Parmesan Flat Bread

To start out the grilling season, Ryan and I made kabobs! Thank you to my sister and her husband for the awesome flat skewers! We had chicken, onions, cherry tomatoes, green bell peppers, zucchini, and pineapple (pictured right). The chicken, veggies, and tomatoes were spread with barbeque and grilled to perfection. For the pineapple, we marinated chunks in red wine for a few hours before grilling it. Then for some carbs to go with our kabobs, we made some Parmesan Flat Bread. Mmmm!

Parmesan Flat Bread

2-3 inch ball of Spent Grain Bread dough

Flour

3 garlic cloves, chopped

Salt and pepper

1/4 c shredded parmesan

Preheat a grill to medium heat. Sprinkle the ball of dough with flour. Spread out into a flat, round crust. Press chopped garlic cloves into the dough (alternatively you could mix the chopped garlic into the dough before spreading it out). Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill one side of the bread until golden brown. Flip the bread over and sprinkle with parmesan. Grill until this side is also golden brown and the parmesan cheese is melted.

                   Before                                                                                                         After

 

Baked Tilapia with Penne and Broccoli in White Sauce

This was a pretty easy meal to make. It was a fairly light meal, but an olive oil-based sauce would have made it even lighter. It paired well with a Chardonnay from The Naked Grape. I think an APA would have also been good. If you add some heat to the pasta, you could go with a wide range of wine/beer.

To make the tilapia:

- Preheat oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit

- Drizzle tilapia filets with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with cajun seasoning (both sides)

- Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, or until it flakes easily, or until it seems done enough for your tastes

To make the pasta:

- Boil whole wheat penne according to package directions (9-10 minutes)

- While the pasta is boiling..

Make the broccoli + white sauce in a nonstick pan:

- Add a handful of fresh broccoli and a little bit of water. Cook over med-high heat for several minutes. As the water evaporates, add a little more. If you happen to have a steamer basket, that might work better. We don't have one, so I can't say for sure

- After the broccoli begins to soften, just go ahead and make the white sauce in the same pan:

- I like a medium thick sauce, so I used: 1 cup of milk, 2 tbsp. butter, 2 tbsp. flour, salt and pepper to taste

- If you've never made white sauce this way, it's pretty easy. Just add the butter and let it melt. Then add the flour and whisk to remove lumps. Gradually add the milk while whisking. As you whisk in the milk, the whole thing will thicken. Add a little more milk, whisk, repeat until it gets to your desired thickness.

Now that I think about it, I actually doubled the sauce recipe and cooked about half a package of penne, and it was a good ratio.

Anyway... serve the sauce/broccoli on the penne. I also like to put a little sauce on the tilapia.

Cheesy Chicken Skillet

One day I couldn't think of sometime to cook for dinner. I had to call three people to get an idea. One didn't answer. One said they were too busy at work to help me out. And then my sister said "make a cheesy chicken skillet." She's made it for me before, but I couldn't remember how to make it at all. It turns out that it is just chicken chunks and veggies sautéed in olive oil with a little cheese sprinkled on the top. Here was my version.

Cheesy Chicken Skillet
2 T olive oil
Two chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1-2 cups broccoli
3/4 c shredded cheese
1/2 c dry bulgur

Season chicken if desired. Prepare bulgur according to package. Heat oil in a skillet. Saute chicken and veggies in the skillet over medium heat. Sprinkle with cheese and cook for another minute or two, or until cheese is melted. Serve chicken and veggies over bulgur.

Open-Faced CST

This creation was inspired by my coworker who eats tomato slices on toast almost every day.

Open-Faced CST
One tomato
One cheese slice (I used white cheddar)
Handful of spinach
One piece of bread (I used whole wheat)

Toast the bread. Slice the tomato. Layer the cheese, spinach, and tomato slices on the toast. Spinkle with salt and pepper, if desired.

Red Hook Porter clone

Okay, I was wrong. More about the Porter.

While brewing the Pinstripe Red Ale clone this past Saturday, I performed a little experiment with a bottle of the first batch of Porter we brewed. I poured the twelve ounce bottle into a glass, and added 2 ounces of room temp coffee (we make it pretty strong). The result was absolutely delicious. It reminded me a little of the Out of Sight Stout that Avery was serving a few months ago. In that case, Avery mixed their regular Out of Bounds Stout with cold-press coffee from a local roaster (the name escapes me). My little coffee porter experiment wasn't as good, but you can bet my next batch of porter will have coffee added.

