Pork Chops & Chicken

The Strip House @ Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas

This was a quick stop for us, but something worth blogging about. We were roaming the strip and went into Planet Hollywood to check on the prices to see Holly Madison in the Peepshow. We skipped it when we found out Aubrey O'Day was in it too.

While there, we stopped by the Strip House for a quick bite to eat. It's just a basic top notch, way overpriced steak house. There isn't anything extraordinary about this menu accept for it's ungodly prices. However, the reason this place is worth mentioning, is the service and the lounge.




The lounge area is completely decked out in vintage images of topless women from the 20's and 30's. It's awesome. The lounge also has couches where you can order off the full menu. Couches and vintage boobies made this place totally worth it. Not to mention this lounge is gorgeous too. Deep reds and dimmed lights with naked vintage women. Our server was also really cool to us and had a laid back attitude. It's exactly what we wanted. The lounge is a perfect place to hide out in, have a great steak and chill out. Even if you are not that hungry, go to the lounge and get a drink and a small appetizer. It's one of the coolest places to hang out. Trust me.

10 oz. Rare Filet Mignon.



16 oz. Rare Smothered Strip Steak.



The steaks were cooked perfectly and tasted amazing. With the prices, they had better be amazing pieces of meat cooked to perfection. But even though my filet was only 10 oz., it was so big I had to take it to go. But that was a good thing. I woke up the next morning on Friday, my birthday to a bottle of wine and left over filet mignon for breakfast. It was AWESOME!! There is something to be said about starting your birthday off crunked and full from expensive leftovers.

Also on each plate was a tiny bread cup of whole cloves of roasted garlic. Nice touch. We also ordered a side of their garlicky green beans, which sadly I did not get a picture of. But they tasted great.

This place also had decent drinks. With the strip being overloaded on crappy overly sweet tourist crap cocktails, this is was a nice change of pace. They made a decent Sidecar. But in typical fashion of the strip, the beer selection was disappointing. Luckily they did have Sierra Nevada. A steak house, a really fancy expensive steak house would be the one place you would expect to see some decent craft beers. Beer and meat kind of go hand in hand. It's not that I am against Budweiser which completely strangles the entire Las Vegas strip, but I am sorry, it wouldn't have cut it for that smothered blue cheese steak Todd had.


 

Breakfast @ America in New York New York, Las Vegas

 
[Image via sporttruk]

When Todd and I got married in Las Vegas 4 years ago, we stopped one morning to grab a bite to eat while walking around the casinos at America in New York New York. We decided to revisit the place while hitting up Las Vegas for my 30th Birthday.

When we got to Vegas 4 years ago on a whim to get married, we arrived late at night, got cocktails and beer ordered to the room, and crashed. We woke up the next morning and visited the surrounding casinos. America at New York New York was cool for us to get a quick bite and an early morning cocktail. Love the 24 hour a day access to booze. It's the way the whole country should work.




Anyway, in going back we made a huge mistake. We ordered too big. I screwed up my whole day, but eating a massive meal, having a giant Pina Colada, and then trying to walk around some more. I ordered ham steak and eggs with a side of bacon. Did I really need that side of bacon? Well, no. But who knew I was getting a whole hog for a piece of ham steak? Another situation where the plate or portion of food was bigger than my two hands fanned out. Unbelievable.

Not even cigarettes, or another cocktail like a lychee martini at the MGM Grand would help settle me. I had to go back to the hotel room and lay down for a bit. Then shower up and hit the strip again.

Don't get me wrong, the meal was great, despite being so big. And I would have been fine had I not had that damn giant Pina Colada.

Hash House A Go Go, Las Vegas

[Image via A Place For My Taste]

I have been told over and over by friends that I must check out Hash House A Go Go while in Las Vegas. Well, I went last week and it was the best thing ever. Apparently it is a California chain that has made it's way to Vegas.

This is my kind of place. The portions are insanely massive, and the food is completely amazing.

I started with one of their famous coffee drinks, The Smore's Mocha.

Just look at that sticky mass of coffee and burnt marshmallow mess. It was so delicious.

