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Monatsarchive: August 2014

Pumpkin Porter Beer Brownies Sundaes

Pumpkin Porter Brownies Sundaes1

Pumpkin things are upon us.

Of course we have those pumpkin spice lattes that the weather is far too warm to warrant, and the overly orange plastic pumpkins that Target is trying to push on us, but it’s the beer that gets me most excited. It can be a triple digit August afternoon when a package of pumpkin porter arrives and I’ll still break into it as soon as I can open the box.

As early as July those hotly anticipated squash infused brews start to hit bottle shops and brew pubs across the land. From a pale lager to a deep stout, every style of beer has had a tryst with a pumpkin. Every brewer has a different take. Some like to spice it up, others favor a drinkable pumpkin pie, while some want the flavor to be a subtle background note you should have to work at identifying. Whatever you prefer when it comes to this super special release category, there is a beer that will suit your mood.

Pumpkin Porter Brownies Sundaes2

A box of He Said Baltic Porter brewed with pumpkin and spice arrived on my door step last week reminding me that the days of driving with the windows down and eating ice cream outdoors are rapidly coming to a close. So I did what any rational person would do: I made brownies. But, somehow, that didn’t seem like enough. So I made a pumpkin porter infused chocolate sauce and added in the more weather appropriate giant scoop of cold ice cream. Which makes this the perfect transitional recipe from the heat wave afternoons to the fireside evenings. It’s both pumpkin and ice cream, regardless of the weather in your town, this recipe fits.

Porters are a great vehicle for the flavors of pumpkin. The deep earthiness is delivered well with the roast notes of the darker beers and this beer is no exception. The flavors of pumpkin in He Said are perfectly mild in a way that I prefer, these beers can often be treated heavy handed. This Baltic porter delivers the flavors of pumpkin and spice without molesting you with them, it’s more seductive. It’s a deep, smooth porter that draws you in. And, apparently, makes you bake things. Or maybe that’s just me.

Pumpkin Porter 21st

 

Pumpkin Porter Brownies Sundaes

Ingredients
  

For the brownies:

  • 1 ½ cups unsalted butter cut into cubes
  • 10 wt ounces 60% chocolate about 2 cups
  • 1 cup pumpkin porter
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 ½ cups white sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1 cup bread flour
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tsp espresso powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

For the Sundae:

  • 10 wt oz dark chocolate 53% cocoa
  • 2 tbs light corn syrup
  • 1/3 cup pumpkin porter
  • 1 quart vanilla ice cream

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 400. In the top of a double boiler, or metal bowl set over (but not touching) gently simmering water, add the butter and the chocolate. Stir occasionally until just melted. Remove from heat, stir in 1 cup pumpkin porter and vanilla extract.
  • In the bowl of a stand mixer beat the eggs on high until light and frothy, about 2 minutes. Add both kinds of sugar and beat for 6 full minutes. Add the pumpkin puree, stir until combined.
  • In a separate bowl add the flour, cinnamon, espresso powder, salt and cocoa powder, whisk until well combined.
  • While the mixer is on low, add the chocolate mixture to the eggs. Mix until well incorporated, stopping to scrape the bottom of the bowl to insure the batter is fully combined.
  • Remove the bowl from the stand mixer, sprinkle with dry ingredients. Stir until just combined.
  • Grease a 9x13 baking dish, or spray with butter flavored cooking spray, pour in batter.
  • Place in the oven and immediately reduce to 350. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. The top should look completely dry but the center should still be fudgy. Don’t over bake. Remove from oven and allow to cool until set and come to room temperature before attempting to cut, about 1 hour.
  • Add the dark chocolate, corn syrup, and 1/3 cup pumpkin porter to the top of a double boiler over medium heat.
  • Stir until melted and well combined, remove from heat, pour over ice cream.

 

Pumpkin Porter Brownies Sundaes3

 

 

 

Porter Marinated Flank Steak Lettuce Wraps with IPA Chimichuri

Porter Marinated Flank Steak Lettuce Wraps with IPA Chimichuri 2

I spent the better part of the last two weeks throwing myself into my second book. Cooking at 1 am, editing photos at dawn, trying to pull sentences out of my weary brain that would actually be ones that you would want to read.

Monday at 2 am I finally sent it off to my publisher. 100 recipes, all made with beer, all intend for parties. Small bites, appetizers, desserts. The years I’ve spent in the beer world have given me an overwhelming appreciation for the community that exists here. The people who gravitate to craft beer are those who want to share, not just beer but ideas, companionship, trust, knowledge, this is a community of people that thrive together. Of course, a book about beer food to be shared just made sense. I hope you love it as much as I do, I hope you make food to share with other, and I hope that maybe somewhere, the craft beer community is grown a little stronger because of the book I spent so much time creating. It’s the least I can do.