Ska's Pinstripe Red Clone

I should probably snap some photos of the brewing process.

After a fast and furious start to home brewing, we took a break for about a month. Break time over. Last weekend we brewed another back of Red Hook Porter clone. The first batch of Porter was probably the best so far, so I have high hopes for this one. It ended up at the same original gravity as the first one, which is a good sign. The only thing we changed was the addition of a tiny (about 1 oz) amount of chocolate malt for the mini mash.

But enough about porter... this is about yesterday's near-disastrous attempt at brewing a clone of Ska's Pinstripe Red. This is the recipe of the month at The Brew Hut, so the ingredients were 10% off. However, there sure are a lot of ingredients, so it was still a relatively expensive batch. Recipe below.

The process started out just fine. Since the 30qt brew kettle doesn't fit well on the electric cooktop range, we brewed outside using the burner from a turkey fryer, which was borrowed from Chris's dad (thanks, Leo!). This has worked well for the previous five batches, all boiled during the severe Denver Drought.

Drought time came to an end last week when the sky opened up for days at a time. I thought we would have a break from the rain on Saturday, so I fired up the kettle and began the mini-mash. Just as we finished the mini-mash and added the LME, rain drops started falling. We turned off the heat and covered everything with umbrellas as we went inside to check the radar. It looked like it was only going to rain for awhile, so we figured we could pick it up later. A couple of hours passed and it looked like it was only going to get worse, so I made the call: bring the kettle inside and do the boil on the stove.

The kettle had been sitting outside in 40-degree temps for about 2 hours, and the wort had only cooled 20 or 30 degrees. It took awhile to get boiling on the stove, but the rest of the boil went fine. It smelled pretty good when it went into the fermenter, thanks to the flameout addition of Cascade and Tettnanger hops. As it turns out, I didn't read the recipe correctly, so instead of 1.5 oz of Liberty as First Wort Hops, I ended up just adding 3 oz in at the start of the boil.

Here's the recipe:

Ska's Pinstripe Red Ale Clone:

7 lbs Light Liquid Malt Extract

Grain:

- 12 oz Carapils

- 8 oz Crystal 80

- 4 oz Red Wheat Malt

- 2 oz Crystal 120

Hop schedule:

1.5 oz Liberty (First Wort Hop)

1.5 oz Liberty (60 min)

1 oz Cascade (0 min)

1 oz Tettnanger (0 min)

Yeast:

California Ale V, WLP051

American Ale II, WYeast 1272

Safale US-05

Note: First Wort Hop means adding directly after the mash, before brining the wort to a boil (see more at BeerSmith). The "0 min" hop additions are apparently also known as "flame-out" additions. Add the hops at the end of the 60 minute boil and leave them in there for 10-15 minutes as you cool the wort. These are two things I learned yesterday.

Pork Chops with Onion and Asparagus

I love a good pork chop, and Ryan has pretty much figured out the best way to make them! Season them with salt and pepper. Then sear them in a hot cast iron skillet on both sides. Finally, pop them in the oven for 10 or so minutes. Amazing! But since Ryan cooked this style for me last week, I thought I better change it up a bit this week. I went to delish.com to find a recipe, and I found Pork Chops with Onion Compote. I wanted to add some asparagus into the mix so below is my adjusted recipe.

Pork Chops with Onion and Asparagus 

4 T olive oil
1 medium onion (cut into 1/4 inch-thick rings)
2 pork chops (I used center-cut chops)
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 to 1/2 c. chardonnay
1/2 bunch asparagus, chopped into 1 inch pieces

Get out two skillets. I used the cast iron one for the pork chops and the non-stick one for the onions and asparagus. Heat two tablespoons oil in each pan on medium to medium-high heat. The non-stick skillet heats up faster than the cast iron; therefore, if using two non-stick skillets, start heating the one for the onions a couple minutes before starting the one for the pork chops.

After the oil has heated up in the non-stick skillet, add the onions to the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Saute for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, season the pork chops with salt and pepper. Add them to the cast iron skillet. Sear both sides, about four minutes on each side (if using thicker pork chops, you will want to sear them for longer). Remove the pan from the burner and cover with foil to let the meat finish cooking. If using a non-stick skillet, keep the pan on the burner, but reduce the heat and cover with a lid.

After the onions have sauted for 10 minutes, add the asparagus. Season with additional salt and pepper, if desired. Cook for an additional 10 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until the liquid has almost evaporated, 2-3 minutes.

Place one pork chop on a plate and top with the onions and asparagus. Serve with the leftover chardonnay. Mmmm!