Allagash Stew and Napoleans Too!

Rest easy, folks! Our salt grinder has finally been replaced.

I know, I know. You were worried since I haven't mentioned anything since I chronicled the ordeal in this blog entry. I also announced Jen's pregnancy and the future arrival of two babies coming this summer. However, most people focused on the broken salt grinder and I've received an outpouring of support and guidance on how to deal with the matter of the broken salt grinder.

However, I have an announcement to make tonight. All our worries are over.



I got this salt grinder in the mail. While only one quarter the size of our old, ridiculously large grinder, it does the job of representing the shameless visage of Mario Batali. It's good because Mario Batali could use the money. All he needs to do is sell 208,083 of these salt mills to cover his legal bills. That is, of course, assuming there is absolutely no production cost involved in their manufacture. If there is then my estimate will need to be revised upward significantly.

The other surprising bit is that it's made by Vic Firth who I had no idea were in any sort of business other than the manufacture of drum sticks.

Who knew?



Tonight we had dinner guests, something that hasn't happened in a while. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that most people find it odd that I spend ten minutes taking pictures before anyone is allowed to eat.

I started off by putting out this nice Kerrygold Vintage Cheddar with grapes and crackers.

I wanted to make lamb and Guinness stew but I thought it would be pretty irresponsible to go and purchase some Guinness considering how many other miscellaneous stouts I had in the fridge and in my beer cellar (also known as my cupboard).



Instead I chose to use this Black Belgian Stout from Allagash Brewing Company in Portland, Maine. I'd purchased it on my trip up to the brewery back last October and I hadn't had it since then.

It was every bit as delicious as I remembered it.



I cooked some garlic, onion, celery, carrot, potatoes, and turnip down with some salt and pepper and also browned up the lamb stew meat before combining it all together with the Allagash Black and some chicken stock and throwing it in the oven for a couple of hours. At the end I sauteed some English peas and tossed them together with the stew.



For beer, naturally, I poured the remainder of the Allgash Black. I wish that my cold was gone so that I could fully appreciate the flavor of this one. Much like last night I was left with the impression that it was beery and delicious but I couldn't really pick up a lot of the subtleties. Luckily I'd had this one before so it wasn't a total waste.



For dessert Jen made her famous family recipe of Napoleans, a classic treat which emulates the desserts of the 1950s.

Now I know why people romanticize the 1950s so much despite the fact that the world was clearly a worse place. With desserts like this around it would tend to skew your memory. It's hard to remember all the pollution and government sponsored racism when you remember your mother's delicious dessert bars.

Mangoes The Size of Babies

Happy Mango Day! What? You didn't know it was Mango Day? Jen's currently in week 19 of her pregnancy which means that she is the vessel to two (2) mangoes. Depending on which fruit and vegetable pregnancy tracking tool you use (TheBump.com's Baby Size Chart is my particular weapon of choice) your results may vary.



As I understand it, the fetus develops in the womb and each week morphs into a different fruit or vegetable until it has cycled through all known produce and it becomes a human. There are only 21 more types of produce left before our babies finally achieve full human baby status!

Now I understand the swelling pride of a new parent.



For a starter I made a chopped salad. Generally I like my salads as unchopped as possible, enjoying the shape and texture of full leaves of lettuce. This drives Jen crazy and makes her kind of cranky when I do this. So, for her, I chopped this salad with mango, avocado, red pepper, red onion, butter lettuce, black beans, lime, cilantro, olive oil, salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper.



For the main course I made this recipe from Malaysia. Well, sort of. I don't know anything about Malaysia. I've never been there. I probably never will go there. Everythign I know about it I know from No Reservations. But I'm not 100% sure they even did a show there.

However, I imagine they put mango in things there so here's what I did:

I browned some fresh ginger and garlic in a little canola and sesame oil. Then I added chopped onion, red pepper, and green pepper. To that I added some chicken, rice wine vinegar, and soy sauce. I let that cook down a bit and then added a little chicken stock, curry powder, and thickened the sauce up with a little cornstarch and water before finishing with fresh cilantro.

While mangoes are not exactly at the peak of their season you can usually find a few lackluster ones at your local grocery store imported from South America. These were not great but not terrible.

As I've been suffering from an annoying cold I wasn't planning on having anything to drink tonight. Then I remembered the wise words of my sister-in-law who once counseled me on the medicinal properties of beer for fighting a cold.

