Dogfish Head - 90 Minute IPA

It was a long week sitting in my cube with the interwebs staring back at me.  The prospect of kicking back and having a beer Friday night is always in the back of my mind.  So what better way to celebrate than with a 90 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head!  People tend to be lovers or haters of IPA's, there are few that land in the middle.  Why is this?  Because it's strong, hoppy and loaded with flavor.  Some IPA's can really knock you over with the hop flavor (see Great Divide's Titan), but 90 Minute will satisfy just about any palate.  It is not overwhelming, but rather unassuming with a nice rich aftertaste.  To me, the best part of sipping on a 90 Minute is the almost instant warmth you feel as it enters your bloodstream...aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Happy Drinking!

Squatch

Crock Pot Chili Con Carne

I found this recipe on one of my favorite sites – allrecipes.com – and modified it a bit. This is one of those Sandra Lee style meals, you know…semi-homemade. Chili con carne is typically made with meat and peppers. This particular recipe has no tomatoes. NO TOMATOES? WHAT? My first thought was “how is it chili without tomatoes?”. But this recipe is tasty. There is more liquid than any chili I have ever made, but it was still pretty delish. And in my family, chili is served over rice with cheese on top. That is the only way, I’m telling ya. I used venison because it’s what I had and we like to cook with it, but I think you could substitute beef and it would be quite good.

What you need:
3 pieces bacon - cut up
2.5 lbs of venison - cubed
1 large onion - diced
2 cans kidney beans - drained (15 oz each)
2 cans beef broth (10.5 oz each)
1 can green chili peppers (4 oz)
2 cloves garlic - minced
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons cumin
1 ½ teaspoons paprika

What you do:
Over medium-low heat, cook the bacon. Once its almost done, add the meat, onions, and garlic and cook until meat is browned. Add browned meat to crockpot along with the rest of the ingredients. Cook on high 2 hours and then switch to low for the last 2 – or cook on medium for 4-5 hours. Serve over rice. Enjoy!

-hayden

Maui Brewing Co. – CoCoNut Porter

Hello everyone, 
I would like to thank the lovely gals at "Hay, Ju Cook?" for letting me have a guest spot on this here blog.  I like beer and to a certain extent, beer likes me.  There is a little beer store down the street from my house and it lets you hand pick a six-pack from their vast selection of beers (and living in Denver, trust me, there is a bunch!).  I saw this offering from Maui Brewing Co. and had to give it a try.  Now, I am not a connoisseur, but this beer is NICE!  When you bring it up to your nose for a quick whiff, nothing extraordinary happens, and thus your guard is down.  Then you take a sip…this dark, rich porter goes down smooth with a hint of coconut and an even bigger hint of coffee.  This is a great sipping beer to enjoy for dessert after you eat one of the many delightful dishes seen on these pages.

Enjoy,

Squatch

Kick Ya' Into Labor Cookies!

The recipe for "Soft Chocolatey Chocolate & Peanut Butter Chip Cookies" now comes with a medical warning for pregnant women. 

Our very, very good friend Nevena made a batch last night, and went into a labor!  And it was a GIRL!!  CONGRATULATIONS to the whole family, sending lots and lots of love!!

Soft Chocolatey Chocolate & Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Now that I've proclaimed my non-baker status, here I am baking all the time for some reason.  I have a theory that pregnancy hormones make one want to bake, because our friend Kerrie Anne (due in 1 month & 1 day!) has been baking too.  And she is not normally a baker either.  I'll have to find out if our friend Nevena has been a baking machine (she's due NOW!).  It's a sound theory, don't you think?  Anyways...I made these soft, chewy cookies last night for the first time and I can't stop eating them.  They are so delicious!

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup butter, softened

¾ cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup white sugar

1 (3.4 oz) package instant chocolate pudding mix

2 eggs

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter chips

Instructions:

1)  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Sift together flour and baking soda, set aside.

2)  In large bowl, cream together butter and sugars.  Beat in pudding mix until blended.  Stir in the eggs and vanilla.  Blend in flour mixture.  Stir in chocolate and peanut butter chips.  Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

3)  Bake for 10 – 12 minutes.

enjoy!

 ~ j

Spinach & Cheese Manicotti (w/freezing instructions!)

