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Beer Marinated Steak with Porter Gorgonzola Butter

Beer Marinated Steak with Porter Gorgonzola Butter via @TheBeeroness

Falling into the world of craft beer, I lacked a full grasp of the type of people this obsession attracts. Over the years I never cease to be amazed at the warmth and heart that exists in the gatherings of the Craft Beer Enthusiasts, the salt of the earth types that dwell here. It’s hard to explain to people who are outside, how to really articulate how golden the souls, how quickly we connect to one another over a shared fascination. How our celebrities brew beer, and our Mecca lives in various 750 ml bottles.

Beer Marinated Steak with Porter Gorgonzola Butter via @TheBeeroness

Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to spend a truly unforgettable weekend in Boston, courtesy of Attune Foods, to marinate in the company of the Craft Beer Crowd. The final night gave me a clear tableau of the heart of this community. In the middle of a large conference space, in the bottom of a Boston hotel, was an impromptu potluck of rare beer, a spontaneous gathering spread out by strangers. People from all over the country packed bottles of beer, rare beer, sacred beer, hard to track down beer, beer that people dream of, in order to share it with strangers. They pulled from their stash of beer that took them months, even years to track down, in order to share it with people they have never met.

Beer Marinated Steak with Porter Gorgonzola Butter via @TheBeeroness

I was honored, and so grateful, to be handed beer I’ve only read about, from people I’d never met. "I though you’d like this," or "I brought this to share, do you want some?" It was touching, and even a bit overwhelming, that people who didn’t know me would share, with such enthusiasm, what is often rare and hard to come by. Some bottles weren’t even replaceable, aged for several years. This is craft beer. People who just want to share, in community, what they have come to love.

Beer Marinated Steak with Porter Gorgonzola Butter via @TheBeeroness

 

And all I have to offer in return is my gratitude, and some knowledge about food, and a few recipes. Let’s start with steak. A few tips can give you an unforgettable meal, to serve with that rare beer.

First, is the selection process. Have you ever noticed those stickers on the packages of steak in the grocery store? Prime, Choice and Select? While they should put: Great, Pretty Good and Don’t Bother, they leave it a bit ambiguous. If you know what to buy, you’ll be ahead of the game.

Prime is the best, but of course, most expensive. Choice is runner up to prime, not as good as Prime, but it’s often much less expensive. Select should be labeled: Please Don’t Select, it’s poor quality. If a steak isn’t labeled, it probably was so poor, it didn’t even earn a Select designation. If you see an unlabeled piece of meat that has a sticker that says, Inspected by the USDA, don’t fall for it, all meat is inspected by the USDA. Look for a well marbled steak, about an inch in thickness that’s labeled Prime or Choice.

Second: marinate and dry. Beer is a natural meat tenderizer, using it in a marinade gives steak an amazing texture. Drying the meat well, while it feels counter intuitive, is the only way to get a good sear and avoid 50 shades of gray meat.

Third: excessively salt your meat. Don’t be shy with the salt, it’s imperative. Liberally salt the steak on all sides, it’s pretty difficult to over salt a steak and salt is extremely important to the final flavor.

Fourth: buy a meat thermometer. If you cook meat a lot, you get used to the feel test and you can vibe it. But until then, testing with an inexpensive meat thermometer is a foolproof way to get the exact doneness that you want. You really don’t want to spend all that time and money only to over cook your steak because you didn’t want to spring for the $7 meat thermometer.

For this recipe I love a smoked porter, it’s one of my favorite go-to beers when it comes to cooking with beef.

Beer Marinated Steak with Porter Gorgonzola Butter

Ingredients
  

For the Steak:

  • 1 ½ cups stout or porter
  • 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 4 New York Steaks or Tri Tip Steaks choice or prime
  • Salt and Pepper
  • 2 tbs olive oil

For The Butter:

  • ½ cup unsalted butter softened
  • ½ cup porter
  • ¼ cup crumbled Gorgonzola

Instructions
 

  • In a small bowl, whisk together the beer, Worcestershire, onion powder, paprika and salt.
  • Place the steaks in a baking dish, cover with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 6 to 12 hours, turning at least once while marinating.
  • While the steak is marinating, make the butter. In a saucepan over medium high heat, add the ½ cup porter. Cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced to 2 tbs, 8-10 minutes.
  • In a food processor add the butter and reduced beer, process until well combined. Add the Gorgonzola and pulse to combine.
  • Add butter to a sheet of plastic wrap, roll into a log and refrigerate until solid, about 1 hour.
  • Fifteen minutes before cooking, remove the steaks from the marinade. Place on a stack of paper towels, top with additional paper towels, pressing down firmly. Allow to dry for about ten minutes.