I'm not one to argue with a doctor.



With no mango-themed beers readily available to me I had to go with something else. I ended up choosing this Nugget Nectar from Tröegs Brewing Co. This is a seasonal brew from Tröegs which only comes out once a year in February and is generally pretty difficult to find. This particular bottle was bottled on February 28, 2012, so it was particularly fresh, a trait sought after by many an insufferable beer lover.

I used to downright dislike any beer calling itself an IPA or playing on the word 'hops' with name like Hopgoblin; Hoppy Birthday; or Hops, Skip, and a Jump. Even though I just made up those three names as I was writing I'm sure all three are beers brewed somewhere.

Over the course of the last couple of years I've found my tastes change to the point where I went from disliking these beers, being able to appreciate them, to mildly liking them. Now I actually look forward to a well made IPA. My obsessive nature of trying every beer available to me has beaten out my dislike for bitterness, turning me into someone who actually enjoys IPAs and seeks them out.

This beer was probably not the best match for a dish with mango. It had the word 'nectar' in the name and mango nectar is a thing so I figured that this was as close to on theme as I could get.

I could tell this beer was good but with my nose as stuffed up as it was I couldn't really make out too much from this beer other than its bitterness.

Sometimes if you stretch far enough you can reach the stars. Well, imaginary stars anyway.



To cap off the meal I picked up a little mango sorbet

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we've had enough mango for a long, long time. I'm kind of glad I couldn't find a mango-themed beer now.

Kobold Fighting Monk (Homebrew Review)

Months ago I brewed my first ever batch of beer. Then I bottled it. My first two, small, all grain batches are currently fermenting in the closet so I figured it was well past time that I get to talking about the results of my first batch. Since there are only a few bottles left I should probably get to recapping this experience.

Most of my family and friends, whether they wanted it or not, were the recipients of at least a bottle or two of my first brew.



The first bottles were consumed on Thanksgiving Day with my father-in-law who, despite its Belgian style, gave it a good review. A week or so ago I decided to actually taste it critically and take some notes. This particular pour looks a uncharacteristically clear toward the bottom of the glass given the time the bottle had to settle. You can see a little murky haziness seeping down from the bottom toward the end of the pour.



It ended up having a large head about three fingers high which hung around for a while. There was a small amount of sediment in the glass but I've had more in previous bottles. This one must have just settled for a longer amount of time.

In the flavor I caught a little over ripe peach or strawberry on this particular bottle. I don't recall this in previous bottles but I wasn't really paying as close attention before. I'm not sure if age could have brought this out.

It was a light bodied, thin textured beer with lively carbonation and a slight chalky finish. There wasn't much sweetness or bitterness to speak of but a little bit of acidity to it.

It measured in at 6.7% ABV and 20 IBUs.



There's nothing that I intentionally did to cause it but the beer had excellent lacing. It's probably the best feature of this beer. There wasn't much of a hop aroma, not surprisingly. There was a slight malty biscuity taste with a little toffee. From the yeast I got a slight soapy smell. If I hadn't smelled this on so many other beers I would have been worried that I didn't allow the sanitizer to evaporate enough. No one has died (yet) from consuming this beer so either I did a passable job or the effects of its poison are very slow moving.



While the beer was fermenting I decided to name it after a childhood memory of fighting kobolds in Dungeons & Dragons. In honor of its attempted Belgian style I decided to name it Kobold Monk. It ended up turning out a little more like a French farmhouse style ale in my opinion but the name was already decided.

Now I just needed to find someone to draw a kickass kobold for the label.



I met a man in a back alley who gave me a tip that lead me to meeting Anna at Shoot The Sea, an artist who specializes in drawing kobolds. While I'd asked for a monk, I had not specified the pious, brewing sort of monk. She interpreted it as a warrior monk a la Shaolin.

This was a happy accident and thus Kobold Fighting Monk was born.

And now only a few bottles of this limited edition brew remain.



Jen has twin buns in the oven and I have twin brews in the closet. It's like my version of a sympathetic pregnancy except it's easier for me to get on and off the couch.

Unless, that is, I consume too much of my own creation.

Cheers!

Like Butter for Babies

I threatened Jen with another stew tonight as winter winds down. She reluctantly agreed but asked that it be our last stew for a while. I suspected that two stews in a row might be a bit much but I'm all about pushing the envelope here.



