Beer Tasting? Yes please!

One of the perks of being friends with media people is they have fabulous events with fabulous little surprises even during fabulous recession-more-like-a-depression-times. That said, I want to tell you about the BEER TASTING Andie took me too last night at Gourmet Magazine.

Yes, you heard right, BEER TASTING. Can’t think of anything better? Nope, we can’t either.

So – the Beer tasting was in honor of/hosted by this guy named Justin Philips who has a little ”eating a drinking room” in Brooklyn called Beer Table that “serves rare and specialized” seasonal beers along with some tasty snacks. And let me just say – this dude knows his brew, and his nibbles. I had some of the best beers and best cheeses I’ve ever had last night.  For you beer and cheese lovers out there (and I know you exist, Wisconsin!) let me lay down a few faves for you:

First, the appetizers, we started with Beer Cheese, maybe the most unbelievable cheese I’ve ever tasted. Commonly made with soft cheese…and…um…beer…and…spices? It sort of speaks for itself, I guess. Anyway, the Beer Table people make their own version of it and I think I could probably eat about a pound of it if let loose in their kitchen.

Jesus God. Ok, secondly they had this homemade delicious ricotta cheese served on little lightly toasted baguettes and topped with almonds, black pepper and a little maple sugar:  unfortunately, I can’t show you a picture, but it was beautiful and it. was. DELICIOUS!!! a yummy sweet little treat which brings me to the beer:

We had six artisinal beers last night,  an assortment of IPAs, stouts, etc. made from small little independent breweries from all over the world.  They were all pretty good, flavorful and satisfying, but the one that stood out was the Hitachino Sweet Stout from Japan.

This beer was served with the ricotta appetizer and the pairing was incredible. The beer is made with lactose, which gives it a sweet sort of milky almost dark-chocolately flavor that really complimented the maple syrup. It was like having a dessert in a glass; Andie noted that it’d be a great substitute for a piece of cake or cup of ice cream after a meal and I have to say, I agree!

SO: survey says: we like beer tastings. I highly recommend attending one in the near future. So choice.

Happy weekend!

Smell ya later 08

Every New Years Day, my mom makes a big pot of black eyed peas and makes everyone who enters our home take a spoonful. “For good luck!” she claims. When I was a kid (and hated anything that was remotely related to the word “vegetable” or “healthy”) I had to hold my nose and shut my eyes to make sure she understood how incredibly awful that ONE BITE was. Did I mention I was a stubborn brat as a child?

Now that I’m older, wiser, and actually like veggies, I’m aching for my mama’s good-luck black eyed peas. I’m so not in the mood to do it the old fashioned way – I only have a few hours! Luckily, YumSugar had a great slideshow of BEP recipes for those superstitious southerners like me.

Before we go out, I’m having friends come over for a cheapo dinner of pizza, wine, beer, and – because you can’t party without it – chips, salsa and guacamole. I think I’ll also make these so everyone can have a little luck before we head into 2009. I have most of the stuff already. And everyone MUST have a bite.

Happy New Years! Ya’ll be safe now.

Adventures in Baking

I’m not a baker. AT ALL. My mother does the baking and somehow, I missed that gene. I’m much more inclined to make something I can mess up and it will still turn out yummy where as baking is such a science (and science and I don’t play nicely together) – a little extra of something and it goes to crap!

But I got invited to a Hannukkah party this Sunday at the boy’s parent’s house and I want to bring something. I always (always always) bring a bottle of wine and want to mix it up!

Slashfood had a cookie recipe this week for some cookies that looked so fool proof even the science-flunking nonbaker that I am could possibly maybe handle it. I don’t even need a mixer! And just one bowl!

Is this an appropriate thing to bring? I feel like if someone is nice enough to stink up their house making latkes, I should strap on an apron and say thank you the proper way, right?

Ya’ll bringing anything to a holiday party this weekend?