Last weekend I went on a cooking and freezing binge.  Every so often I take an entire day (or an entire weekend) and cook up a bunch of meals to freeze.  I love having all this pre-made stuff in my freezer...pre-made by me, not Stouffer's or whoever else makes all that garbage.  One of the dishes I made was manicotti (the recipe came via my mom from allrecipes.com...except for the freezing instructions, those are all me).  Of course, as always, I didn't quite follow the recipe, so I'll do my best with measurements and whatnot.  Cooking is definitely an art, not a science, and 100% depends on your personal tastes (for example, when a recipe calls for garlic or cheese, I always use more than it tells me too).  But I'm really trying to pay more attention to measurements and times so that I can share these a bit more articulately here!  And just a note about the photos, I had a hard time making the cooked stuff look very pretty

Ingredients:

1 (15 oz) container ricotta cheese

1 (16 oz) bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

½ cup minced onion

1 egg

2 tsp dried parsley

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp garlic powder

1 ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided

spaghetti sauce (see previous "Put down that jar!" post)

1 (8 oz) package manicotti shells

Instructions:

1)  Preheat oven to 350.

2)  In a large bowl, combine ricotta, spinach, onion and egg.  Season with parsley, pepper and garlic powder.  Mix in 1 c mozzarella and ¼ c Parmesan.  (**If you want to freeze this, stop here and skip down to "Freezing Directions.")  

3)  In separate bowl, stir together spaghetti sauce and water.  Spread 1 c sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.  Stuff uncooked manicotti shells with ricotta mixture, and arrange in a single layer in the dish.  Cover with remaining sauce.  Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan.

4)  Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 55 min, or until noodles are soft.

**Freezing Directions:

Cook manicotti shells about 2 minutes less than the instructions tell you too, until slightly softened but not fully cooked.  Drain, rinse and stuff with ricotta mixture.  Place stuffed shells on a waxed paper lined baking sheet, so that they are not touching.  Place manicotti in freezer until frozen through.  Once they are all frozen, place manicotti into a zip-loc freezer bag or other freezer-safe container.

To thaw:  Place desired number of shells in the refrigerator overnight, and then continue with "Step 3" above.  OR continue with "Step 3" using frozen shells, they'll need to cook longer than 45 - 55 minutes (I did mine this way and started with the shells covered with aluminum foil...but I'm not sure how long I ended up cooking them, I just kept checking them).

enjoy!
 ~ j

Sweet and Savory Venison Meatloaf

I have so many recipes to share with everyone. Many are my tried and trues , my favorites, the go-to’s, the family recipes and the like. But this one…this one I made tonight for the first time and it is too good not to share. This is going to shock some of you… I made meatloaf. Willingly. And it was AWESOME. We love to hunt, most of our meat comes from it, and I am always looking for more/new venison recipes. This one delivered. It was so good, not dry - as venison can be if you don't cook it right. I can't wait to try it in between two pieces of bread for lunch tomorrow!

Here’s what you need:
1.5 lbs ground venison
8 oz tomato sauce (doesn’t have to be canned, I used leftover spaghetti sauce from last night)
1 medium onion – chopped finely
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 eggs
salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons spicy mustard
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Here’s what you do:
Preheat oven to 350° F. In a large bowl slightly beat egg, add tomato, onion, breadcrumbs, and salt and pepper and mix. Add meat and mix thoroughly. Spread into a loaf pan making sure it is even. In a small bowl combine mustard, vinegar and brown sugar and pour over the top of the loaf. Bake for 70 minutes (you may want to check with a meat thermometer and make sure the meat is done 180°- for us this was ample time). Enjoy.


This is seriously so delish. I was very skeptical. I am not a meatloaf gal. I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve eaten meatloaf in the last 20 years. It’s sweet and savory. Shockingly it has no garlic, certainly not the norm in this house, although I bet it would be great with some mixed in. I would be willing to bet that it is ‘good for ya’ too… venison is very lean. The onion gives it’s a nice texture and the kids will be screaming for more!

I promise I will try and improve my photography, not a strong point. Any suggestions out there for photographing food?? My camera doesnt seem to have the capabilities for the close up that I want to get, I guess I could always crop it. Anyhow- enjoy!

To come: Ziti - Grandpa Flash Style and Cooey's Mac and Cheese

-hayden

Fantastic Cheese Fondue

This one is a request from Hayden, and it's a really good one!  I found the original recipe on allrecipes.com (by far, my favorite recipe website!), and read lots of comments/suggestions on it to come up with just the right recipe.  A tip that Hayden once gave me was that you should always use high-quality cheeses for fondue.  Well, of course I had to find out for myself that she is definitely right!  I skimped and bought cheap-o Swiss once, and the fondue did not turn out well at all.  Cheap cheeses have too much oil in them, it separates and makes the fondue pretty grody.  I have tested this recipe over and over with lots of people, having leftovers is definitely never an issue.  So here you go!