Then I asked about the Chicken and Waffles. I was told to order this monstrosity from friends who know I am soul food addict. I wasn't scuured until it came out. 

As described from their website: Sage Fried Chicken with a hardwood smoked bacon waffle tower, hot maple caramel and fried leeks. It's 4 waffles with bacon cooked inside the waffle. And I am talking about a big crispy strip in each waffle. Two large pieces of fried chicken on top as well. It's unbelievable.

And just in case you are not sure how big this plate is, It's bigger than both of my hands fanned out. I found this image of some guy who looks horrified by the size of the plate while searching for a picture of the building and thought this was a good image to show you just how massive it is. I am in the second picture, a Twitpic my husband took with me in the background. Notice my hands in the second pic.

 

[Image via ZoomStreet and twitpic] 

My husband looked and around and saw pancakes as round as basketballs. He decided to play it a little safer and get the smoked salmon skillet.

 

He wasn't let off the hook size wise. This thing was massive too and completely loaded with salmon. So many times with salmon you get the shaft on how much they give you. Not at Hash House A Go Go. They also had homemade jam on the table made with pears and strawberries for the biscuit. Nice touch. 

And then I finished up with a double shot Bloody Mary. With pickled beans in it as well. I am starting to think that if there are no pickled beans for the Mary's, then they are probably not worth it. I love pickled beans so much and especially in Bloody Mary's. 

Hash House also carried Stone. Todd drank a few Pale Ales and I was torn between the Bloody Mary and an Arrogant Bastard. With Las Vegas being a beer wasteland for the most part, any chance to get good craft beer should be taken advantage of. So not only can you get awesome food, but you can have an Arrogant Bastard with it too.

This place is off the beaten path from the strip. It will cost you just over 20 bucks in cab fare if you don't have a car. But there is a cool little brew pub with video poker down the street called Big Dog's. You can eat and then walk 2 blocks down, trust me you will need to walk after this meal, and play some video poker and wash it all down with some fairly decent beers. Big Dog's had a good Pumpkin Ale and a West Coast Style IPA on hand while we were there. 

Whatever you do in Las Vegas, take the time out to visit Hash House A Go Go. Trust me.

BeerAdvocate on Green Street Feat. Ithaca Beer Co.

For a while now I have been hanging out at Green Street with the owner and good personal friend, Dylan Black. It's become our local go to place with amazing food and drinks.

Dylan opened Green Street around three and half years ago and has transformed it from the Caribbean themed menu and sometimes salsa dancing, to a slow food movement restaurant. They have a short and sweet seasonal menu, a tight bottled beer list and good rotating draft list with a possible addition of 3 more taps, an amazing wine list with the price range between $32 and $58 dollars (no wallet busting offerings), and last but not least cocktails galore. The cocktail list is on a multi-page menu listed from A-Z. With cocktails being all the rage these days, Green Street has a strong footing in the Boston market for mixed drinks.

But this isn't about the cocktails, this is about the beer. Dylan would ask us from time to time, "What's hot right now for beer, and what would be a good fit for my restaurant?" After taking a few of our suggestions and having them work out well with Green Flash and Sixpoint, we decided the next step was to host a beer dinner at Green Street. Dylan Black has an amazing excitement and enthusiasm for learning about craft beers and working them in his restaurant.

After the American Craft Beer Festival we threw in June, I got to catch up with Eric VanZile the rep. for Ithaca Beer Co., I was reflecting on a great beer dinner they had at Cambridge Common which I was present for a few years ago. Eric had mentioned to me that that was the last time they had a beer dinner in the Boston area.

Perfect timing to welcome Ithaca back to the area and get Green Street's legs wet a bit with beer dinners. After playing around with a few concepts, this is what we came up with.

Chef Greg Reeves created the menu, while Dylan and myself hand selected the beers. A few special offerings thrown in by Jeff O'Neil "The Chief" and Brewmaster of Ithaca Beer Co.

Welcome to BeerAdvocate on Green Street Featuring Ithaca Beer Co. Some beer descriptions are via BeerAdvocate.com.