I started off with this salad which I made with butter lettuce from Gotham Greens, sliced beets, Manchego, sliced shallot, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I was on the fence about adding balsamic glaze but opted to go simple on this one.

The greens were quite nice. Who knew you could get decent greens in March that are grown right in New York City? This is a triumph even though one of my greatest annoyances in life is people referring to New York City as Gotham. I'm not quite sure why it annoys me as much as it does. Probably because people who refer to New York City as Gotham are just so pleased with themselves when they do so.

The Manchego in this dish is there to represent the cheese-eating grins of the jerks who still insist on referring to New York City as the city where Batman lives.



In a surprise twist I did not stew the chicken! We had dinner the other night at Delicatessen and I ordered the roast chicken which has become something of an obsession with me lately. I was impressed with the way they roasted it in eight cuts so I figured I would try a take of that at home.

I highly recommend Delicatessen, by the way. Even though it's not actually a delicatessen.



After roasting the chicken I served it with some pan roasted Brussels and canellini beans that I cooked with some rendered bacon, some of the pan juices from the chicken, and some freshly chopped parsley.



Tonight, to accompany dinner, I had the last of my Christmas present beer varieties from my bother and sister-in-law, this Best Brown Ale from Bell's Brewery, Inc.

Sadly Bell's only had distribution in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Florida, Virginia, Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, Iowa and Puerto Rico. Nothing in New York.

Wait, Puerto Rico? They load up their beer in a plane and fly it over New York to Puerto Rico?

This is why American beer distribution is so annoying. It does make for some charming regional differences and makes things very interesting while traveling but it doesn't really make any sense beyond that.

This was a fine nut brown ale. It reminds me of college when I last had a Newcastle. It makes me wonder if Newcastle is actually this good. Probably not.



As I remember from one of my favorite episodes of Oz & James Drink to Britain Oz Clarke was less than impressed with the old classic even though he too enjoyed it as a student though I would wager a guess that he and I were not students at exactly the same time.



Naturally, when a beer is this good, I like to share it with my dinner. In this case I added a little to the white beans as I cooked them.



After properly chilling in the fridge the spent grain peanut butter chocolate bars I made were feeling a little more photogenic today. I sliced up a couple of chunks of this. The chunks were actually tiny which is good because I think this recipe is about 50% butter by volume. It will probably take us the next month to eat all of it so it probably won't be too detrimental to our health.

I'm just hoping the twins are not born with cardiovascular disease.

Lentil Lundi (Round 2)

I'm not very good at legumes. I often have the idea that I should eat more of them but then I get bored and make some sausage or something instead. A while back I instituted the new idea of Lentil Lundi whereby we ave lentils on Mondays. That was kind of a miserable failure as tonight is only the second time that I would honor that proclamation.



If were were going to have to have lentils I was at least going to start the night off right with some Manchego, grapes, and ciabatta from Hot Bread Kitchen.



This winter was kind of a bust. Normally I take great pleasure in the below zero temperatures as it gives me ample opportunity to huddle indoors, run the oven all day, make hearty stews, and drink lots of heavy beer and spirits. This winter has been very forced in all of these regards so, to honor that fact, I made this "End of Winter" stew with garlic, onion, celery, carrot, sweet Italian sausage, kale, cooked lentils, a little chicken stock, salt, and pepper. It was a pretty tasty stew even if it was in the sixties today.



For a drink I opened this bottle of Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale from Stone Brewing Co. I've been hearing about how good their regular Arrogant Bastard Ale was for the past fifteen years but, surprisingly, I've still never had it. The Oaked version was pretty good but with nothing to compare it to I felt like something of a poseur.

A poseur enjoying an oaky ale from California! Heyo!



For dessert I served up two delicious slices of cranberry bread that Jen made last night which is quite easily the best batch she's ever made. I tried desperately to capture the flaky, cake-like goodness of this bread in the picture but I don't think it quite did them justice. This was the perfect cap to this meal as well as a way to finally use the cranberries I'd purchased back in November that have been sitting in the fridge ever since Jen vetoed my idea of making some sort of kale dish using them. At the time I was annoyed but now I am very glad they waited all that time to be used in something far more delicious.

After dinner we relaxed on the couch while Jen read Ozzy Osbourne's autobiography and told me a bunch of information about Ozzy that I've known since 1991. I also got a chance to look at some sweet pictures of Tommy Aldridge from the early 1980's.

Tommy Aldrige is one fine-looking man.