Carrot Soup with Toasted Almonds - Dec 6, 2012

Another recipe from "Sixty-Five Years of Gourmet," this carrot soup made good use of some of our many, many CSA carrots.  Nick and I still have a whole drawer full of carrots to use up this winter, compliments of our abundant CSA share.  This soup was good, boosted in flavor by curry powder and apple cider vinegar.  In addition to the toasted almonds, I garnished this soup with sour cream and thyme leaves.

And, see that glass of dark beer in the background?  That is homemade Imperial Rye Stout, made by Nick and our brother-in-law, Jamie, earlier this year.  Those two brewed ten gallons of this in Jamie's driveway, using an all grain set-up, this fall.  It's fantastic beer, and I want Nick to fill you in on the details.  He's really been getting into this beer brewing thing, despite not being into this blog posting thing.  Perhaps with some gentle prodding, we can get him to share.  That's right, I'm going to try blog peer pressure, since my requests have fallen on deaf ears.  We want more (posts about) beer!

Folly Beach - June 30-July 7, 2012

Hello Dinner Clubbers!  I hope you all had a good 4th.  Nick and I just got back from Folly Beach, SC where we spent a week with Nick's family.  We had a lovely and relaxing holiday filled with days at the beach, drinking lots of beer (and margaritas), and enjoying some local, Southern food.



For the first time, I tried boiled peanuts.  This locally loved snack is sold at many a roadside stand in South Carolina, and we got ours from one called Fat Boys.  JJ and Greg picked the Cajun flavored variety and we brought them home and dug in.  These guys get a bad rap up north, but I really enjoyed them.  I think the problem is that we Yankees associate peanuts only with "nuts" and not with the legumes they actually are.  Understandably, a soggy nut does not sound appetizing, but If you approach these like you do edamame, it's a much more pleasant experience.  I thought these guys tasted a lot like cooked red kidney beans, and their delightful starchiness tasted delicious with the mildly spicy Cajun seasoning.  And with a beer.

 

Sadly, our rental beach house did not come supplied with the glass mason jars I'd dreamt of for our Southern drinking experience.  It's just as well I suppose, since glass is not allowed on the beach (but beer is.  Folly Beach is the only beach in the Low Country that allows alcohol consumption...for now).  Instead, we used these little, plastic stemmed glasses with our names written on blue painters tape.  Nick and Greg made sure that we had loads of great craft brews to drink all week, filling growlers up at places like the Charleston Beer Exchange, the James Island Piggly Wiggly, and the Folly Beach Brew Pub.   




Since they are experiencing a local crab shortage (this is a shell JJ found on the beach), we limited our local seafood consumption to shrimp.  It was caught fresh daily and the best I've ever had.  I plan on posting about some of the things we used it for later in the week.

Weekend Morsels - June 23-24, 2012

Cheese "Pudding"


Peppered Salami

























 Maple-Bacon Beer - an homage to Voodoo Doughnuts

 
New Blue Chairs!


Cherries!!


It was a gorgeous weekend here in Minneapolis, and Nick and I were quite productive.  We participated in a beer tasting evening with some friends on Friday, where we enjoyed some lovely cheeses and charcuterie.  The highlight, however, was Rogue's Bacon Maple Ale.  As big fans of the Bacon Maple Bar at Voodoo Doughnut, and of Rogue Ales, we loved this brew.  It has an incredible aroma of maple and the taste is delightfully smoky.  Despite being inspired by a doughnut, this beer is not sweet, but it is strong.  We shared the bottle between four and that was all we needed.  It was good to switch to something lighter and more citrusy after this, and Hinterland's Saison fit the bill nicely. I think the Maple Bacon beer would be perfect on a crisp fall evening.

Unexpectedly, our new blue Adirondack chairs arrived this weekend.  They are designed by Loll Designs in Duluth, MN, manufactured in Duluth out of 100% recycled plastic, and can withstand all of the outdoor elements that Minnesota can throw at them.  Best of all, each has a built in bottle opener under the right arm and they are my favorite shade of blue.  I love them!

We also got to picking our first round of cherries from our Meteor Cherry tree in the front yard.  All told, we harvested about a quart, but there are more out on the tree that need a bit more time to ripen.  I'm hoping for a bumper crop and trying to decide what to use them for this year.  We will definitely do a pie, and with those remaining, perhaps another round of maraschino cherries for our beloved Old Fashioneds.  We have also been discussing the possibility of a cherry stout home brew.  We will have to wait and see how many we have to work with once the harvest is complete.

Town Hall Brewery Dubbel - Feb 26, 2012

On a tip from Greg, Nick and I stopped by Town Hall Brewery a couple weekends ago.  Greg told us about barrel aged beer week, where, and maybe this is self-explanatory, Town Hall tapped a new barrel-aged brew each day of the week.  We were able to try the Tumultuous Rare (wheat wine aged in Eagle Rare Bourbon barrels), Barrel Monkey (double IPA aged in Buffalo Trace barrels), and Twisted Jim (barley wine aged in Jim Beam barrels), our favorite of the bunch.  Unfortunately, we arrived before they had tapped the Czar Jack (Russian-style Imperial stout aged in Jack Daniels barrels) and after they had run out of Buffalo Bock (Weizenbock aged in Buffalo Trace barrels).  We opted out of the Wee Jack because Nick isn't a huge fan of Scotch ales. 

None of these beers were available to bring home (unless you had a 'golden ticket' pre-purchased at some point prior to the event, which we did not, because we are not hip to these things), so we brought home a growler of the Dubbel instead.  I liked this quite a bit, but then I'm a sucker for anything Belgian.  It was spicy and warm and caramel-y.  If you'd like a smarter description you can check out it's reviews on Beer Advocate.