We welcomed everyone with a nice house made charcuterie set up with cornichons and pickled onions, fresh breads and butter and paired the welcoming course with Outdoor Harvest Ale. A pale ale that is about 5.9 to 6% abv.

 

The Outdoor Harvest ale was a bit cloudy and hazy, but had a nice fruity nose. It was lightly sweet, with big honey notes. The beer was also made with locally grown hops around Ithaca, New York. It complimented the charcuterie plate with the steel-y tastes from the meats. Salty notes mingling with sweet, honey notes from the beer. The pickled veg added a nice little pop of tart vinegar that the sweet malts immediately reacted to it and gave a nice little contrast at the right amount.



 
Definitely a great way to kick things off. Meat and beer.

[Eric VanZile tapping the cask of Flower Power IPA.]

Our second course was a passed course Tartare of Beef with capers and cornichons paired with Ithaca's Flower Power IPA on cask. An American IPA with a fairly robust hop character and 8% abv. This was one of the special offerings brought up by Jeff O'Neil. More amazing was that this cask got to us about 15 minutes before the doors opened up all the way from Ithaca, and had zero cloudiness or sediments floating around.

To me this was the most underrated pairing of the evening. Pairing food with hops can be a tricky business. Usually hoppy beers get paired with hot, spicy foods. It was definitely nice to see this paired with beef tartare. There were a little bit of pickled onions on these as well which added that same effect of a pop of tartness. The tartare was set in a gougère, a light and airy cheese puff. Together the beef and tangy capers allowed the malts of the beer to come through. The cheese gougère gave way for some of the spiciness from the hops to come out. As well as the steel-y, iron taste from the rare tartare played around with the hops like sweet malts do with hops. Good balance all around. This was what I called in my notes a "More and more" pairing because I wanted more and more. This was a near perfect pairing and again totally underrated as it was a small, amuse bouche and the cask was getting all the attention.

A slight snob moment for me is that I generally do not prefer hoppy beers on cask. I feel that the bitterness gets completely toned down and in some cases flattened or watered down. That didn't happen with this cask, but the hops were toned down a slight bit. The carbonation held up but was not as effervescent as it normally is on bottle or draft. Usually with casks they are meant to be served at around 50 degrees. At that temperature hops and malts are already opened up for you. This is an effect I do not like with hops on cask. I prefer my hoppy beers to be super cold to watch them open and blossom in my own hands. This cask was certainly cold enough, and hoppy enough, but in my perfect world no hoppy beers would ever be put on cask. Let me rephrase that, no Americanized version of hoppy or super hoppy beers would ever be put on cask. Ice cold draft and bottles only.

For the beer geeks who live and die for cask however, this was a real treat. And despite my thoughts on hoppy beers on cask, I actually did find the beer quite enjoyable. Flower Power has changed over the years. It wasn't always as hoppy or refreshing. Recently they upped the ante with this beer and kicked up the hops. It's a borderline IPA. Borderline by almost being a double IPA and having an 8% abv. My kind of IPA.

 

And we continue on with a second passed course.

Island Creek Oysters Rockefeller with creamed spinach and caraway bread crumbs paired with Gorges Smoked Porter.  An American porter, 6.30% abv.

  

Porters and oysters are a no-brainer pairing for a lot of people into beer and food pairings. It's the salty, sea taste oysters have coupled with the robust flavors of toasted or smoked malts. It's also typically light enough to be paired with sea food offerings. But the rich flavors of the oysters and beer tend to work marvelously together. 

In this case, the wonderful smoked flavors worked well the the caraway rye seeds from the bread crumbs giving off a slight anise flavor. Gorges is also light enough to be a session beer despite its huge smoked flavors. It's a misconception beer by its aroma and color. Looks heavy and smells heavy, but drinks fairly easily. Which is why it works well with something like oysters. Oysers with their big sea flavor, but light and meaty texture. Both the beer and oysters are a bit of a paradox, but in a good way. These particular oysters were extremely fresh and meaty. Island Creek happens to be one of the best names in the Boston area for amazing oysters.

Also the folks of Island Creek were in attendance and were very happy with the pairing. Nothing better than making the producers happy.

