The Cauliflower Experience (Part 2)

I really thought we'd struggle to eat two entire heads of cauliflower but (!! spoiler alert ahead !!) after two nights they are almost gone. That just goes to show you that anything is possible if you put your mind (and belly) to it.



Jen is winding down her 27th week of pregnancy and the babies are the size of two heads of organic cauliflower. The organic really matters. It's like one of those recipes that specifies the brand of oat flakes you use. No other brand will work!



I took last night's roasted cauliflower, pepper, asparagus, and onion and tossed them with some chopped lettuce, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper for a starter.



For the main course cooked down some cauliflower, garlic, and onion in butter and olive oil. I put in some chicken stock from the freezer, reduced it down, then added a little milk and pureed in the whole thing with my immersion blender. The whole dish could have used a little sprinkling of chives or green onion or something but I was somewhat limited by the contents of our fridge and my newfound love for saving money.



Since I am always hesitant about pairing beer with soup I settled down with this Old Chub Scotch Ale from Oskar Blues after dinner. This was an extremely well-brewed Scotch Ale and I enjoyed it immensely. Pouring beer from a can into a tulip glass still feels strange. With the way craft cans are going I guess I will get used to it in time.



Since the NHL refused to take our offer of $30 a month to be able to watch the playoffs we have resorted to websites that will stream the games. The quality is actually remarkably good and it's $30 less a month than we were prepared to spend!

Thanks organized professional sports for being so stupid and short-sighted! It's saved us a ton of money!

Go, our favorite sports team, go!

The Cauliflower Experience (Part 1)

We're starting to near the end of Jen's twenty-seventh week of pregnancy. Last week I opted for lettuce because the other produce-pregnancy chart recommended cucumber. This week was easy because both charts I follow came to a rare consensus: cauliflower. It's still curious to me how they compile these lists since I think eggplant is often more sizable than cauliflower. However, so long as I ignore the fact that cucumbers exist (something I do on a daily basis) I feel that we are on good footing.



This week Jen is the host to two heads of cauliflower. Since the farm share has not started for the season I could still make the ill-informed decision to purchase two entire heads of cauliflower in honor of the babies and then figure out how we are going to eat that much cauliflower later.



Before figuring out what to do with that much cauliflower I put together this salad with red leaf lettuce, D'Anjou pear, blue cheese, grape tomato, salt, pepper, and olive oil.



I ended up roasting the cauliflower in the oven with some onion, red pepper, asparagus, and olive oil until the cauliflower had browned slightly. It's hard to tell in the picture but this dish was mostly cauliflower.



For the main course I was impressed with some Dover Sole that I spotted at my local fishmongerie so I picked some up, seasoned it with a little Old Bay, dredged it lightly in flour, and pan fried it with butter and olive oil. I served it with chopped up avocado, lime juice, and cilantro, some leftovers from our recent Cinco de Mayo festivities.

And by festivities I mean lame Saturday night at home.



For beer I tried this new Organic IPA from Napa Smith Brewery. Well, it's new to me, anyway. I hadn't seen this in New York until a few weeks ago and now it seems to be popping up everywhere. It's a pretty tasty IPA, though I may be starting to settle in to IPA fatigue. I've really gained a solid appreciation of the style in the past year or two but it's starting to get a little overwhelming how many there are these days. This was a very enjoyable beer and the first beer I've had that features my initials on the bottle.



The other day on our exhausting 20 minute stay at the local mall we were ambushed by some Girl Scouts who sold us three boxes of their cookies. This was considerably easier than last year when we made the stupid decision to make our own Girl Scout cookies. While the results were delicious I can't recommend it as an alternative to buying actual Girl Scout cookies. They may be a little more delicious when they're home made but the deliciousness comes at a huge cost and that cost comes in the form of a significantly higher price tag and the loss of two afternoons.

Combined we were only able to consume about half of a cauliflower so it looks like we've got our work cut out for us for the rest of the week.

Jen's really going to hate this.

Cinco de Blanco

Today began with us taking our first class on how to birth some babies. I was disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the class was great. It was really informative and the woman who taught it was amazing. However, I've spent my entire life being shown what these classes are like in the movies and this class just didn't deliver on that level. We never got onto the floor on mats nor did she teach us how to breath really fast like hee, hee, hee, hee, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo.

There was a part where we practiced how to moan though. That was awesome.

After returning home and watching the hockey game the Kentucky Derby took over our television sets. We were too tired to do anything about it. I figured I'd be able to watch a three minute horse race even though I cared about it so little. After watching some guys yap on and on about horses and furlongs Jen noticed the something we'd overlooked in the corner of the screen.



That's right. There were over three hours to go until the derby started. That's when we turned off the TV and took a nap.



I started off tonight by making a virgin margarita for Jen. After all today was Cinco de Mayo. Since we have never met a foolish made up holiday we didn't like I decided to make something vaguely Mexican for dinner. One day there will be a made up holiday for every ethnicity in America so that Americans can get drunk and fetishize a different group of people.

That's part of what makes America great.



We had to go to the mall today to pick out some fabric swatches for the baby's room so I took advantage of this trip to try to find a tortilla press. Unfortunately I came up empty. This left me pressing my tortillas between two cutting boards with a small pan. This did not yield the thinness I desired but it was a passable technique in the absence of a press.



After cooking the tortillas on my pizza stone I put out a spread with chips, refried beans, pulled chicken tossed with spices, guacamole, salsa, and cilantro.