Grill Method:

  • Preheat the grill to medium high.
  • Salt and pepper the steak liberally on all sides.
  • Brush the grill with olive oil.
  • Place the steaks on the hottest part of the grill until grill marks appear, flip. Once grill marks appear on the other side, flip again. Flip a total of 4 times to create a diamond grill pattern, keeping the grill closed between flipping. Test the temperature and remove when desired doneness is achieved.
  • Allow to rest for at least 5 minutes.
  • Slice the butter into 1 inch pats, add one pat to each steak.

Oven Method:

  • Preheat oven to 350.
  • Salt and pepper the steak liberally on all sides.
  • In a pan over medium high heat add the olive oil, heat until hot but not smoking. Add the steaks (two at a time) and cook on each side until a brown seared crust has formed, about 2 minutes per side. Avoid crowding the pan, cook in batches if necessary. Move steaks to a sheet pan or baking dish.
  • Cook in the oven for 5-7 minutes, or until desired level of doneness. Allow to rest for at least 5 minutes.
  • Slice the butter into 1 inch pats, add one pat to each steak.

Notes

Temperatures for doneness:
126°F Rare,
131°F Medium Rare,
145°F Medium,
154°F Medium Well,

Beer Marinated Steak with Porter Gorgonzola Butter via @TheBeeroness

Beer and Butter Poached Lobster with Saison Risotto

Lets Get romantic, shall we?

Last year, my Valentines day post earned my quite a bit of hate mail. But, I suppose when you label your post "How Blow Jobs and Shoe Shopping Are Alike," That’s bound to happen.

But the post wasn’t about blow jobs, or shoe shopping, and the hate mail was largely from single women who had never been in a successful long term relationships, and exclusively from people who didn’t read the entire thing.

The post is about figuring out what your partner needs to feel important and giving it to them gladly and frequently. Because although the "Golden Rule" is Treat Others How You Would Like To Be Treated, I think that might be what’s wrong with most relationships.

Because, really, treating someone how YOU would like to be treated is pretty self-involved and arrogant. How about Treat Others How THEY Would Like To Be Treated and maybe we would have a higher marriage success rate as a nation. Because although you might think you’ve done everything you can for your partner, maybe the problem is that you’re asking, "What else can I do?" rather than, "What do they need?"

Can you tell I have a Masters in Psychology? I would have made a terrible therapist, but I make a killer risotto.

So here it is, with some beer and butter poached lobster.

Beer and Butter Poached Lobster with Saison Risotto

For this recipe I used Saison Rue from The Bruery.

Beer and Butter Poached Lobster with Saison Risotto

Servings 2 servings

Ingredients
  

For the Risotto

  • 2 ½ cups chicken broth
  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 tbs chopped shallots
  • 2 cloves of garlic minced
  • ¾ cups arborio rice
  • 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
  • ½ cup Saison Beer plus 2 tbs, divided
  • ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 2 tbs heavy cream
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 2 tbs chopped chives

For The Lobster:

  • 2 ½ cups unsalted butter
  • 12 ounces 1 1/2 cups Saison beer
  • 2 fresh lobster tails

Instructions
 

  • Place the chicken broth in a saucepan and bring to a mild simmer, keeping to warm, but not boiling.
  • In a separate pot, add the butter and allow to melt over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until softened, but don’t allow to brown. Add the garlic and cook until you can smell them, about 20 seconds
  • Stir in the rice, (if pan is dry, add the oil) cooking until the rice is completely coated with butter and it smells slightly nutty, don’t allow to brown. About 2 minutes.
  • Add ½ cup of the beer and cook until the pan begins to dry, stirring frequently. About 6 minutes.
  • Add about ½ cup of broth into the rice. Stir frequently until the rice is almost dry, and then add another ½ cup and repeat. This process should take about 20 minutes. Don’t leave the risotto while it’s cooking, the rice on the bottom of the pan burns easily. (if you run out of broth, just use hot water the same way you would broth)
  • Once your risotto is cooked through (taste it to verify that the rice is cooked and not crunchy), turn heat to low and add the cheese, cream, remaining 2 tbs beer and salt and pepper to taste. Risotto should be soft and wet, not dry like typical rice. It should be firm enough to be served as a side on a plate, but soft enough to jiggle when the plate is shaken.
  • While the risotto is cooking, start working on the lobster. Using a sharp pair of kitchen sheers, cut a straight line down the tail shell, carefully remove the tail meat in one piece.
  • In a small sauce pan (if the pan is too big, the lobster will not be covered by the butter and beer), melt the butter. Don’t allow to brown or simmer.
  • Add the beer and clip a cooking thermometer on the side of pan, making sure to maintain a temperature between 160 and 180 degrees. Do not boil or even simmer the poaching liquid.
  • Once the poaching liquid has reached the proper temperature, add the tails. Cook until the tails have turned red and the meat is just opaque, about 6 to 8 minutes. Don’t overcook or tails will be rubbery.
  • Divide the risotto between two plates, sprinkle with chives.
  • Top with lobster tails, serve immediately.