 
This was arguably the best course of the night. A wild mushroom and bone marrow bread pudding with a sherry, foie gras emulsification paired with the Excelsior Brute. An American wild/ sour ale made with vintage (aged) local hops, barley, wheat, corn, aged in oak with Brett and finished with three types of champagne yeast. 6.5% abv.

The bread pudding was a little more cake-y than pudding like but that didn't matter based on it's taste. It was super rich and had a good texture. Kind of like a cake-y corn bread but rich, buttery, and good herb flavor to it. The bone marrow added a unique depth to it with big flavor but wasn't the overall flavor of the bread pudding. The wild mushrooms were set on top. The sherry, foie gras emulsification was the most rich and decadent sauce I have ever had. It was delicious, fatty, and rich. Just perfect. The Brute was a sour with champagne yeast that gave it a good carbonation that helped cut right through the rich fats. This was a perfect pairing. The wheat and corn flavors could actually be tasted without the sour dominating the palate as the sour and carbonation worked on the fats. This allowed the sweet sherry flavors to come out and allowed the rich grains in the beer to come out. The hops were a vintage or aged hop varietal locally grown in Ithaca but we're lightly present in the beer. The frisee added a nice tough of freshness and a touch of a crunchy texture. Added a little bitterness and earthiness to over all rich pairing. Helped add some balance to the dish. 

For me this was a brett beer I could deal with. Brettanomyces beers usually do not sit well with me. Brett also has the propensity to be the dominate flavor in most beers it's in. With this beer, the brett was present, but was delicate enough to allow the other flavors to come out. Normally that is not the case. this is a sign of a good brewer. One who can balance the right amount.

And our last course served family style. Suckling pig porchetta with honey crisp apples, horseradish, and alyssa craig onions paired with Excelsior Eleven. A sweet, milk/lacto stout brewed with British, German, and French malts, American hops, and milk sugar, then aged for weeks on locally roasted Sumatra coffee beans. 7.5% abv.

Pay attention to that last bit. This is a beer aged on coffee beans not brewed coffee in it. Interesting twist.

Porchetta is a traditional Italian style way of serving pork. Here is a quick description from Wikipedia that pretty much says it all.

Porchetta /por'ket:a/ is a savory, fatty, and moist boneless pork roast Italian culinary tradition. The body of the pig is gutted, deboned, arranged carefully with layers of stuffing, meat, fat, and skin, then rolled, spitted, and roasted, traditionally over wood. Porchetta is usually heavily salted in addition to being stuffed with garlic, rosemary, fennel, or other herbs, often wild. Porchetta has been selected by the Italian Ministero delle Politiche Agricole, Alimentari e Forestali as a "prodotto agroalimentare tradizinale" ("traditional agricultural-alimentary product", one of a list of traditional Italian foods held to have cultural relevance).

This was stuffed with a sausage made from the pig, stuffed, rolled with the tenderloin, covered in the pork fat, and roasted. Then smothered with the apple, onion, and horseradish sauce.

 
[The only shot of the beer I got for this course. I didn't realize that until I began to blog. The beer was served in a small snifter glass, and had a deep chocolate color.]

The meat was perfectly cooked. Nice and moist and the flavors of the onions, horseradish, and apples were perfect for the pork. The horseradish was a great addition as it gave a good pop to the already sweet apples and onions. This was a contrasting course with the coffee milk stout. The coffee flavors were bold and robust, and worked well with the apples and onions. The lactobacillus in the beer added a nice tangy touch to the beer which helped out with the fat on the pork. The beer itself was sweet and malty, with fruits and a dry finish. Dylan said it was like a burgundy wine with all the notes and flavors coming off of it. The dry finish seems to be a signature on a lot of Ithaca's beers. Nothing they make is cloying or lingers on the palate in an unpleasant way. 

This was the course I thought the Brute would work best with. I had enough of the Brute left to try both the Eleven and the Brute together and the Brute was way off. The pork made the Brute soapy and gave it a weird creamy texture. I thought the Brute would work based on the apples, but it was the fat, that ruined them from being perfect. So despite the strange elements of coffee notes, Eleven ended up the much better pairing. Again a contrasting pairing with a lot of flavor coming at you. But with such large portions you had enough time to figure it out and let it sink in.

