Someone’s In the Kitchen with Daddy

So, I’ve just bottled up another (what I hope will be a) fine batch of Beer. After the sucess (and super quick turn around) of my first attempt, I’ve dived into the recipe book and attempted some more recipes that go beyond the straight-out-of-the-can simplicity of Mr. Beer’s standard fare.

Thankfully my first experience was a good one, be cause the next two were just okay. Not bad, good enough to drink, but not worth making more (but definately worthy of finding their way into chili, crepes, brownies, breads, salsas, donuts and so on. numbersfour and five, remain to be seen. Six and seven will be going into works this weekend.

brewed to date:

#1 – Irish Stout. Nice and flavorful, more like a porter than “thick” like guiness, with a faint molasses finish.

#2 – West Coast Pale Ale – I started this at the same time as the next (working two kegs at the same time baby!), and bottled this one a couple weeks before. After waiting out the estimated time for full carbonation the beer came out flat. Did I open it too early? Did I forget to add priming sugar? Why do I smell apples? (Oh, no did I get confused and bottle the next batch too early?)

#3 – Dutch Apple Ale. This started out as a basic English Brown Ale, but uses about 25% apple juice instead of water. But with the bottling mix up, I was afraid I bottled this too early before it reached full apple ale potential.

So, I had two beers that I had to wait a few weeks for to see if they’d properly carbonate, meanwhile I had two more going, and I wasn’t able to re-use any of my bottles… After 2 more weeks they both seemed ready to drink. Turns out I hadn’t mixed up the two. What I thought was the Pale Ale was definately not appley. Sort of clean, went good with food. (not as good without.) The Apple Ale, was also not appley – but it did have a nice cidery finish (or after taste) which I like. I’ll drink some of this, and cook with some. Mr. Beer also offers a cider kit, which I’d like to compare this too.

#4 is a Porter, which I just bottled on Saturday but I’m eager to try, but will have to wait a few weeks.

#5 is a coffee beer, added coffee to a vienna style lager – think Drew Carey’s Buzz Beer… at least I’m hoping so…, I’ll have to wait for it to find out. First, I need to polish of one more six pack of anything (beer, IBC, whatever) before I’ll have enough bottles, and second, three weeks of racking/lagering, whatever you call it, it’s just WAITING for carbonation…..

Arghhh, the non-instant gratification of this hobby!!!

Soft whole-grain, multi-grain? From scratch? Yes, it is indeed possible! No more will I have to buy the pricey, dense (but flavorful) wholesome loaves that the rest of the family isn’t entirely thrilled with – nor will they have to hop off the organic bandwagon to get something just as soft as the nutritionally-devoid, overly-processed white loaves we all grew up on.

This week had me taking loaves 5 and 6 out of the oven and my best ones to date, whether by hand, or by breadmachine. (For the record, old school has won out over the Zojirushi!)

Several recipes online offer up close variations on the Cooks Illustrated recipe that I’ve been using (yes – six loaves since Christmastime!) Starting out with anywhere from 1/2 to 1 1/4 cups of wholegrain cereal, (add hotwater, cool) then add flour 3-4 cups, yeast, honey, butter and salt – knead, rise, knead, put in pan(s), rise, bake and enjoy.

While there are some differences in ingredients, (primarily with the choice of sweetener, or ratio of flour to whole-grain cereal mix) the biggest differences are in prep. And while I’m not sure I’ve just had progressively better luck with each, or if adapting new methods to the same recipe has taken a short and dense loaf to a tall, airy loaf, perfect for sandwiches, toasting, or sopping up marinara and soup!

I know baking is a science, so perhaps somedays were just better bread days, but it seems to me that the method is what did the trick here, so if you choose to stick with your own recipe, and are less than thrilled with the size or texture, perhaps some hot water will do the trick for you too.

The recipe is at Cooks Illustrated, (which is fairly similar to this one – provided you add 1/2 stick of butter, and trade out the sugar for 1/4 cup honey) The revised techniques are adapted from Alton Brown (x2), Cooks Illustrated, Epicurious, Food Network, and just plain old luck.

Follow instructions through first rise (on counter). punch down, divide into pans, and let rise again – but this time in the oven (off) above a sheet cake pan 1/2 filled with boiling water to “Proof” the dough. Once doubled in size, turn the oven on to 375 and bake until 200 degrees in center (approx 40 min). If you overcook the bread (past 212) the bread will be dried out. (or so I’ve been told, makes sense though).

I’ve found with proofing, the second rise is much faster, higher, (or perhaps more controllable/repeatable!) and the hot water in the baking dish (while baking) allows the dough to continue to rise a bit, rather than yield a loaf no taller than the pan.

