until it becomes syrupy-about 5 minutes or so will do. Add the espresso and Kahlua or Baileys and mix and cool. Freeze in a freezer proof container or a rectangular metal tray until it becomes crystals and break up with a fork -repeat this once or twice over the next few hours. Serve in individual glasses with a scoop of ice cream and chocolate shavings.