 

And last but not least a small bite of the tres leche cake for Jason Alström as he was in the house and celebrated his birthday a few days early with us.

And later that night The Chief brought one of my favorites that I was really torn about using, Excelsior White Gold and Old Habit. You don't need me to describe the beers, as you can see the description clearly on the bottles.

For Green Street's first beer dinner, they really nailed it. The flavors of the food really complimented the beers. There were no wrong pairings or "close we'll let this one slide" pairings. At least according to me. And despite being the one who set this event up, I tend to be more critical of my own events. And not being the chef for the event, I can be more objective about it. All of the courses worked, and the food was incredible. 

I was extremely grateful to Eric VanZile and Jeff O'Neil for making the huge trek out and then back to NY again. Eric was off to Philly after this event. Jeff brought some nice treats for us including the Cask Flower Power, White Gold, and Old Habit.

I will look forward to working with Dylan Black and Greg Reeves again for another beer dinner.

Pickled Beets

[Image taken only one day after pickling.]

I was at the grocery store a few weeks ago buying ingredients to make the Founders Breakfast Stout Beef Stew when I panicked and bought a few bushels of beets. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I knew I needed to have them.

After asking around about what I should do with them, I decided the best thing to do was to pickle them. I found a fairly easy recipe from Alton Brown and adapted it.

Pickled Beets by Alton Brown

Roasted Beets:

6 medium beets, cleaned with 1 inch stem remaining
2 large shallots peeled
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 tbls olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl toss all of the ingredients. 

Place into a foil pouch and roast in the oven for 40 minutes.

*Roasting times will vary. Most people who have used this recipe found that they needed more than hour to roast the beets. I personally had to go longer.

Pickling:




Roasted Beets, recipe above
1 large white onion Frenched
1 cup tarragon wine vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water




Remove the skin from the Roasted Beets and slice thinly.



Arrange in 1-quart jars alternating layers with the onion.




In a small pot boil the rest of the ingredients and pour over the beets.



Tightly lid the jars and place in the refrigerator for 3 to 7 days before serving.


 

A couple of things I tweaked for this recipe. I used a white onion and not a red onion like the original recipe calls for. I also used red wine vinegar and 2 tbls of chopped tarragon in the boil instead of tarragon wine vinegar and I did not strain it out. I also tossed the left over shallots and rosemary from the roasting in with the onions and beets for pickling. No sense in wasting it. It will add a robust rosemary kick to the beets coupled with the tarragon, but I liked the bold added flavors.

Mascarpone And Fig Jam Cookies

The first time I made these cookies I nearly died when I tasted them. This is a really simple recipe for cookie dough using mascarpone cheese which adds an awesome richness to the cookies. Like sour cream cookies but better.

This recipe comes from ItalianFoodForever.com. There is no permalink for the recipe but you can do a search under cookies and its there for reference.

Mascarpone and Fig Jam Cookies by Deborah Mele

1/2 Cup Or 1 Stick Unsalted Butter, Brought To Room Temperature
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
1 Large Egg
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Softened Mascarpone Cheese
2 3/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Fig Jam, Or Jam Of Choice

Beat together the butter and sugar until light. Add the egg and vanilla, and mix until smooth.



Add the mascarpone cheese, and beat until smooth.



Sift together the dry ingredients, and fold them into the butter mixture, mixing just until combined.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and refrigerate 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place sheets of parchment paper, or silicone baking liners on two cookie pans.




On a lightly floured counter or board, roll the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls. Using a blunt round object like the end of a wooden spoon, create an indentation in the center of each cookie.




Place the cookies 2 inches apart, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or just as the cookies begin to color.


 



While still warm, use the spoon to redifine the circle, and then carefully spoon a little jam into each cookie.




Let sit at room temperature until the jam is set. Store in an airtight container.