 

 

Porter Marinated Flank Steak Lettuce Wraps with IPA Chimichuri_

 

Porter Marinated Flank Steak Lettuce Wraps with IPA Chimichuri

Ingredients
  

For the Steak:

  • 12 ounces porter or stout beer
  • ¼ cup soy sauce
  • 1 tbs brown sugar
  • 3 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 2 lbs flank steak
  • 1 tsp kosher salt

For the Chimicuhri:

  • 1 cup Italian parsley loosely packed
  • ½ cup cilantro loosely packed
  • ¼ cup fresh oregano loosely packed
  • ¼ cup olive oil plus additional for red pepper
  • 2 tbs rice vinegar
  • 2 tbs IPA beer
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • ½ tsp crushed red chili flakes
  • ½ tsp salt

For the wraps:

  • butter lettuce
  • 1 red bell pepper

Instructions
 

  • In a shallow bowl or baking dish stir together the beer, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, chili powder, pepper and onion powder. Sprinkle the flank steak on all sides with salt, add to the marinade. Marinate for at least one hour and up to overnight.
  • In a food processor add the chimichuri ingredients, process until smooth.
  • Preheat the grill.
  • Grill the steak until desired degree of doneness, about 4 minutes per side for medium rare. Allow the steak to rest for 5 minutes.
  • Rub the bell pepper with olive oil, grill until soften and grill marks appear.
  • Slice the steak and the bell pepper.
  • Fill the butter lettuce leaves with steak and bell peppers, spoon on sauce.

Porter Marinated Flank Steak Lettuce Wraps with IPA Chimichuri 3

 

Hot Crab Beer Cheese Dip

 

 

Hot Crab Beer Cheese Dip_

 

When I was 22 I was recruited by a modeling agent while I was shopping for shoes on Melrose.

 

I said no. Nothing about that interested me at all. At the time I was teaching anger management skills to gang members in south central LA, doing work that matter to me, walking around looking pretty meant nothing to me.

Maybe it was because I’m a people pleaser, or I’m detrimentally curious, but she was able to talk me into it. I took headshots and a few weeks later I was on a catwalk in Culver City modeling high waisted jeans, and a mesh top with no bra, with vines and flowers drawn on my face.

Backstage I was so nervous I felt like I was going to throw up. At 5”7’ and 118 lbs, I was the “short, fat” model that needed the 7-inch heels to make the $500 denim inseam work. I was in a world that didn’t belong to be, in an ill-fitting role. A seasoned model, one with dead eyes and the purse full of cocaine walked by and gave me a smirk, “First show? Good lucky, honey” in a voice as nasty as garbage.

A switch flipped. I’ve never been the mean girl, I’ve never been the center of attention girl, and I was learning how not to be push over. I smirked back.

I walked out on the long black stage, lights from all sides. Camera bulbs flashed. I was acutely aware of being nearly topless, and I owned it. I got to the end of the runway, I knew it was going well. When I got halfway back, I saw Dead Eyes at the other end, she’d paused. I put my hand up, forcing her to stop. I turned back around and did another pass, walking back to the end of the runway. For some reason, the crowed cheered at my double pass. Dead eyes had to wait, she was furious at the back of the stage. When I finally exited the stage, I did so with a death glare at my back. I very quickly changed my clothes, grabbed my things and left, vines and flowers still painted on my cheeks. I didn’t get paid for the show and I never did another, but it was worth it.

I’d much rather run around a kitchen that a runway. It was a reminder that sometimes when you don’t belong somewhere it’s not your loss. Sometimes, with a little luck, we just end up where we are supposed to be. And it fits really well.

Hot Crab Beer Cheese Dip 2

 

Hot Crab Beer Cheese Dip

Ingredients
  

  • 8 oz cream cheese
  • ¼ cup sour cream
  • 1 tsp Old Bay seasoning
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • ½ tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp hot pepper sauce
  • 2 tbs cornstarch
  • 2/3 cup IPA beer
  • 1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
  • ½ cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 cup shredded mozzarella
  • ¼ cup green onions chopped
  • 8 wt oz crab meat

Instructions
 

  • In a food processor add the cream cheese, sour cream, old bay, garlic powder, chili powder, hot pepper sauce, corn starch, beer, worchestershire sauce, parmesan cheese, and mozzarealla, process until smooth.
  • Stir in the onions and crab meat.
  • Add to an oven safe serving dish.
  • Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until warm and golden brown.
  • Stir, garnish with green onions.

 

Hot Crab Beer Cheese Dip 4

Asparagus and Sausage Meatball Orzo with Parmesan Beer Cream Sauce

Twenty minute dinner: Asparagus and Sausage Meatball Orzo with Parmesan Beer Cream Sauce

I get a little itchy if I don’t get to cook.

