Shirley Temple Recipe (Non-alcoholic)

Ingredients

1/2 cup lemon lime soda (7-up/Spritz-up)
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon grenadine

Optional:
1 maraschino cherry or orange slice for garnish
ice cubes for coolness

Instructions (easy)

1. Pour lemon lime soda into a clear glass
2. Add orange juice
3. Add grenadine (it will sink to the bottom)
4. Optional: gently add a few ice cubes on top so that the layers aren't disturbed.
5. Optional: Garnish with maraschino cherry or a slice of orange
6. Enjoy!

If you just follow the instructions above, your Shirley Temple will be orange on top, and reddish orange on the bottom half. If you want to make the different layers of ingredients more separated from each other so that it looks even prettier for serving to guests, this is how to do it:

Instructions for more separated colours (advanced)

1. Pour lemon lime soda into a clear glass
2. Pour the orange juice carefully down the side (inside) of the glass. It will mix with the soda, but most of it will sit under the soda layer. You will find it easier to tilt your glass a little before you pour in the orange juice.
   
3. Drop half of the grenadine down the center of the glass, and run the other half down the side of the glass. The center drop will mix with the lower half of the orange juice, but the portion that was run down the side of the glass will sit under the orange juice and create a darker red base. If you drop all of the grenadine down the side of the glass, it will stay there and only mix a little with the orange juice, but you won't have as much flavour throughout your drink unless you mix the layers. So it's better to do half-half.
4. Optional: Very gently place a few ice cubes on top of the drink so that the layers aren't disturbed.
5. Optional: Garnish with a maraschino cherry or a slice of orange.
   
6. Impress your friends and enjoy!
   

Notes

• Make one before your party, mix it up, and taste it. Experiment with different amounts of the ingredients to see if you like more or less of each ingredient. For instance, you might like more grenadine or more orange juice.
• Some recipes use ginger ale instead of lemon-lime soda. You can try that if you have some ginger ale handy and see if you like that better. You could also experiment with adding a little ginger ale to the current recipe to give it little kick.
  
• If you're holding a big party and you won't want to bother with making everyone a glass of Shirley Temple. You can consider making a glass pitcher and multiplying the ingredients to fit into your pitcher. Your pitcher will sit nicely on display for everyone to ooh and aah at, but you don't have to keep mixing the drinks up for everyone all night. I would recommend the easy recipe for this since it will keep the flavours more mixed up so that each poured glass will taste right, instead of the first glasses being all orange juice and soda with very little grenadine flavouring.
• This would be a good drink for a kid's party!

Cheers!

Twilight Night With The Girls

Tonight was Twilight Night! Two of my girlfriends and I got together and we watched the first two Twilight films so that we can refresh our memories (and geek out) before we watch the third one coming out soon. I know, I know, you're shaking your head and wondering why I've gone and lost my mind like this, but it was really fun!

We've all watched the movies before so we could chat and comment about the different scenes and actors throughout and no one minded one bit. You can't do that in a real movie theater - people would stare you down and yell at you! Instead, we chatted happily and nibbled on nachos, veggies and dip, chicken strips, wings, sausage rolls, tea cakes with homemade jam... (I've GOT to learn how to make some homemade jam of my own, it was so good!) Oh, and I made Shirley Temples!
I was looking for a red, Twilight-themed drink, but I came across Shirley Temples and they looked so cheery that I couldn't resist making some for the party. I'll post the instructions for how to make one soon. We did a lot of experimenting so that we could get the look and taste of it just right :)
Heh, and I made some Twilight-themed matchbook notebooks. I thought it would be nice to have a little treat/present for each of them since they were so nice to geek it out with me. I do love the Twilight series so much!I hope you're having a lovely weekend with your dear family and friends.

Cheerio!