Founders Breakfast Stout Beef Stew

It's fall again and it's beginning to get cold. New England certainly brings the cold. It seems like everyone is ready and has been waiting all summer for fall. The foods, the colors of the leaves changing, the smell of fall and fire places. It's my favorite time of year. I am ready for fall and all it has to offer.

I had a real bad hankering for a rich beef stew. I have never made one before, and like all my cooking adventures, I have to go big. So I made a rich beer stew made with a stout. Founders Breakfast Stout. A chocolate, coffee, oatmeal stout with 60 IBU's, and 8.3% abv. Word to your mothers!

I am roughly following a recipe I found online for my stew. I am going to show you the original recipe but what you see on my post here is the modified version. Anything with an asterisk next to it on the recipe I post has been modified from the original.

The biggest modification to this recipe is the beer. I substituted out the red wine for the beer. The beer I chose is a robust, American/Imperial (double) stout with high IBU's (international bittering units). The complex flavors make for a unique twist on this recipe. The deep cocoa flavors and roasted malts are really amazing for a rich stew. The meat ended up holding on to all of the hoppy bitterness. The vegetables were the sweet contrast to the dish. Also the huge flavor profile on this beer with the vegetables added almost a hint of ginger coming out despite not using any ginger at all. A very good and unique reaction I didn't quite expect.

If you don't want to use something as robust or as bitter as this beer, and believe me it might be too much for some, there are plenty of lighter variations to choose from as well as using porters, brown ales, and Belgian dubbels.

Get a good read of the reviews first to understand why I chose this beer and if this will be the right one for you to use.

Founders Breakfast Stout

Be advised that this is an overnight recipe. You have to marinate your meat overnight.

The Original Recipe

Parker's Beef Stew via Food Network

Founders Breakfast Stout Beef Stew

*2 1/2 pounds of sirloin tips cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
*2 12oz bottles of Founders Breakfast Stout
*3 to 4 whole cloves of garlic, smashed
*3 to 5 bay leaves
*1/2 tbls onion powder
*1/2 tbls garlic powder
*1 tbls Worcestershire sauce

2 cups all-purpose flour
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
2 yellow onions, cut in 1 inch cubes
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut diagonally in 1 1/2 inch chunks
1 pound small potatoes halved or quartered
1 tbls minced garlic
2 cups or 1 (14 1/2 oz can) chicken broth or stock
1 large (or two small) branch of fresh rosemary
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
2 tbls Worcestershire sauce
1 10oz package of frozen peas

*The original recipe called for chuck stew, but my meat man had very little offerings by way of chuck stew. I told him I was making a stew and he said sirloin steak tips would work well for stews. Do what the original recipe says and use chuck stew, but for this particular recipe it's sirloin tips. It worked just as well.

Place the beef in a bowl with beer, garlic, and bay leaves, garlic and onion powder and worcestershire sauce. Lightly toss the meat around with the marinade. Place in the refrigerator and marinate overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Combine the flour, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 tablespoon pepper.

Lift the beef out of the marinade with a slotted spoon and discard the bay leaves and garlic, saving the marinade.

*Chop carrots, potatoes, and onions before your begin to brown your meat.

 

In batches, dredge the cubes of beef in the flour mixture and then shake off the excess. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot and brown half the beef over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes, turning to brown evenly. 

Place the beef in a large oven-proof Dutch oven and continue to brown the remaining beef, adding oil as necessary. (If the beef is very lean, you'll need more oil.) Place all the beef in the Dutch oven.

Heat another 2 tablespoons of oil to the large pot and add the onions, carrots, mushrooms, and potatoes. Cook for 10 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. Place all the vegetables in the Dutch oven over the beef.

 

Add 2 1/2 cups of the reserved marinade to the empty pot and cook over high heat to deglaze the bottom of the pan, scraping up all the brown bits with a wooden spoon.

Add the chicken stock, rosemary, sun-dried tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon salt, and 2 teaspoons pepper.

 

Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables in the Dutch oven and bring to a simmer over medium heat on top of the stove. Cover the pot and place it in the oven to bake it for about 2 hours, until the meat and vegetables are all tender, stirring once during cooking.

