Sockeye It To Me

Normally we continue our holiday excess from Thanksgiving straight through until our multi-part tri-state Christmas festivities die down sometime in mid January. This year we've implemented a one week cool off between Christmas and New Year's so we can try to gain some small shred of health back before loading back up on fatty meats and baked goods.



When we hit a rare mustard shortfall last month I picked this mustard up because it contains two of my favorite things: mustard and beer! I brushed a nice piece of Sockeye salmon with the mustard with a little salt and pepper to let it sit for a few moments while I prepared the rest of the dinner.



I tried to fill us up on salad by making this little number with mixed baby greens, toasted pistachios, blueberries, satsuma segments, red onion, and goat cheese. I tossed it with my old standby fig dressing of fig preserves, tahini, and balsamic vinegar.



I got a pan red hot, coated it lightly with olive oil, through the salmon in skin down, then tossed it into a 425 degree oven for ten minutes. I probably could have gone with eight minutes but the result was a nicely flavored roast salmon with crispy skin. Stout isn't the first beer I'd pair with salmon but the mustard worked brilliantly.



As I like to do I wilted a pound of spinach with a splash of olive oil and a few cloves of crushed garlic. As I also like to do I piled it high on a plate tor effect. When doing this it gives me a sense of smug satisfaction and achieving height (or as my chefs in culinary school used to inexplicably pronounce it: HITE-TH).



For dessert I broke with my vaguely healthy theme by serving up this butter tart Jen had made. This is a newcomer to the holiday dessert rotation. It's oddly named in that butter is a very minor ingredient. There are many other ingredients that it could better be named after -- raisin tart, sugar tart, coconut tart, walnut tart, just to name a few. Once again there is no beer to report on tonight, merely a mustard made with beer. Soon I hope to return to my normal beer-tasting form.

That way I can review all these Christmas beers in January and look like a total jackass.

Christmas Dinner, Brownies, and a Distinct Lack of Beer

Our traditional Christmas is filled with lots of travel and this year was no different. Unlike last year we did not need to zip home to try to outrun a blizzard so it was slightly more relaxing than our Cannonball Run-esque journey home last year.



Tonight we had a fairly standard Christmas/Boxing Day meal with baked beans and mustard pickles. Sadly these were the only baked beans I could find and they were vegetarian. I'm a firm believer that baked beans should have a big wad of cooked pork fat floating around in them. Unfortunately we had dinner just a few hours after returning home and my lack of foresight did not allow us the time needed to prepare baked beans from scratch.



This year we had a bit of breach in standard procedure: I made the torciere. This has never happened before. I made the filling on Christmas Eve and I even made the pie dough today, something I generally refuse to do as I am not a baking guy.

That being said it came out pretty good using Jen's mom's pie dough recipe.





Jen made some delicious scalloped potatoes and we served it all up, me with my traditional Woonsocket-style ketchup and black pepper. Jen is extremely tolerant of my style of eating this with ketchup despite the fact that I think most people shudder in horror at the thought.



For beer tonight I had . . . nothing.

I have a few more delicious Christmas beers in the fridge. I really wanted to enjoy the St. Bernardus Christmas Ale tonight but my stomach has just been plain wonky lately. I'm thinking that even with this fairly heavy meal (though in small portions) I would be best served to

Given that Christmas beers are among some of my favorites of the season this is not my favorite yuletide outcome but if that's the worst thing that happens to me this Christmas I'd still count myself as one of the luckier humans on planet Earth.



For dessert I smuggled home some of my Aunt Debbie's brownies from yesterday's Christmas dinner. You see, my Aunt Debbie makes the best brownies (blondies, actually) in the entire world. She's been bringing them to Christmas every year since I can remember. That is except for one year when she tried something new and people were pissed. I was probably at the front of the angry mob wielding a torch and pitchfork and calling for her to sent out to us to face swift justice.

We've calmed down since then in large part because she started making them again. I've also asked her for the recipe about twelve times over the years. I just searched my email and couldn't find it which means she probably sent it to me back in the days when people used email clients instead of webmail. It might be in one of my old backup files.

Does anyone have a copy of Eudora 3.0.5 they could send me?

