New Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

Well, I finally broke down and bought a replacement for that lovely old standby I've used since my college days. Printed in 1981, this has been my go-to cookbook since I can remember. Its not like I have a shortage of active cookbooks, but this has always been the soft spot in my cooking heart.

I was hoping I could just replace that standby with a duplicate in better shape, but after much thought and consternation, I ended up buying a ring-bound 16th edition of the New Cook Book.

I have to say I'm not terribly impressed. The ring binder is nice, but the pages it holds won't stand up to nearly as much abuse as my worn out copy from 1981. And to be honest, the recipes are much vaguer. I want a cookbook to tell me "Put this much of this seasoning in, cook this for exactly X amount of time, etc." I'm not likely to adhere to those instructions, but I don't need my cookbook getting all interweb wishy-washy on me, nor do I need 12 variants of meatloaf. I'll variate my own damn meatloaf, thank you very much!

So, yeah, next picture of my cooking cupboard *might* include the newer New Cook Book, or perhaps I'll find an alternate?

Amazon Echo Unboxed in the Kitchen!

I put in my pre-order for Amazon's new voice-activated, personal assistant speaker doohickie they've named Echo some time back. It finally appeared on my front stoop, and here's what happened:

Damn, that sounded so dramatic and exciting! And I didn't even save pictures of the packing box! LOL! Here is a shot of the internal packaging, with a frosty beverage and a Sharpie to indicate both size of the box and bs level of this particular unboxing.

Anyway, after removing the Echo's box from Amazon's standard shipping packaging, I found a very plain, black box. Very mysterious looking and hi-tech "clean." Upon opening the black box, I was confronted with the high contrast, but still clean packaging seen here. No muss, no fuss. It looked cool and exciting and yes, it got my techie juices flowing...

Inside this lovely package we have the Echo itself, a 9.5"X3.5" tower speaker, a power adapter, a remote control and mounting device for the remote control. You can see a box of Kleenex on the Kitchen table in background of the first shot, this should give you a good idea of this item's size.

Before I move on, I want to point out...the magnetic mounting holder for the remote is one of the most awesome ideas ever! The Echo is very likely to become relegated to everyone's kitchen and making the remote so kitchen friendly was a fantastic idea. The "holder" is magnetic, so it will just slap right on your fridge and stay put. The batteries in the remote make them very friendly to slapping into said holder and staying put. The curves match, the remote fits well. An elegant and simple solution to an incredibly annoying occurrence--who hasn't misplaced a remote?

Anyway, app downloaded, batteries installed in the remote, Echo powered on. Wi-Fi info entered, and my Echo started getting friendly. Voice recognition is much better than expected, without any training. (A brief voice training session is available in the companion app, and continuing corrections are also available through the app:  the app lets you see what your Echo "heard" and make adjustments.) The connection to my home network was very simple, through the companion app. Absolutely no issues connecting to my Amzn account and streaming music nearly instantly.

The sound quality was considerably better than I'd expected, and perfectly acceptable for a small apartment/kitchen listening environment. It won't rattle your windows, and so needs an audio out.

Recognition of voice commands through speaking was phenomenal, Through the remote, slightly less so, but still considerably better than expected.

It's an attractive, effective device for music playback, especially if you are already tied into Amazon's digital economy. (Disclaimer: I am an amzn warehouse employee. I do not hold Amzn stock, though I do receive a percentage of my annual pay in stock. I am not being paid for this review.)

If the Amazon Echo had a line out audio connection, it would completely exceed my expectations and my needs. As is, it's going to be relegated to the furthest remotes of the kitchen, and likely to be forgotten soon...

Winter Brews in the Kitchen, 2014 edition

OK, so I waited until I'd had a couple pumpkin brews before I got around to cooking any up in the kitchen last fall! I will have some tasty pumpkin brews to for this years' Memorial Day picnic!

Anyhow, I brewed up my very first pumpkin ale last September, and bottled it up September 16th. I started out with this Pumpkin Ale Extract kit from Midwest Supplies. Once I got into it, I ended up adding ALL the typical pumpkin pie spices (3 tsp cinnamon, 1.5 tsp ginger, 2 tsp nutmeg, 1.5 tsp allspice and 1.5 tsp ground cloves) right before ending the boil. For pumpkin flavor, I added a 30 oz. can of Libby's while cooking up the specialty grains that came with the kit, then I added ANOTHER 30 oz. can of Libby's pumpkin as I was getting ready to add the spices, right before the boil should have been finished. 60 oz. of canned pumpkin is a LOT of water, so I had to keep the boil going for some time before I reached a decent volume. Eventually all boiled down to a happy volume and I could get back to my normal routine...stove off, water running through the copper wort chiller, and soon into the Spiedel 7.5 gallon. OG right at 1.062 A coupla minutes of oxygen and in went the dry Munton and Fison Ale yeast. Stuff did it's job in well-heeled fashion, as Final Gravity was right at 1.012, so Roll and Tumble Pumpkin Ale was bottled up at 6.56% ABV.

When adding spices, I added amts. appropriate if I'd just been adding to a normal "cooking" recipe rather than a "brewing" recipe: instead of adding equal portions of the additional spices, I probably should have made ALL the spices equal the2 tsp. of spices in the original kit.

