Fall = Beer Time!

So the last year or so Donald and I have been experimenting with homebrewing. We have most consistantly been brewing an English Bitter recipe from the Microbrewed Adventures. We've played around with it a little bit but we both really like the resulting beer so it's defiantly in our standard rotation. A couple of months ago for our anniversary we had a brew day. Most "normal" people go out for a nice dinner or something of the like for their wedding anniversary, but us, we brewed beer! After a marathon trip out to Adventures in Homebrewing's shiny new location on the west side of Ann Arbor we had three batches that we were going to brew that day. A batch of the English Bitter, a English Strong Ale, and a Pumpkin Ale.

 The Strong Ale recipe called for a yeast starter to make sure that there were enough yeast to deal with the massive amounts of sugar that the recipe had. So "we" (this being the non-royal we of mostly just Donald) decided to do a starter for both the Bitter and the Strong. Got everything prepped and in the buckets, put the airlocks in the top of the buckets and put them away in the awesome pantry of doom to bubble away. Welllll so when you make a starter with your yeast, the yeast are already really happy when you put them into the wort - and they get more excited from there. Luckily before he went to bed Donald noticed that the Bitter was throwing foam into it's airlock. So the Strong Ale and the Bitter both got shiny new blowoff tubes and then we went to bed. We both got up the next morning and then went to work. When Donald got home the top of the Strong Ale bucket was a little bit bowed up. So Donald went to move it out and thats when he discovered that the bottom of the bucket was bowed out as well - so much so that the bucket was basically about to blow. So after a careful extraction of the bucket from the closet he switched the blowoff tube for a much larger diameter one and that seemed to do the trick. Beer that isn't blowing up = good!

The Pumpkin Ale was much more straightforward. I added the optional pie pumpkin to the recipe. We went and got a cute little 2lb pumpkin from the farm stand at the end of the road. After it roasted for about 45 minutes in the oven it got added to the mash and the pulled out with the grain bag so that it added a little bit of pumpkin flavor but not overwhelmingly strong. A touch of pie spices and away we went.

 So after the requisite aging time and then going into kegs for the Strong and the Bitter and into bottles for the Pumpkin Ale. The Strong Ale is still a bit raw after a couple of weeks of aging, so it's in time-out. The Bitter turned out a little bit more "American" then "English", and it's getting a little bit better as it ages, but I still don't know that I really like this batch. The Pumpkin Ale on the other hand, is sooooo delicious! I opened the first bottle tonight and wow. The pumpkin and spice are subtle and balanced, and the mouthfeel is almost creamy. I already grabbed the ingredients for a second batch that I'll be starting some time this week. I am going to be very selfish with this first batch though, no sharing!

Pasta Sauce and the End of Summer

It's been a while since I posted anything here, but Trase asked nicely and so here it is. I just finished my first big push for the year for canning pasta sauce. The last couple of years I have only done about 30 jars of sauce and inevitably by the time we hit June and July we are rationing sauce because there are only 1 or 2 precious jars left until tomatoes come back in late August. So this year I set out to change that. My goal for this year was 52 quarts of sauce. In the middle of winter it's not that unusual to use 2 or 3 in a week, so when I really got down to it, 52 quarts was not an un-reasonable amount of tomato sauce. A lot of people have asked me for my sauce recipe and so here it is. This is the one that I did this round, every time I make it its a little bit different depending on what I have on hand. That being said, I do not have access to a lab or anything so nothing has been for sure tested as far as safety and such goes. If it is your first time doing any home canning, I highly encourage you to go check out the recipes at www.freshpreserving.com (the Ball Brand website) for canning methods and tested recipes. If you don't want to can it, this is also a sauce that could be stored in the fridge or freezer in portions that make sense for you. Tomato Sauce a la The Rose & Thistle 6 pounds fresh tomatoes, roughly diced (I leave the skins on because I don't mind them, but you could remove if they bug you) 3 large yellow onions, diced 1 head of garlic, minced (use the food processor if you have one, so much easier!) 2 cups celery, diced 1 cup carrot, diced 4 bell peppers, seeded and diced 2 hungarian wax peppers, minced (omit these if you don't want a spicy sauce) 2 cups summer squash, seeded and diced Salt & Pepper 15 oz can tomato paste (or take 2 pounds tomatoes and cook down until very thick) Add tomatoes to large stock pot and bring to a boil (there is no need to add extra liquid - the tomatoes will supply all the liquid you need!). Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about an hour or until they have reduced down by about 1/3. Meanwhile, saute the other veggies in batches. I generally put the batches of sauteed veggies straight into the tomatoes as each batch is soft/brown enough for my taste. In a bowl, combine the can of tomato paste and a ladle or two of the sauce to thin/incorporate and then combine entire contents of the bowl with the rest of the sauce. Salt and pepper to taste. Using cider vinegar (or another acid at 5% acidity like white vinegar, bottled lemon juice, or wine vinegar - I just like cider vinegar) add 2 Tbsp to each quart halfway though filling the jar. Fill your jars, process, and cool. After all of your seals have established themselves, store until you desire a taste of those fleeting days of summer!