Sausage, Sediment, and Santa Claus

After a day we changed from our Hanukkah theme back to the classic theme of cleaning out the fridge and moving through leftovers. With Christmas fast approaching the time for grocery shopping is over and we need to work through some inventory before celebrating the Yuletide.



I started off by taking the remaining sausage, butternut, and kale stew and wrapping it up in dough to make this calzone with a little fresh mozzarella.



This sausage and butternut stew lent itself extremely well to calzone filling. I think it would have made a fine pizza as well. Even a pasta sauce. Next time I'll have to make five times as much so I can use the leftovers for all those applications. It will be like a sausage-themed Thanksgiving!



For beer I'd really been looking forward to having this Noel from Delirium. It was everything I could want in a beer: an opaque bottle, from Belgium, an elephant wearing a Santa Claus hat. There was only one problem . . .



There was a huge amount of chunky white sediment floating around in the beer, suspended like the snot-like globules in a bottle of the now extinct beverage Orbitz. Now, I'm not squeamish about sediment in my beer. In fact, I am usually very happy to find it there. Yet, somehow, this amount of sediment floating there in a state of neutral buoyancy just struck me as being too much. I Googled it quickly and didn't find too many people complaining about it so I was unsure if I was just some sort of lone weirdo.

Being an experienced home brewer myself I am familiar with the end of the bottling being a bit heavier on sediment than the beginning, however, this seemed like just too much and, sadly, I abandoned the bottle in favor of other beers.

The beer smelled like delicious dark fruit and molasses as I passed by it.



To replace it I stayed in the same country with this Tripel from St. Bernardus. It was fantastic, one of the best tripels I've ever had. Those folks at St. Bernardus know how to make a fine, fine beer.

That damn monk on the label has every right to look so cocky.

Eight Eggy Nights (a Memento-style Thriller)

Tonight I made a Hanukkah dinner using a lot of eggs. Since a lot of it needed some time int he oven I'll tell the story in an artistic manner in the style of the new hit movie Memento!

Last night was the first night of Hanukkah. I had to work late so tonight became our late Hanukkah meal. after spending an hour and a half stuck in traffic I only had an hour and fifteen minutes to put it together. Luckily I had shopped in advance and I am practiced so I was able to just barely pull off tonight's dinner by the time Jen's train got in.

The game was on!



Salad was a breeze. A breezy cop out. I just recycled the salad from the other night using the rest of Jen's salad dressing, some mixed greens, satsumas, dried fig, and pistachios.



Before making the salad I made a batch of latkes with grated potato, red onion (for fun, I normally use sweet onion), horseradish, cider vinegar, flour, egg, green onion, salt, and pepper. I fried them up in a pan with a little butter and served them with sour cream and fresh applesauce which I simmered while preparing dinner.



Before making the latke mix I had to prepare this kugel by boiling some cauliflower, caramelizing some leeks, mashing them together, then adding some egg and parsley then baking it in the oven with some crushed, toasted hazelnuts on top.



This year Christmas and Hanukkah and Christmas overlap. This is the perfect excuse to alternate Hanukkah and Christmas beers! The problem is that there aren't really any Hanukkah beers that I know of. There is, however, a whole line of He'Brew beers from Shmaltz Brewing Company. Tonight I selected their Messiah Nut Brown Ale to accompany this Hanukkah meal. This was more nut black than nut brown but it was nut delicious so it didn't matter. I was a little sad that I'd only purchased one bottle. It also made me wonder if this is anything like Newcastle as I haven't had that since the '90s. I'll have to have it again soon to compare notes.

Yes, I take notes on the beers I drink. It is a source of great ridicule from some people, most notably Jen.



The first thing I did when I got home was slice up a loaf of bread, cut it up, and soak it in egg nog with brandy, Benedictine, dried currants, toasted pistachios, and eggs. While that soaked I sliced up some D'anjou pears and caramelized them in a pan with brown sugar and butter. I layered the caramelized pear slices in a pan, topped it with the eggnog and bread mixture, then baked it in the oven before cooling and serving.

Overall a lot of elements of this meal could have done with a little more time in preparation but the overall result was the best I could have hoped for.

Now, if only I can figure out what all these tattooed clues on my arms mean.

