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This three ingredient recipe will change cheese and crackers from “Ho-hum” to “Woohoo!”

raspberry bourbon sauce

Four or so years ago, my husband and I made our first step toward our current empty nesting. With no kids living at home with us full-time, we sold our five-bedroom home and moved to a three-bedroom loft in an old mill building. However, there was a one month gap between our home selling and our apartment being ready. For that month we lived in a hotel. In that time I managed to “cook” several meals. They weren’t off the charts, but they definitely were respectable, considering my appliance and kitchen tool options.

From the wayback time machine

To learn more about this recipe, originally published in December 2016, keep reading.

I was insistent that living in a hotel for a month would not mean that we would need to cancel Tapas Monday. Yes, there occasionally have been Mondays where life got in the way of our candlelight dinner for two, but hotel life wasn’t going to be a barrier. For the first two Mondays we simply took tapas to a restaurant. We ordered shared plates and wine, had our individual tapas topics, and chose quiet, corner tables. By our third Monday at the hotel, I decided that I wanted to try and have tapas in our room.

I chose a simple game plan- charcuterie. Cheese, meat, pickled veggies, and bread are easy to serve in a hotel. Kind of. We had to make do with plastic knives to slice the cheese and sausage and plastic cups for the prosecco, but all things considered it was a success.

Whenever I choose charcuterie as our Tapas Monday menu, I try to incorporate something homemade, no matter how small. For the hotel version of this dinner I had the added difficulty of needing to make something in the microwave. The easiest thing that came to mind was some sort of fruit spread or sauce that could be served as a topping for the cheese or bread.

Raspberries (or blackberries) were the natural choice, as they break down easily with heat, provide a little bit of liquid, and thicken nicely without needing to add cornstarch. Having made this sauce, I may try it again when I have my normal kitchen. The taste of bourbon was a tad weak, but I was hesitant to add more bourbon and have the sauce thin out. Cooking on a stovetop I would be able to let the sauce simmer and boil off excess liquid but add more bourbon flavor.

Of course, once I have a kitchen again, I think my tapas menu is going to involve a whole bunch of cooking, using as many utensils and appliances as my heart desires.

If you have a few more kitchen tools than a microwave, these Bourbon Apples make for a fine fruit and bourbon topping.