As all the brews in the kitchen do, this brew stole its name from a Ray Wylie Hubbard song. Roll and Tumble Pumpkin Ale got its name from "Roll and I Tumble" off Delirium Tremulos. (Like all Ray Wylie albums, it's one of the best ever! Just go buy it! Now, already!)

At first tasting in October, Roll and Tumble was a little rough...that whole "over-spiced" thing, with the medicinal overtones that come with. The overdone spices continue to mellow into the full-flavor pumpkin and it's become one of the better and more popular brews from the Kitchen! :-)

Last August, I bumped into a bottle of Southern Tier's Warlock, and just loved it! Because, like ... Pumpkin Stout! Everything good about a pumpkin ale, softened up by the depths of a smooth rich stout! I've always been fond of a good pumpkin ale, but I'd never come across a pumpkin stout: I was gonna have to try making one of these myself!!!

Baby's New Shoes Pumpkin Stout was the result. I started with a my favorite chocolate stout base kit  I added 30oz. canned pumpkin when I started cooking, and added 60 oz. more canned pumpkin before we were done. Absolutely NO spices added during the cook. After a week of fermentation, I moved this to my 5 gallon Speidel so I cook up my Lemon Zest Coriander Wheat brew. I added 2 vanilla beans and 8 short cinnamon sticks to the 5 gallon fermenter before piping the brew over. (I'd soaked the vanilla beans and cinnamon in cheap vodka to sanitize them enough to prevent any weird bacteria joining the last stages of fermentation.)

Anyhow, bottled this up 11/24/14. I was leaving for NYC and nervous about making my flight on time, so this was a wonderful way to keep me occupied. I bottle the Lemon Zest Coriander wheat at the same time, so that was a big bottling night!!!

The Tambourine Lemon Zest Coriander Wheat beer I've mentioned was straight out kit brew, no additions or goofy ideas cooked up in the kitchen. It got it's name from Ray's "Pots and Pans" "my baby's got a tambourine, she shakes it in my face" Aside from being one of the best lines in a song ever, it fits this 7.6% ABV perfectly. Just straight up, in your face flavor, with some drunkenness to follow.

 Anywhos, those are the latest brews from the Kitchen. Peach Pumpkin coming up soon, and mebbe an attempt at cider? Till next time y'all drop by the kitchen...

Best Beers in Kitchen 2014

Once again, it's that time of year where we take a look back at all the fantastic brews we had out in the Kitchen last year. This is not a comprehensive list, and lord knows y'all are quite likely to disagree with my selections. Feel free to comment and add any that I might have missed! This was going to be a list of every beer I gave a 5 to on Untappd over the last year, but that turned out to be a ridiculous number: Holy Cow!!! I rated 57 different beers a full 5 stars in 2014. Either I've gotten much better at finding beers I really like or I've gotten much easier-going in my rankings. (Or I just drank a boatload of beers? Correlation is not causation, but let's not get carried away lookin' for root causes!)

So, rather than subject both my loyal readers to the entire list of Fives, I'll just babble till I hit a baker's dozen. And just so y'all don't get confused, we'll start off with a baker's choice:

1) Voodoo Doughnut Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Banana Ale from Rogue Ales. This brew did NOT rate a 5 first time I tried it in 2013. There was no PB flavor at all and the banana seemed to leave a nasty chemical aftertaste. However, I'd bought two bombers when I first came across this and since the first tasting didn't exactly hit the spot for me, I left the second in the back of the fridge for 14 months. The time in the fridge did wonders: it had become ever so delicious! Cooking with gas on all 6 burners, second time out!





2) Shake Chocolate Porter from Boulder Beer Company. Y'all know I just love a chocolate stout, and this porter was plenty close enough to flip my switches! Chocolate-covered cherries and lots of malty goodness. Just a hint of dry chalkiness towards the finish, but not at all detracting from the flavor.

3) Pearl Necklace from Flying Dog Brewery. Absolutely fantastic! Who couldn't love  this one? ;-P

4) Wake Up Dead Imperial Stout Nitro from Left Hand Brewing. If you're a fan of Russian Imperials, you're gonna love this one! Opens up with a lovely taste of chocolate-covered dates, with mebbe a hint of licorice. And that silky smooth Nitro feel! Just can't go wrong with this one!

5) Crabbie's Spice Orange Ginger Beer. It's like boozy Mtn Dew with a spicy little kick at the finish. I gotta figure out how to brew this stuff!

6) Goat Boy from Southern Tier Brewing. And not Goat Boy vs. Cow Man, this is some seriously good freakin' beer! Southern Tier nailed this Imperial Weizenbock.

 7) Chateau Jiahu from Dogfish Head. When the brewers consult with a molecular archeologist and the results would rock any academic library down to it's cornerstone, you just gotta luv it. How many times does a beer this tasty get an "All Things Considered" episode? Did I mention how tasty it is?!?!?

 8) Huge Arker Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout from Anderson Valley Brewing Company.
Wow! This is one big ass brew, and having been stored in Wild Turkey Bourbon barrels didn't exactly shorten its stature. Bourbon-soaked bread, smoky sorghum and molasses. Just a truly outstanding Imperial stout!