Eight Eggy Nights (a Memento-style Thriller)

Tonight I made a Hanukkah dinner using a lot of eggs. Since a lot of it needed some time int he oven I'll tell the story in an artistic manner in the style of the new hit movie Memento!

Last night was the first night of Hanukkah. I had to work late so tonight became our late Hanukkah meal. after spending an hour and a half stuck in traffic I only had an hour and fifteen minutes to put it together. Luckily I had shopped in advance and I am practiced so I was able to just barely pull off tonight's dinner by the time Jen's train got in.

The game was on!



Salad was a breeze. A breezy cop out. I just recycled the salad from the other night using the rest of Jen's salad dressing, some mixed greens, satsumas, dried fig, and pistachios.



Before making the salad I made a batch of latkes with grated potato, red onion (for fun, I normally use sweet onion), horseradish, cider vinegar, flour, egg, green onion, salt, and pepper. I fried them up in a pan with a little butter and served them with sour cream and fresh applesauce which I simmered while preparing dinner.



Before making the latke mix I had to prepare this kugel by boiling some cauliflower, carmelizing some leeks, mashing them together, then adding some egg and parsley then baking it in the oven with some crushed, toasted hazelnuts on top.



This year Christmas and Hanukkah and Christmas overlap. This is the perfect excuse to alternate Hanukkah and Christmas beers! The problem is that there aren't really any Hanukkah beers that I know of. There is, however, a whole line of He'Brew beers from Shmaltz Brewing Company. Tonight I selected their Messiah Nut Brown Ale to accompany this Hanukkah meal. This was more nut black than nut brown but it was nut delicious so it didn't matter. I was a little sad that I'd only purchased one bottle. It also made me wonder if this is anything like Newcastle as I haven't had that since the '90s. I'll have to have it again soon to compare notes.

Yes, I take notes on the beers I drink. It is a source of great ridicule from some people, most notably Jen.



The first thing I did when I got home was slice up a loaf of bread, cut it up, and soak it in egg nog with brandy, Benedictine, dried currants, toasted pistachios, and eggs. While that soaked I sliced up some D'anjou pears and carmelized them in a pan with brown sugar and butter. I layered the carmelized pear slices in a pan, topped it with the eggnog and bread mixture, then baked it in the oven before cooling and serving.

Overall a lot of elements of this meal could have done with a little more time in preparation but the overall result was the best I could have hoped for.

Now, if only I can figure out what all these tattooed clues on my arms mean.

Stoned Me Just Like Cabbage Roll

We got a beautiful giant head of cabbage at the farmer's market two Sundays ago and it's been sitting patiently in the fridge ever since. Since it had exhibited such model behavior I decided I would grant its wish.



I boiled some cabbage leaves and made a mixture out of olive oil, garlic, onion, beef, rice, quinoa, tomato paste, salt, and pepper. When the mixture had cooled slightly I folded in an egg and rolled the boiled leaves up with the mixture. I topped them with a generous amount of sauce I made out of olive oil, garlic, crushed tomato, cider vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper then baked them in the oven for about 45 minutes.



There isn't much that goes with tomato in the beer world. Since this was a sweet and sour sauce I decided to pair it with a sour beer, this Flemish Sour Ale from Brouwerij Van Steenberge in Ertvelde, Belgium. This is not as sour as some sour beers but it's still shocking to me to have a beer that is sour. While tasty, my brain has a hard time dealing with the fact that there is nothing wrong with the drink.



For dessert I went for something simple and served up some delicious ripe persimmon wedges with toasted pistachios. This is probably what some European king had for a dessert one time after an explorer came back to his court to lavish him with tales of his journey to the east.

I kinda wish I lived in the days where a child got an orange for Christmas. Think about it: a single orange! You know how sometimes you buy some oranges at the grocery store and they're dry, mealy, and disappointing? It makes me wonder if that happened with Christmas oranges too.

That must have been the saddest thing that could happen to a child at Christmas. Even sadder than the year my cousin Jeff broke my model General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard.

It still hurts to think about it.

8:15 PM Bedtime

Okay, remember how I said I was recovered about a week ago? Scratch that. Now I'm recovered. Well, sort of. I still want to go to bed at 7:30 PM but I feel quite a bit better.