Brown Butter Sage Hummus & And The Web’s Top Ten Hummus Recipes

There seems to be something so paltry and vapid about trying to talk about hummus when half of the United States is bracing for an epic natural disaster.

Because it seems to be only in those times when the brushes with disaster get top billing in our lives that we take the time to be thankful, today seems to be the prefect hour. Take a moment to relax the expectations you had for today, step back and be grateful and thankful for what you do have. And send thoughts, prayers and love to those on the East Coast who could possibly lose today what you forgot to be be thankful for yesterday.

Brown Butter Sage Hummus

Ingredients

  • 4 tbs butter
  • 3 sage leaves, minced
  • 3 tbs tahini
  • 1 clove garlic, smashed
  • 15 oz Chickpeas
  • 3 tbs olive oil (plus additional as needed)

Instructions

  1. Add the butter to a pot over medium heat. Stir continuously until it has turned an amber brown color and has a nutty aroma. Remove from heat. Add the sage and stir.
  2. In a food processor, add the remaining ingredients along with the browned butter.
  3. Process until smooth. Add additional olive oil for a smoother texture.

White Bean & Garlic Hummus – Bran Appetit

Truffle Roasted Tomato Hummus – Bake Your Day

 

beet Hummus – Heather Christo

 

Zucchini Paleo Hummus – Amazing Paleo

Edamame Hummus  – Oh My Veggies

Jalapeno IPA Hummus – The Beeroness

Pumpkin Hummus – Domestic Fits

Bacon Hummus – Just A Taste

 

Chipotle Hummus – Domestic Fits

 

 

Sweet Potato Beer Biscuits With Maple Sage Butter

 

 

I didn’t grow up eating Sweet potatoes.

I never saw them on my Thanksgiving table or at Sunday dinner. They just didn’t exist in my world. Until one chilly afternoon in College when I stopped by the dorm room of a Souther friend of mine who had just pulled a Sweet potato, covered in butter and brown sugar out of the microwave. She was nuts. A Vegetable with sugar on it? I couldn’t get over how strange it was to enjoy a vegetable as if it was some kind of dessert. She offered me a bite, and my instinct to recoil was overtaken by my overwhelming curiosity. I was hooked.

I shocked at how much I love it. It was a comfort food, and it was a vegetable. Biscuits, made from scratch, are a bit the same. Although I didn’t grow up with anything other than a biscuit from a tube with a fear inducing opening method, those always seemed amazing to me. Another incredible comfort food.

And the beer isn’t just here for the novelty of it. Beer is a mild leavening agent, giving this biscuits a lighter, more tender texture. For this recipe, I like a Hefeweizen or a Pumpkin Ale.

Sweet Potato Beer Biscuits With Maple Sage Butter

Ingredients
  

For the Biscuits:

  • 1 large sweet potato
  • 2/3 cup beer
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • pinch salt
  • 1 tbs sugar
  • 1 stick butter cold, cut into small cubes
  • 1 tbs melted butter

For the Butter:

  • 3 tbs butter room temperature
  • 1 sage leaf minced
  • 1 tsp pure maple syrup

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 425.
  • Pierce the sweet potato all over. Microwave on high until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool enough to work with. Remove and discard skin, add sweet potato to a bowl (should be about 3/4 cup of sweet potato mash).
  • Add the beer to the sweet potatoes and using a potato masher, stir and mash until completely combined.
  • In a bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Mix to combine.
  • Add the butter cubes and using your fingers or a pastry blender, rub the butter into the flour until completely combined.
  • Add the sweet potato beer mixture and mix until just combined.
  • Form dough into a ball and place on a lightly floured surface. Form into a square, about 1 1/2 inches high, and about 1 foot long. Cut into square biscuits. Place on a baking sheet covered with a Silpat or parchment paper. Brush with melted butter.
  • Bake at 425 for 15-18 minutes.
  • In a small bowl, add the maple syrup ingredients and stir until combined.
  • Serve biscuits warm, with maple sage butter.

 

 

 

Brown Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I spent the morning interviewing ex-cons.

For them, the employees of Homeboy Industries, it’s a second chance and fresh start. A non-profit that works with gang members, fresh out of jail, provides culinary training, GED prep, job placement, parenting skills and so much more. "It’s like a big family, but everyone believes in you." Said one guy, back for a second chance at his second chance.