Ingredients:

• 1 c dry white wine
• 1/2 lb shredded Swiss cheese
• 1/2 lb shredded Gruyere cheese
• 1 clove garlic (grated or crushed)
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp mustard powder
• dash worcestershire sauce
• dash lemon juice
• 1 (1 lb) loaf crusty bread, cut into cubes (if you let the cubes sit out and dry up a bit, they make for easier dipping)
• sliced apples
• 
  

Instructions:

1) Simmer wine in fondue pot.

2) Toss cheese and garlic with the flour until evenly coated.  Add cheese and flour mixture to pot, about 1/4 at a time.  Stir after each addition of cheese until melted.

3) When all cheese has melted, stir in salt, nutmeg, mustard & worcestershire.

4) Add a dash or a few of lemon juice (for clumping) and stir.

5) Serve with cut-up bread, apple slices and anything else that sounds yummy to you!

enjoy!

 ~ j

Put down that jar!

The cupboards and fridge are looking pretty bare in Casa de Sharp right now.  So last night I did what I do most nights, and just grabbed whatever I could find to throw together a quick meal (what Hayden calls a pantry meal, I really like that term).  So I did spaghetti, well technically mini shells, but let's not get bogged down in semantics.  Anyhow...I was trying to remember the last time I bought a jar of spaghetti sauce, and I have no idea when that was.  So I thought I would share a quick and easy solution to the jar.  Sometime I will put up my full-blown sauce recipe, the kind I make in the crock-pot when I'm actually prepared for it.  But for now, I'll just tell you what I did last night with what little stuff I had in the house.  Maybe it will help you get away from that jar full of preservatives, additives and who knows what else.  I don't know about you, but the less pre-made stuff I use in the kitchen, the better I feel about my food.  Okay, enough babbling, let's get on with this...

Super Quickie Spaghetti Sauce
Ingredients:
olive oil
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes in puree
onion powder
dried oregano
dried thyme
dried basil
dried parsley
salt & pepper
red wine (this happened to be Malbec)
cooked pasta
grated parmesan cheese

Instructions:
Heat olive oil in saucepan over low heat, add garlic and saute until just for a minute or two (make sure not to burn it, this is an issue for me, I'm always getting carried away with the heat).
Add crushed tomatoes, then put a bit of water in the can and swirl it around to get all the juices and dump it into the pan.
Add herbs and salt & pepper (start with just a little bit of the seasonings and as you let the sauce simmer, add as much as you'd like to suit your tastes).  Add a small amount of red wine (just like the seasonings, add more if you'd like as it simmers...but start with just a little, that's much easier to correct than if you dump a whole bunch in and don't like how it tastes).  Stir it all up and simmer on low, stirring occasionally, until you feel the flavors are all mixed and it's to your liking (maybe 15 minutes or so).
Spoon over cooked pasta, sprinkle with parmesan cheese, and VOILA!  Dinner!

enjoy!
 ~ j

Cranapanana Bread

I am not a baker.  Not at all.  I've never been very good at it, and to complicate matters I now live at ~5,300' elevation.  But I had a bunch of super ripe bananas that I needed to use, so I baked up a storm last weekend (more recipes from banana baking storm to follow).  This bread was so fantastic that one of my dogs ate half of it fresh out of the oven (note:  I wanted to throttle said dog).  I combined a couple different recipes I found online to come up with what I decided to call Cranapanana Bread.  Note:  Step #5 is critical.

Ingredients:

3 large ripe bananas
3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
4 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cup flour *
1 tsp salt 

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 Granny Smith apples, chopped into small pieces

1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Cinnamon Topping:

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tbsp softened butter
2 tsp ground cinnamon

In a bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour, softened butter and cinnamon.

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Lightly grease a 9 x 5" inch loaf pan; set aside.

2) In a large bowl mash bananas.  Beat in sugars, followed by egg and butter.

3) In another bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg; add to banana mixture and stir just until all flour is moistened.

4) Add cranberries, apples and nuts; stir just until well mixed.  Pour batter into prepared pan.  Sprinkle cinnamon topping evenly over batter.  Bake for 55 to 60 minutes.

5) To cool, place away from edge of counter where tall dogs can reach it.

* I always use a 50/50 mixture of unbleached flour and wheat flour.  Until I moved out west, I used all wheat flour by itself, but I quickly discovered that only made baking at elevation that much more of a challenge for me.

enjoy!

~ j

yummy muffins!