The way musicians get when you keep them away from a stage, or an athlete when you take the ball away or how a runner will start to chew on the curtains if he can’t get out on the road. Even on the tail end of writing recipes for my second cookbook, like this one, I spend most days cooking in my kitchen surrounded by dirty dishes and half empty bottles of beer. And even though I should be writing recipes for my cookbook, I just wanted to make something that I wanted to make because I wanted to make it. It just happened to turn out photogenic, and so delicious that I wanted to share it with you. It’s an amalgamation of stuff in my fridge as well as half started recipes in my brain, and it also helped me use up one of those half empty bottles of beer I had laying around. And in the midst of cooking three other recipes, this one just took twenty minutes, which is good given the amount of cooking I need to do on a daily basis.

After six hours of cooking, and three rounds of dishes, I feel a little less itchy. But I do need a beer, a full one.

Twenty minute dinner: Asparagus and Sausage Meatball Orzo with Parmesan Beer Cream Sauce

Asparagus and Sausage Meatball Orzo with Parmesan Beer Cream Sauce

Ingredients
  

  • ½ lbs raw Italian sausage removed from casings
  • 2 tbs pale ale plus ½ cup pale ale, divided
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 tbs olive oil
  • 1 lbs asparagus
  • ¼ cup heavy cream
  • 2 wt oz fresh shredded parmesan cheese about 1 cup
  • 1 tsp honey
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 2 cups orzo
  • ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
  • ½ cup grape tomatoes optional

Instructions
 

  • In a small bowl stir together the sausage, 2 tbs pale ale, and 1 tsp red pepper flakes with your hands. Form into small balls, about half the size of golf balls.
  • Heat olive oil in a pan over medium high heat. Add the meatballs, cook until browned on all sides and cooked through, remove from pan.
  • Add the asparagus to the hot pan, cook until softened and starting to blister, about 5 minutes, remove from pan.
  • Add the remaining ½ cup pale ale, scraping to deglaze the pan. Lower heat to medium, stir in the cream. Simmer until reduced and thickened, about 6 minutes. Stir in the parmesan, honey, and black pepper
  • Cook the orzo in lightly salted boiling water for 6 minutes or until just before al dente. Drain and add the orzo to the sauce, stirring until cooked through, about 3 minutes. Add the meatballs and asparagus back into the pan, simmer until meatballs are warmed through. Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with parsley and tomatoes.

Twenty minute dinner: Asparagus and Sausage Meatball Orzo with Parmesan Beer Cream Sauce

Chocolate Stout Caramel Tart with Pretzel Crust

 


Chocolate Stout Caramel Tart with Pretzel Crust1

I was stuck in an elevator once.

I was in college, on my way to a job interview. The elevator was supposed to deposit me on the 9th floor a perfect 6 minutes before my interview time. But somewhere between the 4th and 5th floor, the elevator jolted to a stop, the doors slightly ajar, revealing my position of being stuck between floors. Frustrated that my plan to arrive at the perfect time was being hacked to pieces, I reach for my phone. No service.

I push the "door close" button, the 9th floor button again, and the lobby button again. Nothing.

I press the button with a phone on it. "Security" I hear coming from a circle of holes in the metal plate above the elevator buttons.

"Ummm, yeah. I’m in the elevator on the East side of the building, and it’s stuck. It stopped between the 4th and 5th floor."

"uuhhhhh….really? Did you push the buttons?"

"Yes I pushed the buttons! That’s the best you’ve got? Get me out of here!"

About 45 minutes later I hear sirens, a fire truck had come to my rescue. I hear low rumbling chatter and I can’t make out what the voices are saying, but within minutes the elevator doors close and the metal box I’d been trapped in slowly moves towards the lobby. When the doors open I’m met by a group of 5 firemen, who all cheer when the doors open. I laugh.

"How’d you get stuck?!" A charming young fireman says with a slight smile, "Did you push the buttons?"

"Yes I pushed the buttons, it didn’t help,"

I thanked them, and quickly left. Making my way to the 9th floor, hoping that my interview was still salvageable after an hour, I decide to take the stairs in spite of the 5 inch heels I’d chosen to wear that day.

Finally in front of the hiring manager who had written me off when I didn’t show up on time, I plead my case. After all, it really was a great excuse for being late.

"That was you?! I heard about that," He said after I’d explained the past hour, "Did you push the buttons?"

"Yes I pushed the buttons!"

Needless to say, I did not get the job.