Jen has been craving crab and artichoke dip. This was amplified by the fact that we actually bought some a while ago and it was spoiled so she wasn't able to fulfill that craving. I really came through tonight with this dip that I served on slices of sourdough bread.

I deliver late but I deliver.



For a salad I tossed together some satsuma wedges, dried figs, pistachios, quinoa, and Jen's delicious salad dressing along with some mixed baby greens.



For the main dish I browned some garlic in a pan, tossed in some sliced sweet onion, butternut squash, and cooked it down with salt, pepper, sage, and thyme. After a bit I added some sweet Italian sausage and kale and stewed it down.

Originally I'd planned on making a kale dish with cranberries but the look of disgust on Jen's face when I brought this up was so intense that I opted to make some last minute menu adjustments.



I could tell I was feeling better because yesterday my taste for beer returned. However, I had a craving for lager so I knew I wasn't yet at 100%.

Since I'm backing up on Christmas and Winter beers with my recent illness I had to act fast. Tonight I had this Holiday Ale form Lagunitas Brewing Company. This ale is also called "Brown Shugga' Subsitute" because, apparently, they were unable to brew their traditional holiday ale: Brown Shugga'. The brewery is expanding and the brewing for Brown Shugga' takes too many resources away from their normal brewing.

I guess I'll have to hope to try some of the Brown Shugga' next year after their expansion is complete. Let's just pray that next year I'm in slightly better shape.

Okay, it's 8:15 PM. Now it's time for bed!

The Return of the Dairy

I've been on a stictly vegan diet for the past three-and-a-half days. This followed on the heels of a horrible reaction to whatever I ate on Thursday. Perhaps it was the abundance of pickled herring. Maybe it was my body rejecting the celebration of excess in Jen's absence.

Serves me right for having a single beer. I need to know my limits.



Speaking of beer, I decided to start the night off with my first beer since the ugly ordeal. I selected this Big Moose Ale from Saranac Brewery. The label states: "We don't call it Big Moose for nothing!" I'm not really sure what that is supposed to mean but the beer is pretty good. It's an American Pale ale with a nice hoppy flavor from being dry hopped.

It's similar to other winter seasonals, most notably, Sierra Nevada's annual Celebration brew. This one, however, features a festive moose tearing across the tundra.

+1 for Big Moose Ale.



At the farmer's market yesterday Jen spotted some cauliflower and had a sudden craving for a cauliflower soup. I obliged this evening by making this cream of cauliflower soup with rendered bacon, butter, garlic, onion, cauliflower, turkey stock, salt, and pepper. I pulsed it in the food processor and served it up with some Gruyere cheese toasts made on slices of fresh baguette.

This soup marked a very nice return to the world of dairy. Jen's idea was a good one and, so far, I haven't become supremely ill.

If I do have a reaction to this then clearly I'm just not cut out to eat meat or dairy anymore and I will return to a diet of thrice-a-day miso soup.

That won't get old.

Things Jen Hates

Jen is out of town and you know what that means. That's right, it's time for me to show, once again, that I haven't lost my bachelor skills. Like any self-respecting husband I take advantage of these opportunities to do all those things that I'm not normally able to do when the ol' ball and chain is around.

C'mon guys, you know what I'm saying, right? Right?



Thing #1: Pickled Herring

I started off by toasting some old bread, smearing the slices with butter, and topping them with pickled herring. I was starving when I got home from work so I just made this to use up some old herring and bread and keep me conscious while I made dinner.

Mmmmmm, old herring.



Thing #2: Leftover Turkey

Jen hates leftover turkey. Come to think of it, Jen hates just about anything that is leftover. Turkey is the worst offender though. Turkey to her is something that must never be reused.

I found half a butternut squash in the back of the refrigerator from Thanksgiving that was surprisingly still good. I chopped it up and used it to make this turkey curry with onion, garlic, ginger, garbanzo bean, turkey stock, curry powder, salt, and pepper. I thickened the stew with a little cornstarch and served it over white rice.



Thing #3: Strong Belgian Ales

Well, I guess Jen likes these a little more now than she used to. At any rate this Steenbrugge Tripel from Browerij Palm was pretty great. All over the label they talk about how this is made with "gruut" which is a collection of spices and herbs that was used during medieval times. I just like saying, "Gruut!"