If the stew is boiling rather than simmering, lower the heat to 250 or 275 degrees F.

 

Before serving, stir in the frozen peas, season to taste, and serve hot.

  

Serve with warm brown bread and butter.

A couple of things to take notice of. I did not use a proper dutch over for this recipe as you can see in the pictures. I have one, a gorgeous La Creuset. But sadly I only have one and it simply wasn't big enough for this recipe. I used a 9x13 pan because I did not have anything else big enough. And I merely covered it in foil. Still cooked it at 2 1/2 hours. I had a little bit of marinade left over before baking it off. Instead of stiring it up because the pan was so full, I cooked it for an hour and let some of the marinade reduce a bit and then added the remaining marinade to coat the top of the stew. I then transferred the stew to big serving dish where I added the peas.

The flavors from this stew are very big, bold and complex. The beer has oats, chocolate, and coffee in it. The meat retains a lot of the beer's bitterness which I found to be wonderful. Also the bloody iron taste and chocolate flavors from the meat are to die for. 

The sun-dried tomatoes were a nice touch to this dish. The carrots, peas, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes added the perfect balance of sweetness to this dish. The original recipe does call for mushroom, but I went ahead and skipped that step. You can easily add celery to this dish as well to make it a bit more classic.

The marinade had a bit of a boozy smell, but with the fresh garlic permeating the entire fridge, that boozy smell comes and goes. You will get big wafts of garlic, chocolate, coffee, and sometimes alcohol. Same aromas once cooked, but much deeper and richer.

And as always, the longer the stew sits, the better it gets. Leftovers will be divine and some of the initial bitterness will tone down a bit. But not too much.

Make sure you serve yourself a pint of the Breakfast Stout to go along with it. 

One small disclaimer, a few of my pictures came out blurred. Sometimes I can't tell with my digital camera until I have uploaded them. Forgive my shoddy photography.

Creamy Coconut And Marcona Almond Ice Cream

The desire to make an awesome, creamy, coconut ice cream stems from the very first batch of ice cream I made and screwed up. It all started with getting a brand new ice cream maker for Christmas last year. I also had a can of coconut milk I needed to get rid of. So naturally I thought okay coconut ice cream.

So I found a good looking knock off recipe from Ben and Jerry's using their sweet cream base and adding coconut cream to the base. Yep coconut CREAM which I totally dismissed and thought cool my coconut milk will work and I had sweet shredded coconut to mix in it.

Low and behold there was too much water and I ended up with a sort of sweet coconut sorbet instead. Tasted great, but too much water content.

I have been determined to make this again and redeem myself. I finally have. This batch came out the creamiest, and fluffiest ice cream I have made to date.

Ben And Jerry's Coconut Ice Cream

Sweet Cream Base I

2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk
1 can (15 ounces) coconut cream, such as Coco Lopez

3/4 to one cup sweetened flaked coconut

3/4 to 1 cup large chopped Marcona almonds

 

The first thing I did was soak 3/4 cup flaked coconut I intended to blend into the ice cream in the coconut cream. I sent my husband out for the ingredients and he came home with unsweetened coconut. No biggie. I just let it soak for about 10 minutes before mixing. If you use sweetened coconut, skip this step and add the coconut with the almonds at the end.

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes.




Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more.




Pour in the cream and milk and whisk to blend. Add the coconut cream and blend.




Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer's instructions.

I added 3/4 cup to roughly one cup of chopped Marcona almonds after the churn. This is so much liquid from the base that if I added anything else, it would have spilled over the sides. So blend well then transfer to container and freeze for a few hours until firm.

Makes generous 1 quart.

Variations:

Coconut Almond-Add 3/4 cup roasted whole almonds (salted or unsalted) after the ice cream stiffens (about 2 minutes before its done), then continue freezing until the ice cream is ready.

Coconut Chip- Add 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips after the ice cream stiffens (about 2 minutes before its done), then continue freezing until the ice cream is ready.

Coconut Rum-Whisk 2 tablespoons rum, preferably dark, into the cream mixture before transferring it to the ice cream maker. Complete the recipe as directed.