Been a long time....

It's getting to be a habit, starting every post with some variant of "gee, it's been a long time".
I promise to blog more frequently in the future.
So what have I been up to? Not much, sad to say. I'm trying to find a motorcycle to buy, I've cooked some good food lately, and other than that, precious little that's exciting to any one but family.

Foodwise, I've checked out "Charcuterie" by Michael Ruhlman, from the library, and I'm making an honest effort to get a handle on this fascinating subject. If you're not familiar with the term, charcuterie covers a range of meat products. Essentially, anything smoked, ground, cured, or otherwise preserved. Think "ham", "sausage", "pate", etc.
I got the book on Sunday, and I immediately cured some salmon I'd had sitting in the freezer. I'm not sure how well it will turn out, but so far, my salmon looks like you'd expect gravlax or lox to look like. Considering all I did was mix up salt, sugar, brown sugar, coriander, pepper, and 5-spice powder, it could taste like fish sticks and I think I'd be ahead of the game.
I'll post pics tomorrow when it's done curing, and I'll also try and post about my empenada experience.

Meat salad

Meat salad -- mmm.

Doesn't that just sound good? Well, it is. One of our family favorites is this recipe that I got out of Bruce Aidells' excellent Complete Meat Cookbook. If you're in the market for a meat cookbook and you don't seriously consider this one, you're missing out. I bought this book ten years ago (or thereabouts) when I lived in California, and I can honestly say it's one of the 5 best cookbooks I own. None of the recipes have been duds, and a good number have been flat out winners, like this recipe for "Tostada Salad", which in our house just gets called "Meat Salad".

Our version is slightly different from the version in the cookbook (I use less avocado and tomato, mostly because avocados are a little pricey, and often neither the avocados or the tomatoes are worth the gamble, and you're supposed to add green chiles, but I always forget to buy them at the store)
I made it tonight with some left over top round that I grilled over the weekend, along with:

• 2 heads of lettuce (1 green-leaf, 1 red-leaf)


• 1 bunch cilantro


• 1 yellow pepper


• 2 tomatoes


• 1/2 red onion


• 1 avocado

After washing all the salad ingredients, I tore up the lettuce and the cilantro, tossing it together in a bowl like so:

Then I cut up the pepper:


The tomatoes:

The onion:

and then I sliced the meat, and put it over the salad.

I then moved on to the dressing, which goes like:

• 2 tbsp cider vinegar


• 1 tbsp tarragon wine vinegar


• 2 tsp salt


• 1 tsp paprika


• 1 tsp dry mustard


• 1 tbsp sugar


• 3/4 c olive oil

I combined the dry ingredients:


And then the vinegars:


and finally the oil, whisked together in an emulsion.

And in the end, what you end up with is....

Darn fine salad.
Like I said in the beginning, you owe to yourself to check out Bruce Aidells' Complete Meat Cookbook.

Resetting the blog...

Since I seem to be petering out on writing solely about brewing (and I'm concerned about the consequences to my liver if I threw myself wholeheartedly into beer), I'm going to refocus my blog. Instead of writing only about beer, I'm going to add food to my list of subjects.
I've long loved to cook, and hopefully this is a chance for me to share my interest in something that I care deeply about.

Gone too long...

Wow, hard to believe it's been well over a month since my last post.
In the intervening time, I've done what seems like a lot of stuff (went skiing, my parents came to visit, etc), but what I haven't done is anything beer related.
As a matter of fact, I quit drinking for the month of January(!).
Sadly, my last batch of beer still sits in my closet, waiting for me to get around to bottling it.
My beer goal this week will be very modest, and is only to get my current batch bottled. Once I get that done, I will set another goal, and go from there.

Not beer related....

I know, I know, it's a beer blog, not a food blog, but it's my blog, and I'll post a recipe if I want.
I got this out of "Roast Chicken and Other Stories" by Hopkinson(?). The book's been getting a lot praise from the NYT and I guess other places, and overall, it deserves the praise it's getting.
I made this eggplant recipe from it last night with a pan-roasted pork tenderloin and jasmine rice:
Chili spiced eggplant:
1 1/4 lbs eggplant, peeled and cut into 1in. cubes
6 tbsp veg oil
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp sliced green onions
1/2 - 1 tsp dried chili flakes (to taste)
cilantro
Saute eggplant in the oil over med to med-hi heat until brown on all sides.
Remove from pan to drain on paper towels.
Add vinegar, sugar and salt to hot pan, and reduce until syrupy (I did "slightly syrupy", but it's a matter of taste).
Return eggplant to pan, and add green onion and chili flakes, stir to coat eggplant with vinegar. You're done when the eggplant is warmed thru.
Sprinkle with chopped cilantro to taste.

It was excellent with the pork we had, which I cook this way:
Pan-roasted pork tenderloin:
->1 pork tenderloin (roughly 1 lb, or more), patted dry.
->spice mixture (salt + pepper + thyme, greek spice, chinese 5-spice, or whatever else you desire
->1-2tbsp olive oil
Preheat oven to 375deg
Rub tenderloin with spice, and then coat with olive oil.
Heat an oven-safe skillet (ie, one with a metal handle, and nothing on it that will melt) over high heat (it's ready when a drop of water will dance on it).
Sear tenderloin on all sides until brown, and then put in oven for 15-20 minutes, turning occasionally. Tenderloin's done when thermometer in the thickest part reads 137 or higher (meat will still be slightly pink).

I'll leave "rice" to the reader.

Enjoy. (And I promise beer content this weekend)

What I'm reading and listening to....

Right now, I've been on a big horror kick, plowing thru several Brian Keene books. He's a pretty good writer in the pulpy horror vein. Over the xmas break, I read his "Dead Sea" (zombies), "Ghoul" (ghouls), and "The Conqueror Worms" (end of the world).
I just started his "City of the Dead" (more zombies). Of the four, "Conqueror Worms" was the weakest. I'm not sure if I'm getting burned out on the style or if the book just wasn't very good. Regardless, if you like horror, check him out. His books are quick reads, and go down easy.

On the music side of things, my wife gave me an iTunes giftcard, which I promptly spent on Sleater-Kinney's "The Woods" (their last album) and Clinic's "Visitations". I've already made my feelings known about Sleater-Kinney. Clinic kicks serious butt. It's an awesome album.

Happy New Beer!

It's the new year now, and I've got one beer bottled, and the other in my closet doing the dry-hop/secondary thing. I've already tasted my bottled beer, and while it's good (in the sense that there's nothing 'wrong' with it), it's a little more "stouty" or brown-aley than I really care for.
Oh well, I guess that's the price we sometimes pay. However, when I got done bottling that batch, I moved my version of "Maura's Bride Ale" to the secondary, and of course, I had to take a taste to be sure everything was ok. Fortunately, I think my concerns about the high temp were (at least this time) unfounded. The beer tasted "a-ok" to me. Now all I have to do is bottle this weekend, and I'm on to the next batch.
Since I'm working my way thru the "Homebrewer's Recipe Guide", and it's starting to get cold, I'm going to do a "Winter Prowler". Should be good.
Stay tuned, since I'm working on label designs right now, and I should be posting some this week (if I can figure out Inkscape, my illustration program).