Chocolate Stout Caramel Tart with Pretzel Crust 3

 

Chocolate Stout Caramel Tart with Pretzel Crust

Ingredients
  

For the Crust:

  • 3 ½ cup 4.5 wt oz mini pretzel twists
  • 2 tbs brown sugar
  • 8 tbs melted butter

For the Chocolate Layer:

  • 10 wt oz dark chocolate 62% cocoa content
  • 1/3 cup chocolate stout
  • 3 tbs heavy cream

For the Caramel Layer:

  • 2 cups white sugar
  • 12 tbs unsalted butter cut into cubes
  • 1/3 cup heavy cream
  • ¼ cup chocolate stout

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350.
  • Add the pretzels and the brown sugar to a food processor, process until just crumbs.
  • While the food processors is running, add the melted butter, process until well combined.
  • Add the mixture to a 9-inch tart pan. Starting with the sides, press the pretzel mixture into an even layer.
  • Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or until dark golden brown.
  • Remove from oven, allow to cool.
  • In the top of a double boiler add the chocolate, stout, and cream. Stir until melted and well combined. Pour into the crust in an even layer, chill until set.
  • In a sauce pan add the sugar. Stir until melted. The sugar will clump before it melts, just keep stirring. Once the sugar has melted, stop stirring (you can swirl the pan to prevent burning) and allow to boil until the sugar reaches 350 on a candy thermometer. This happens quickly, stay close.
  • Remove from heat and immediately stir in the butter, cream and stout. Allow to cool for 15 minutes. Pour over chocolate lay, refrigerate until set, about 3 hours. Chill until ready to serve. Tart is best made a day ahead of time.

Notes

The caramel layer melts into a caramel sauce at room temperature. For a less messy tart, add about half the caramel to the top of the tart, reserving the rest for an alternate use, like ice cream. Store unused caramel in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Caramel will keep for up to three weeks.

Chocolate Stout Caramel Tart with Pretzel Crust-2

Beer Brined Pepper Lime Chicken with Gorgonzola and Blackberries

 

 

Beer Brined Pepper Lime Chicken with Gorgonzola and Blackberries 2

I was once asked to be in a porn movie. I was 21.

I was a social worker for gang members, working with a rough crowd of teenagers in an unsavory section of Los Angeles. On a particularly frustrating day of trying to convince a hot-tempered kid why punching his teacher wasn’t a "dope idea," I decide to take a break and walk a few blocks to the nearby by mini-mart for a soda and some breathing room. As a way to exagerate the few small years that stood between my age and theirs, I always came to work a bit overdressed. As a way to look like I wasn’t still at the tail-end of my teens, I was wearing black pants, red heels and a crisp white button down. Which wasn’t the usual wardrobe choice for this particular area of the Southland.

On the way back, sucking down a Diet Coke and trying to formulate a response to angry-teen-guy logic, a brand new BMW pulled up beside me. The overly tinted window rolled down and I hear a voice asking for my attention. I was completely unsurprised to see an overly tan, overly hair gelled guy in an undersized tank top. He passed me his card and told me he was a producer. Now, we need to pause for a second to explain a little bit of the LA culture. While you should ALWAYS be skeptical of anyone who tries this line on you, and under no circumstances should you meet this person in an area that isn’t highly public, it’s not the strangest situation. I was cast as an extra in two TV shows and a movie that all started with similar conversations.

I keep a safe distance from Tan Hair Gel Baby Gap Tank Top Guy, while grabbing the business card he passed across his passenger’s seat. "I need to let you know it is an adult film, we can negotiate the sex" he says with a smarmy wink.

"Ahhh, ok," I drop the card on the passenger seat, "I’m good, but thanks for the offer." I quickly make my way back to work as he yells dollar amounts at me. Which, in case you’re wondering, isn’t at ALL degrading.

Upon returning to the office I tell the office manager what happened. She was a 50-year-old former nun, and still in practice as far as the celibacy goes, and I was a little worried about her reaction to something so tawdry. "That’s so offensive!" she yells. I knew it would disgust her and I was a little embarrassed to have told her, "I walk to that QuickMart every day and I’ve never been asked to be in a porno movie! What’s wrong with me!? I’m offended."

Not the reaction I was expecting but somehow it make the entire interaction worth it.

Beer Brined Pepper Lime Chicken with Gorgonzola and Blackberries 3

 

Beer Brined Pepper Lime Chicken with Gorgonzola and Blackberries

Ingredients
  

  • 4 boneless skinless chicken thigh fillets
  • 12 ounces pale ale
  • 1 tbs lime zest
  • 1/3 cup flour
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tbs olive oil
  • 2 wt oz gorgonzola
  • ½ cup fresh blackberries

Instructions
 

  • Add the chicken thighs to a large bowl or baking dish, pour beer over the chicken, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  • Remove from beer, pat dry.
  • In a small bowl stir together the lime zest, flour, pepper and salt.
  • Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium high heat until hot but not smoking.
  • Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture until well coated.
  • Cook the chicken until golden brown on each side and cooked through, about 4 minutes per side.
  • Plate the chicken, top with a sprinkle of gorgonzola cheese and blackberries.

Beer Brined Pepper Lime Chicken with Gorgonzola and Blackberries 4