This beer had me at the stained glass look on the bottle and won me over with their Belgian yeast flavor (and, of course, their gruut).

I'm both predictable and easy.



Thing #4: Unidentifiable Things from the Freezer

While rummaging around I found a mystery container with some sort of ice cream in it. I had no idea what kind of ice cream it was or when it was from. Like cooks in medieval times I decided quickly that I would try to mask any off flavors with a sauce so I made some chocolate sauce and applied it generously. It actually wasn't that bad. After further investigation it looks like it was probably a cherry ice cream I made back in July.

Probably.

Thing #5: Some Movies from the 80s

I concluded the evening with The Last Starfighter. For some odd reason I have never seen the complete movie from start to finish so I figured now was as good a time as any. My movie watching habits are usually pretty bad. I procrastinate a lot and usually get around to watching movies well after their sell by date.

Maybe next year I'll get around to seeing The Goonies for the first time!

Sweet Chili Sauce is Coming to Town

Tonight was a rainy and dark drive home. I think I might be turning into an old lady because I don't really like driving in the dark and rain anymore. It makes me nervous.

I'm thinking that it'll only be about ten more years until I'm complaining about the kids these days with their loud music and jazz cigarettes.



As I prepared dinner I enjoyed this Double Ale from Grimbergen. Founded in 1128 they've been brewing beer for 883 years. That's 883 years longer than I've been brewing beer!

I can't recall if I had this one in France this summer but I did have their Blonde and enjoyed it quite a bit. This bottle looked and tasted like it's probably been hanging around in the liquor store for a little while. Still it was quite enjoyable.

Plus, it was a good way to settle my nerves after that drive home!



For dinner I threw together a quick salad with these beautiful tender salad greens from the Finger Lakes. I simply tossed them with lime, sesame oil, sesame seeds, a dash of soy sauce, and shredded carrots.



For the main course I fried up some ginger and garlic in sesame oil then browned some chicken breast and tossed in the baby bok choi and cooked it down with a little sweet chili sauce. I served it all over white rice. Not exactly revolutionary but good enough.

Tonight was also time for Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

I'm a man now, Tanta!

Milk Not Jails

Yesterday a knock came at the door. It was a representative from Milk Not Jails to deliver a bundle of goodies to us. I had almost forgotten that we'd made a contribution to their efforts back in August through their Kickstarter campaign.

Milk for Jails is a great organization. I'll try to explain without getting too political. Basically they have the radical idea that maybe rural New York is better served through supporting local agriculture than through continuing to support the largest prison system on planet Earth. Maybe a dairy farm is a better idea than another prison so that America can continue to have more of its own citizens imprisoned than any other country on the planet.

What a concept!



The great thing about having paid for this in August is that it was like getting a special early Christmas gift!

We got butternut squash from African Zion Organic Roots Farm; lemongrass tea from Evolutionary Organics in New Paltz, NY; a dozen eggs from pasture raised hens from Tellos Green Farm in Red Hook, NY; Chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream and mango drinkable yogurt from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy; garlic from Streetlight Gardens in Albany, NY; Adirondack Red Potatoes from Conuco Farm in New Paltz, NY; Sauerkraut from Greyrock Farm CSA out of Cazenovia, NY; braising greens from 5 lbs. of Dirt Farm in Montgomery, NY; baby bok choi from an unspecified location; lettuce from Finger Lakes Fresh in Ithaca, NY; apple butter made by Bed-Stuy Farm Share in Brooklyn, NY; Pea Shoots from Evolutionary Organics in New Paltz, NY; and honey almond granola from Hawthorne Valley Farm.

Wow. That's a pretty good haul. We actually just donated because we supported the cause. I wonder how much they're making from our donation after they gave us back all this stuff? Did we donate to their cause or did we just shop with them?



As I looked at all these ingredients to try to figure out something to make I had some of this Imperial Pale Ale from Captain Lawrence Brewing Company. I figured this was the right way to go in keeping with the local New York theme of the meal.

I have to say, I'm warming up to IPAs. I was never much of a fan but now I actually find myself looking forward to them. Perhaps my tastes are being refined. Maybe I've reached a new level in my appreciation for the ancient beverage of beer.

Maybe I'm just getting old.