But sitting at the front of the Homegirl Cafe, interviewing and photographing the employees, it felt like a second chance and fresh start for me too. I was hired to write an article about food. Paid to go there, talk to people and take photos. A rare opportunity it seems for me to bulldog my way into this food writing world that I’ve been fighting so hard to be  a part of. An article I hope to do justice to, undoubtably spending the better part of the next week working on.

So here we are. Me and them. My transformation so much less dramatic, so much less important to my survival. They inspire me. When I asked the man I met, the one who is back for his second time and only 3 days out of jail, how he is going to do things different this time around, he shrugs, "I’m just going to keep showing up. That’s all."

I think he’s on to something there.

Brown Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into cubes
  • 2/3 cups white sugar
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup bread flour
  • 2/3 cup cake flour
  • 1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Makes 2 dozen

Instructions

  1. In a pot over medium high heat, add the butter. Stir until butter has melted. Continue to cook, swirling the pot continuously, until the butter has turned an amber brown color and remove from heat. This will take about 5 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature.
  2. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and the sugar. Add the vanilla and the browned butter, stir until combined.
  3. In a separate bowl add the remaining ingredients and stir until well combined.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined, don’t over mix.
    Line two baking sheets with a Silpat or parchment paper.
  5. Form dough into balls a bit larger than a golf ball. Place on the baking sheets.
  6. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, and up to 24.
  7. Preheat oven to 350. Bake for about 18 minutes or until light golden brown. Keep an eye on your cookies at about the 12 minutes mark. Cookies that aren’t as chilled will cook much faster.

 

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Cups

 

 

 

I’ve got a bone to pick with Reeses. First, they make the only store bought candy that I can’t stop eating. The only Halloween treat I’m actually tempted to eat in bulk.

But my real issue is with their so called Peanut Butter Cup Pumpkins.

On first glance this Halloween treat seems like it contains, or at least tastes like, pumpkin. Which lures me into breaking my self imposed ban on store bought candy only to be left with the realization that the only thing Pumpkin about it, is the shape.

So I give to you the exact opposite. An Unprocessed, homemade treat that is not shaped like a pumpkin but contains real life, home roasted pumpkin.

If you want to make it a touch easier, you can combine canned pumpkin pie filling with peanut butter until it tastes right to you, but I like to roast my pumpkins myself. I just love real life produce that much, I pledge my allegiance to the framer and not the factory.

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Cups

Ingredients

  • 2 cups dark chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
  • 2 tbs honey
  • 1/4 cup peanut butter
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg

(you will also need mini muffin tins and mini muffin papers)

Instructions

  1. In a microwave safe bowl, add the chocolate. Microwave on high for 20 seconds, stir and repeat until melted. Line a mini muffin tin with mini muffin papers. Add about 1 1/2 tsp of melted chocolate to each paper. Using the back of a spoon, gently "paint" the chocolate up the sides of the papers, making sure to leave enough on the bottom for a sturdy base.
  2. Place muffin tin in the refrigerator, chill until set, about ten minutes.
  3. Place the remaining ingredients in a bowl and stir until well combined. (Taste filling, add more honey for a sweeter filling.)
  4. Once the chocolate has set, add a small amount to the middle of the cups, making sure to avoid the top edges.
  5. Remelt chocolate if necessary.
  6. Top the muffin papers with melted chocolate, tap the muffin tin lightly on the counter to evenly distribute chocolate. Make sure the pumpkin filling is completely covered.
  7. Chill until set, about 10 minutes.

Makes about 2 dozen.

 

How To: Make Roasted Garlic Butter

I’ve been smearing this stuff all over pretty much everything this weekend. The growing list of food that has been slathered with roasted garlic butter at my house include: steak, chicken, asparagus, potatoes and just plain 'ol bread. I have a wicked addiction to garlic, and now that it’s in spreadable form no food is safe in my house.

Roasted Garlic Butter

1 head garlic

2 tbs olive oil

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 400. Cut the top off of your head of garlic and expose the cloves. Place it on a sheet of aluminum foil. Drizzle with the olive oil.

Fold the foil up tight around the garlic, place on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until soft.

Place the stick of butter in a food processor. Squeeze the head of garlic into the food processors, pushing the softened cloves out of the head. Be careful not to get any papery skin into the butter mixture.

Add the salt.

Pulse until combined.

Garlic butter can be served softened, or chilled. To chill the butter, place on a sheet of plastic wrap and roll into a log.

Refrigerate until chilled and then cut slices and serve over warm meat, seafood and vegetables.