Out of the Frying Pan & Into the Fire

Well any delusions that I had about this week being easier then last are right out. I am in the last week of a huge project at work and this weekend is graduation at U of M.

Sunday: Easter Dinner with the Wilson's
Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: Split Peas Soup
Wednesday: Anya making Bigos
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Pork Roast
Saturday: Leftovers

Going to Be a Crazy One

This week is going to be crazy. Passover and Easter are in the same week so there will be all sorts of stuff going on at work around both. But I do get a couple of nights where I'm home to make dinner so that's a plus! I just about finished the baby sweater that I started last week and I'm still working on the bag for Ash's Taiko sticks. But there should be some good family/car time to work on those and get them off the needles. See you on the flip side!

Sunday: Leftovers
Monday: Pastrami Ruben
Tuesday: Moroccan Lentil Soup
Wednesday: Grilled Chicken & Potato Salad
Thursday: No one is home.
Friday: Pierogi with family
Saturday: Free For All

Vacation ate my brain

That's really the only excuse I have for not posting the last couple of weeks. I'm super excited about this week though as I am getting a new fridge! The time has come that I finally admitted that my darling Kelvinator just isn't big enough for us. That said, I'm not getting rid of the jolly green giant, it's just retiring a bit into it's new role as beer fridge!

Sunday: Pizza
Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: Beans with Sausage & Kale
Wednesday: Baked Potato Buffet
Thursday: Donald will fend for himself
Friday: New Fridge day!
Saturday: Minestrone w/ Fresh Bread from Donald's BAKE class

Seeing Green

It's one of my favorite weeks. It's the week of St. Patrick's Day and I get to break out some of my most loved foods. Plus I got the Feb/Mar issue of Fine Cooking the other day and after drooling a little bit I picked out a couple of things to add to the menu this week.

Monday: Stout & Cheese Meatloaf
Tuesday: no one will be home
Wednesday: Corned Beef with all the fixin's
Thursday: Quinoa Salad
Friday: Potato Leek soup
Saturday: Moroccan Lentil Soup
Sunday: Leftovers

We'll see if Friday's meal plan actually happens. We now have a funeral to attend that morning so I might not get a chance to get everything put together. Something will happen, I'm just not guaranteeing that it will be what I said will happen! So with that I leave you with some lovely pictures of the meat loaf that was dinner tonight before I cooked it and after it came out of the oven. Enjoy!

Knitting is a quiet but powerful thing

I was reminded of this today on the bus ride home. When I first got on the gentleman sitting behind me struck up a conversation about my knitting and when I was making etc.. After a couple of other comments he reassured me that he wasn't staring at me, simply glancing over from time to time to make comments. After about 5 minutes of this pretense he finally admitted that ok, now he was watching what I was doing. And for the next 20 minutes of my ride we sat in relative silence, me knitting - him watching. As he was getting off the bus, he thanked me for letting him watch and share the experience. Next was the woman who moved up to the seat behind me and talked about how she had made afghans and such in the past but was a bit baffled by what I was doing with so many needles (I was working on kilt hose knit in the round on 5 DPNs). We had a bit of conversation which reminded her of a girl she had know in grade school in the 50's who had moved to the school from Germany and was teased because everything she wore was hand-knit by the girls mother, right down to her underwear!

And these little conversations reminded me that knitting might be a quiet and generally solitary practice for me, but is still a powerful thing. Not only does it connect me to the men and women who have come before me and passed the craft along, but it connects me to complete strangers in my everyday life. As a generally introverted person this is huge for me. Many times there are situations where I would never say a word or interact with others around me for any number of reasons, but with my knitting out, I do. It starts conversations and is something I can talk about with practically anyone.

Knitting is a powerful thing.