For a first course I sauteed up some shrimp with garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and fresh basil. When they were just about done I sliced up some freshly boiled Adirondack Red Potatoes and fresh sliced basil from our window box.

I also tossed the pea shoots with some lemon, shallots, honey, toasted poppy seeds, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I worked in a restaurant where we used pea shoots (or pea tendrils as we called them) all the time for garnish. I've never actually eaten them before tonight.



For a side dish I cooked the braising greens with some olive oil, butter, bacon, onion, garlic, molasses, the remaining beer, water, salt, pepper, and cayenne.



For dessert we were quite well taken care of by the chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream from Ronnybrook.



On this day, in 1933, we saw an end to prohibition in America with the ratification of the 21st amendment to the Constitution. Even though I wasn't really in the mood for it I figured there was no better way to celebrate than by having some gin. And what better way than with a gin and tonic made with the finest ingredients?

To cap off the night we celebrated with a screening of A Christmas Story/. Well, we watched it. It just makes us seem like asshole film buffs if we call it a screening.

We also like to listen to things on vinyl. We're that kind of jerk.

A Very Belgian Christmas

Yesterday, in the midst of my annoying sickness, we traveled out to get our Christmas tree. My initial plan had been to get the tree on Saturday so we didn't have to go out at all on Sunday. The idea was that my normal disinterest in decorating the tree could be avoided if I didn't have to go out, cut it down, and lug it home all in the same day.



For the third year in a row we went to Maple Row Tree Farm. Jen and Fred were able to mend their broken relationship after last year's falling out.



I tied my side of the tree to the roof pretty well. Just look at how tight that twine is!



Not to pass judgment but Jen's side left a little to be desired. The guy at the farm felt so bad for us that he help us by re-tying her end.



For lunch today I used up a remaining baguette with another of Mark Bittman's Thanksgiving leftover recipes this year. It was simply a grilled cheese with Gruyere and cranberry sauce and it was quite delicious.



After lunch I discovered that the flood had damaged more strands of our Christmas lights than I'd thought. I had previously tested them but apparently they were waiting until I had the tree up to blow out completely. This lead to an I-told-you-so-filled trip to the nearby hardware store to get the last three remaining strands they had for sale.



After stringing up the lights I settled in to make carbonade flamande, a Belgian stew. I based this off of the recipe in Culinaria and made it by browning the beef stew meat in a little butter then removing it and cooking down some onions, then adding the beef back with salt, pepper, bay leaf, thyme, sage, cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and beer.



For beer I chose to use this Leffe for added authenticity.



I served the carbonade with stoemp aux carottes which is simply boiled potatoes and carrots mashed together. I added some salt, pepper, butter and freshly ground nutmeg.



To match the theme of tonight's dinner I chose this Bush De Noël from Brasserie Dubuisson in Belgium. I've had their regular Bush beer before and it was one of the best beers I've ever had. When a friend gave me this Christmas version I was excited to give it a try.

The beer is not labeled as Bush in the United States because there is a flavorless American beer called "Busch" and they don't want to confuse the general public. Apparently there is a huge problem with people walking into the tiny import wall of fine beer stores and picking up a single 8 ounce bottle of this beer for $7.00 and thinking that they're getting a can of Busch Light.

Surely we can understand that confusion. Good on the American legal system!



I mean, look at the packaging. You can barely tell the difference between the two.



It's like one of those "Spot the Difference" puzzles where you have to figure out what's different between the two pictures. Can you spot the differences between the two beers or the two Christmas scenes?

Hint: one of the Christmas scenes is flavorless.



After decorating the tree we settled down for a nice little seasonal celebratory drink. Jen's drink of choice: hot apple cider. At the Christmas tree farm yesterday there was a woman marveling at the hot cider available. She was chasing after her children telling them: "This is amazing. You've got to check this out. It's from apples but it's hot! It's like apple juice but they serve it hot!"

The kids seemed as shocked as we were that she had never heard of this before.



I went with this egg nog from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy, a splash of brandy, and some fresh nutmeg.

With that we settled in to watch some of our growing Christmas movie collection. Tonight was the perfect night to watch the short ones: Charlie Brown Christmas, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and The Muppet Family Christmas.

All this while fumbling with ornaments around the tree and swearing.

True meaning of Christmas = discovered.