7/4/11 -- I baked some cranapanana muffins tonight, and they turned out great!  I baked them for 45 minutes.  But I did use 4 bananas (rather than 3) making them more moist, so I'm not sure how that might have affected the baking time.  Here's a pic...


enjoy!
 ~ j

Chicken Saltados

Making a pantry meal is a fine art.  My mother taught me the basics of a pantry meal and they have since been an important key to our dinner menu.  First things first: what is a pantry meal? It’s simple; a pantry meal is a meal that can be constructed on the fly with what you have in the ‘pantry’.  I am a fan of a pantry meal, and although I usually don’t measure what is going into the meals, I will try and remember now so I can share the most excellent ones with you.  This is a most excellent pantry meal that came together quite nicely and I will definitely make again. 

Last weekend on the way home from my mom’s house, we ate at Taco Mac - my favorite- and brought home leftovers consisting of 4 wings, 2 chicken fingers, and some fries (and sadly no cheese dip).  That is definitely not enough for a whole meal for two, so Glenn came up with the Saltados idea and we ran with it.  Keep in mind that this is a pantry meal so feel free to add/subtract/substitute for whatever you want. Here’s what we did:

What you need:

1 cup cooked chicken cut into pieces (we used wing and tender meat)

¼ onion sliced

¼ bell pepper sliced (can be any color)

4 mushrooms sliced (we used baby bellas)

handful of fries  (yes, a handful is a true measurement)

1 cup cooked brown rice

4 small or medium tortillas

fajita seasoning (recipe below)

Optional but highly recommended

avocado sliced into small pieces

2 lime wedges

cilantro

For fajita seasoning: 

½ teaspoon ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon dried oregano (crushed)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

dash garlic powder (or more if you are like me and LOVE garlic)

dash onion powder

How you do it:

Once you’ve got everything sliced up, this dish is pretty simple.  I started the rice while I was slicing and dicing, so it was done by the time the rest of the fillings were ready to be put into the tortillas.  At the same time I started the rice, I put the tortillas in foil and heated them in a 350° oven to warm.  You could also put them in the microwave prior to serving, or just serve em cool.  With some cooking oil, sauté up the onion, pepper, and mushrooms (you’ll want them to be pretty crunchy still) and then add the chicken and fries. In the end, toss the fajita seasoning over the top with a little water, enough to make the seasoning stick, but not too much – you don’t want it watery.  Now, wasn’t that simple. Now you just put everything together.  First- the tortilla, then the rice, then the chicken and veggie mixture - you could stop here, but I wouldn’t recommend it… keep on going, add the cilantro (we didn’t have any fresh cilantro but used the cilantro in a tube which I highly recommend) and the avocado and squeeze the lime over the top. And you’re done, time to enjoy! 

-hayden

Baked Brie

I had to follow up my cranberry sauce recipe with this one for baked brie, because sometimes I add my cranberry sauce to it (you could also use dried cranberries). I make this dish for parties and potlucks all the time. It looks so fancy and gourmet, but in reality it's one of the easiest things I can think to make for these occasions. It's always a hit! I've made this so many times that of course I had to give it a few of my own little tweaks, but the original recipe came from our very good friend Grey. I'm not sure where she picked it up, but I owe her a lot of thanks for it!

Baked Brie (Brie en Croute, if you want to sound fancy)

Ingredients
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, pre-packaged
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup walnuts
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 (8-ounce) wheel Brie
1/4 c brown sugar
1 pear or apple, sliced (optional)
cranberry sauce* or dried cranberries (optional)
1 egg, beaten
Crackers, for serving

Instructions
1) Preheat oven to 375 F.
2) Defrost puff pastry for approximately 20 minutes and unfold.
3) In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Saute walnuts in the butter until golden brown, approximately 5 minutes. Add cinnamon and brown sugar, stir until walnuts are coated well.
4) Lay puff pastry out on a baking sheet. Place brie in the center of the pastry. Place the sliced apples or pears on top of the brie (optional), and place walnut mixture on top next, followed by the cranberries (optional).

5) Gather up the edges of the brie, pressing around the brie and gather at the top. Gently squeeze together the excess dough and tie together with a piece of kitchen twine.
6) Brush the beaten egg over top and side of Brie.
7) Place Brie on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 min until pastry is golden brown.
8) Serve with crackers.

9)To give a special look, cut extra pastry into heart or flower shapes and bake until golden (I've never actually done this step, but they can look really cute!).

* If you decide to put cranberry sauce on the brie, you will want to use thick cranberry sauce and don't overdo it, or it will get pretty sloppy while cooking.

enjoy!
~ j