Cold Night Cooking

So there’s this recipe on Bon Appetit’s I’ve been flirting with for months. It’s the equivalent of a Facebook poke – I would see him online, consider making him, and then go back to my day and forget about him for months. But he was always there as a BA top recipe.

This past Friday, I made a bold move – I printed the recipe. When I went to a birthday dinner on Saturday night, I had something that sounded similar and it was so good I just had to take this relationship to the next level.

Enter The Asian Noodle Soup Bowl. He’s great for cuddling on the couch with a blanket and a good movie. He’ll even let you watch that chick flick again without complaint. And he won’t judge you for still watching The Hills.

I ended up riffing on this recipe. The lemongrass I hiked to Whole Foods for (in the 30-degree weather mind you) wasn’t mincing like I thought it should. This is a new ingredient for me but it just seemed off – I don’t think it had more than one layer to peel and the taste was weird – kinda chewy. I didn’t want to screw up this soup that I had been thinking about for days so I just decided to scrap the chewy lemongrass and go with lemon zest. Totally worked. But for future -anyone got any good lemongrass tips? What am I looking for? How is it supposed to taste? Why wouldn’t mine cut?!

The Goods

Everybody into the pool!!

The recipe took all of an hour (totally easy) and I think it turned out really fantastic! It was the perfect amount of soothing and comforting – I think the (light) coconut milk Padma loves so much helped richen the soup without making it too heavy. My only complaint is that it wasn’t spicy enough for me – I used a green curry paste instead of red, and I think this made it milder. I’ll up the curry or the chili paste next time.

Stay warm, kiddos!

Finished result - steamy bowl of yumminess. Would have gone great with a Sapporo Beer

-Andie

My First Attempt!

Tonight is my first attempt at making anything at all Thanksgivingy. Tonight I’m taking the first step towards making traditional Southern Cornbread Stuffing. YUM!

I say “first step” because all I’m making tonight is the cornbread. Why? Well, the stuffing tastes best when the cornbread has a chance to get a bit stale before it combines with all the liquidy goodness of the stuffing. So, tonight cornbread, tomorrow, the world!

TO BEGIN: the ingredients. Now, who can tell me what’s wrong with this picture?

If you said “all the labels are backwards,” then you get 10 points for noticing the oddities of Photobooth. That is not, however, the correct answer.

The correct answer is:

That box contains CORN STARCH not CORN MEAL and THANKFULLY I caught that before making beginning my recipe because, turns out, they aren’t the same thing (I know, I googled). Good thing I had my thinking cap on!

So: here is the actual sum of my cornbread ingredients

Great! Now, to give credit where credit is due (for ethical and legal reasons): I’m mixing recipes from two Food Network chefs, Emeril Lagasse and, one of my favorite ladies in the whole world, Paula Dean. Paula’s recipe calls for the following:

2 cups cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
4 eggs
4 TBSP veggie oil

Emeril’s recipe gave me two great additions to this recipe:

1 – Emeril suggests heating coating a cast iron skillet (I used a frying pan) with the 4 TBSP of oil and popping it in the oven while the oven pre-heats to 350. Emeril also adds 1/4 tsp of Cayenne pepper to his recipe, but I added 1/2 tsp because I’m a Texas girl and I like it spicy!

So, we combine all the dry ingredients (the cornmeal, flour and Cayenne) and stir. Then we add the buttermilk and the eggs so the pictures looks like a less blurry version of the following:

k, great. Now mix it all together, then get your oiled up pan out of the oven (its hot!) and pour the batter in. Then just let it cook for 20 minutes!

When it comes out, it should look like this:

beautiful! See how the bread looks like its just floating in the middle of the pan? That’s because of that oil we heated up! It acted like a border between the pan and the bread and it also gave the cornbread a beautiful crust. See!?

nyum nyum

This cornbread could not have been easier to make! The hardest part will be waiting until tomorrow to make the rest of the stuffing.

Til then!

-Allie