I also made queso blanco which was a little more queso clumpo than I had hoped. I didn't really have the appropriate cheese so I tried melting some queso fresco down with milk, onion, smoked paprika, chili powder, a splash of hot sauce, and cumin. The flavor was excellent thought he texture was sort of like cottage cheese.



The finished tacos were quite good. The tortillas did not have the texture of little old Mexican lady that could have improved them but they were as passable as you could hope from a French Canadian/Italian kid from Rhode Island.



Mexico is not a country I associate with fine beer production. I could simply be misinformed since the only exposure I have is to the beers that are imported to America. What I've tried so far has not impressed me greatly.

I wanted to go with a Mexican beer that I'd never tried before for tonight's meal, however, since I couldn't find one even at the huge liquor emporium I opted to go with this Sol from Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma. I haven't had this beer since the 1990s and I certainly have not blogged about it since blogs did not exist at that time.

This beer tasted pretty much like any other Mexican lager I've ever had. I thought I detected a slight soapy scent from the yeast but I think it was because I had just chopped a whole bunch of cilantro. Then I thought I smelled lime but I think it was because I'd just sliced some lime for Jen's margarita.

At the end of the day I don't think it tasted like much. However, that tends to work well with spicy food. It was extremely easy to drink which was fine with me.

I needed a night off from all those complicated beers.

Sit and Spin . . . and GRILL!

One of the things I really love about my new grill is that it comes ready to attach a rotisserie! No sooner had I figured that out than I ordered one and received it in the mail, the thoughts of spit-cooked meats dancing in my mind.



I imagined this would be idyllic like that time Jamie Oliver found a 100-year-old antique wind up spit roaster and cooked a leg of lamb over a trench he dug in the ground and filled with coals. It wasn't quite the same, rather it was a grill wheeled out behind a garage with an extension cord dangling on the side, but it was still one of the meals I've been the most excited about making in a long, long time.



It was not actually that idyllic. This one ran on electricity. Electricity that was not as available outside as I had assumed it would be. I worked around this by connecting two extension cords together and dangling them out my window to power the thing.

I'm glad I made the decision to get the plug in version. While this is not ideal it is better than having batteries die mid roast and having a chicken that is raw on one side and burned on the other. However it was raining today so the chances of being electrocuted were dramatically higher than with a battery operated model.



The end results were impressive. While no chicken can compare to the Cob Cob Chicken I made for Passover, this chicken turned out great. I seasoned it with salt and pepper and put it on the spit for two hours on the lowest burner setting. The meat was tender and moist and the skin crispy and delicious.



I made a salad with blue cheese dressing, cornbread, and this baked potato with sour cream and tons of chopped avocado as an accompaniment.



For a drink I thought this Porter from Founders Brewing Co. would go down nicely with some roasted chicken. I was right. At 6.5% ABV it was one of the lowest alcohol beers I've had in a long time. I could have easily gone for another but I rarely buy more than one of the same beer. This beer had nice roasted coffee notes and a dark chocolate bitterness.

This beer was dark, rich, and sexy, much like the wealthy baroness displayed on the bottle. I haven't had a porter in a while and I'd recommend this one strongly for any meal of grilled meats or rich creamy cheeses.

I'd also recommend it to oil tycoons looking to make an honest woman their wife.

Radi-Asian

Tonight the babies made no special requests through their mother so I was left to freestyle a bit. I opted to go vegan tonight, something I thought the babies (moreso their mother) may not be entirely on board for, mostly because it involved no cheese. Mom was fairly amenable to this when she heard of my plan but was predictably displeased with the lack of cheese.



For salad I started off by shredding some iceberg lettuce and carrot and tossing with scallion, red onion, sesame seeds, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sichuan pepper.



I cooked up some soba noodles and made a peanut ginger sauce with peanut butter, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, hot sauce, and mirin. I tossed in some steamed broccoli, and chopped scallions and served the dish at room temperature.



Since it was a seasonable night I fired up the grill and grilled up some pressed tofu with I marinated in sesame oil and soy sauce and served with a liberal coating of sweet chili sauce.



During the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March of 2011 the Kiuchi Brewerywas in the middle of making a batch of their weizen beer. The disaster shut down the plant and left a mash tun full of mash which began to ferment over the three days they were without power. After getting back in the plant they completed the brewing process and bottled the beer. There were only 8,000 bottles made and I was lucky enough to get a bottle!

The obvious question is: isn't this beer radioactive? The not-so-obvious answer is: probably not.

I do like a limited release beer so I was willing to take the chance. This was a very interesting beer, unlike anything I've had before, with a slight sourness from the lactic acid. At least I assume it was from the lactic acid. It may have also been from fuel rods or enriched uranium or whatever the hell they use at nuclear power plants. After a few sips I ran outside to grill up the tofu. When I returned I found something that shocked me to my very core!



The head, which had all but dissipated . . . had returned! This made me a little more apprehensive about continuing to drink the beer. Maybe the radiation had caused the head to grow back much like the oft talked about third arm or glow-in-the-dark fish.



After nearly finishing my beer the head was still there. This isn't unheard of but it is not typical. And I have never seen a head return after going away.

I fear there is something amiss with this beer. Could it be that the brewery just pawned this radiated brew off on unsuspecting Americans in an attempt to dispose of their nuclear waste? Is there a mass conspiracy afoot to kill of the beer snob population of the United States? Will scores of chunky-black-glasses-wearing, beard-having jerk offs start losing their hair?

Does a bear take a radioactive shit in the woods?