This recipe started out as a good tasting, but very dense 3″ tall loaf. Future attemps had me baking with the pan full of water to a slightly better (taller) loaf, but in the end, the proofing was the key.

Pictures? Maybe next loaf, this one is nearly gone! Soups, sandwiches, with poached eggs, buried under pasta, or simply toasted with butter and gomasio (but that’s another blog).

Mmmm, bread.

(or why we need to make resolutions)

The weeks leading up to Christmas and New Years found me in the kitchen even more than planned. I wrote up a list of what I was planning to cook/bake, and when, if only to minimize the time I’d be cooped up, and maximize the tastes and aromas that speak Christmas so much more than words can convey.

My favorites this year, turns out, are recipes that have little to do with Christmas, or family traditions at all!

First off, The 12 days of cookies newsletter found it’s way into my in-box, the Chocolate Chip first caught my eye, mostly because it was a simplification in terms of prep (and touted ease – have the kids come help) so I envisioned time with my little one, rolling out sheet after sheet of cookies.

My new mixer (Oh, how I still love thee) really simplified prep. A triple batch in one bowl! Lets make two! (so I did).

In the end, most of my cooking was done solo – too much in the house, (primarily the 25 days of Christmas countdown on ABC family) to catch and hold the attention of the little one.

This left me time to improvise a bit. The addition of espresso powder to the basic dough, combined with two kinds of chocolate chips (whether semi-sweet and Bittersweet or white) turned out to be an inspired one.
And a new holiday, no, year round staple was born.

Also on the cookie front, AB inspired me to make up a batch of his sugar cookie pinwheels – again, I thought I’d have some “help” with cookie cutters, but in the end, a roll was made, to slice and bake, but in lieu of peppermint, I added Baileys. Yum!

My favorite new discovery, I have to say, also courtesy of Food TV, was the Chocolate Peanut Butter Biscotti. These were a lovely salty/sweet counterpoint to all the sweet I’d been noshing thus far.

Having my fill of cookies, and needing a break from them, I decided to start off the new year right. Soup sounded like it would fit the bill, so for New Years Eve, I managed to perfect the two recipes I left Bermuda with. I tried my hands at making a Fish Chowder reminiscent of the one I had on our Oct vacation (cruise). (The conch fritters that rounded out that meal would have to wait.)

Vegetarian or not – being a good New Englander, chowder must have a nice creamy base, at least where Clam and seafood chowder is concerned (sorry Manhattan, San Fran…). But, that said, the tomato broth of this Fish chowder works for me. Not being such a big seafood person, my wife was a little uneasy when I first brought up making the recipe (especially with no side dishes for her to fall back on), but the addition of the hot sherry peppers sauce had its appeal.  I replaced the water and beef consomme of the recipe with equal parts chicken stock and vegetable broth, but otherwise followed the recipe as written. I would have doubled the recipe (I almost did) but fortuanately I decided against, as the recipe nearly came to the brim of my 8 quart pot!

The verdict – a winner!

Perhaps it was the spiciness of the sherry peppers sauce, perhaps it was the fact that the fish cooked down into such tiny pieces she didn’t know them for what they were, or perhaps it was the rum!

Speaking of rum. I’ve been making myself a nice (very nice if you ask me) Dark and Stormy since October. The recipe hasn’t changed, but I perfected the preparation, and somehow, that has made all the difference. I smuggled two bottles of Black Seal Rum and 2 liters of Ginger Beer (not the same as Ginger Ale, as one patron at the Grocery Store informed us. “That is not Jinjah Ale, that is Jinjah.”)

The simple recipe is to take 1 glass, fill with Ice. Add 2 oz rum, 6 oz Ginger beer, and a twist of lime. Enjoy.
I’d combined the rum and ginger beer in a measuring cup, poured over the ice, only to have it form a foamy head atop the drink.
After finding inspiration in various places (Food Network mostly), I’ve learned to modify the drink as follows:
1. take a tall beer glass, fill 2/3 with ice.
2. Squeeze lime juice (1/2 lime) over the ice
3. add 2 oz. Dark rum (Black Seal, Baby!)
4. add 6 oz. Ginger Beer (Barritt’s if you’ve got it, can’t vouch for any others, yet…)
5. add a slice of lime
6. try to drink just one!

*note to any federal agents, or legal types reading this post, I only use the smuggling term in jest, a pirate reference, having been to sunny bermudy on a boat and all that… I got my two bottles all proper and duty free like, with the knowledge that this Rum was described as “hard to find”… outside of the NH liquor store that is… So 1/2 of the equation is taken care of – futurewise, that is. As for some nice Jinjah beer, that is another story.