9) Stovepipe Crow from J.Lee's Brewhouse and BBQ Emporium (the Infamous Kitchen! lol) I was shooting for a Mole flavored stout, akin to New Holland's Mole Ocho. Big chocolate stout base, with 5 oz. of dried smoke Serrano peppers and several cinnamon sticks added to the secondary. Came out just hotter than a hell and tasty as all get out, if you can stand the heat! (As y'all know, ALL the beers coming outta the kitchen get their name from Ray Wylie Hubbard songs. This death and devil brew got it's name from a line in Ray's song "Tornado Ripe" ... "And if you was to see a crow on a chimney
Meant someody's fixin' to die." If you aren't up to the heat, then yeah, this brew'll kill ya! ;-)

"Find what you love, and let it kill you!" CB

 10) Voodoo Doughnut Pretzel, Raspberry & Chocolate Ale by Rogue Ales. The Rogue Ales/Voodoo Donut collaboration makes a second appearance in this list. This bottle wasn't aged, just chilled and popped. The magic is in the Hole! Lovely fresh pretzel up front with chocolate-covered raspberries followed by by a dry "clean" tasting finish.

 11) Warlock from Southern Tier Brewing Company. Wow! I'm a big fan of pumpkin ales, but I'd never encountered a pumpkin Stout before! Fantastic! Melted and slightly scorched pumpkin pie, absolutely unbeatable!

12) Marionberry Braggot from Rogue Ales. Yet another entry from Rogue Ales, unlinked at posting due to their server being down? Anywhos, tasted like blackberries dipped in honey, set to age for a spell. Barleywine with honey sorta taste?

 13) Envious (Vintage 2011) from New Holland. New Holland threw my definition of beer for a loop with this one! Way too much going on for my knockabout palate, but truly delicious, nonetheless! Very complicated, in a "lemme take another sip" sorta way that starts with sweet malt/tart raspberry and finishes almost like pear brandy. If you see it, grab a bottle and let me know what you think!










And there ya have it folks, the absolute best beers found in the Kitchen during 2014! Y'all may not find these as fantastic as I did, but I guarantee you will find them interesting! Thanks to both my dedicated readers, and I'll be back with more babbling next week! :-)

The Kitchen in NYC

Most of y'all (both my loyal readers) know that Amazon decided to send me to New York City for two weeks in December to help launch a new FC across the street from the Empire State Building.

Turns out, midtown Manhattan has some absolutely amazing beer bars! I managed to visit three while I was in the city.

First up was Rattle n Hum. Located at 14 East 33rd Street, it was only half a block out of my way on the walk from work to the hotel. Downright handy! ;-) (Didn't hurt there's a Papaya Dog on the corner of 33rd St. and 5th Ave.! They don't look like much, but those dogs taste just like Fairbury Red Dogs at a Nebraska game!)

They had 40 rotating taps, with some great selections. The staff was very personable and knowledgeable about the choices on hand, as well as incredibly patient with an out of town jackhat like myself. They also had the best flight paddles I've come across: shaped like a large beer bottle laid on its side, what made them so great was the chalkboard coating: the bartender could write your choices right on the paddle! None of that scrabbling around with your receipt or trying to remember what the hell you ordered and what order the 'tender said they were in on the paddle. Super handy for folks like me with the attention span of a distracted gnat!

Rattle n Hum had some of the most personable staff of any bar I've visited, and certainly the most knowledgeable and willing to chat about brews.

They also have fairly frequent and interesting "tap takeover" events. While I was in NYC, they had a Troegs takeover which was fantastic as Tröegs doesn't distribute in Kentucky. Tröegs makes some fantastic beers!

The next weekend, I made my way all the way to 11 East 36th Street to visit The Ginger Man. 70ish taps available, with some really outstanding variety and unique choices.

 Their flight paddles weren't anything to get excited about, but the bacon they add to their Ginger Man Dog was just out of this world. The tater salad had too many onions for my taste, but I

 usually don't like potato salad anyhow.

The staff was super friendly, and very willing to spare a moment to chat about beers, Untappd, etc.


After my last night at JFK7, I bounced all the way up to 300 W 40th St to visit Rattle n Hum's sister bar, Beer Authority. (It was cold and raining, it seemed like quite the hoof!) 80 brews on tap, three floors (rooftop view would be great if it wasn't 30 degrees and raining!) They had a fairly ridiculous flight ordering/pricing structure that nearly pushed me out the door, but their current web menu no longer mentions this...hopefully they dumped that nonsense. They had some fantastic selections, though somewhat less adventurous than Ginger Man or their sister bar Rattle n Hum.

 The "tap number on the paddle" worked, but it wasn't fantastic in bar lighting with small-print beer lists.

Before I sign off on this, I have to give a "thumbs-up" to the bartender at the Martinique Cafe. Stopped in there with a coworker and the "Free Drink" coupons the Radisson provided at check-in. It takes a true professional to put up with fussy out of town jackhats like me handing over coupons in place of cash while taking up valuable bar stool real estate. ;-0

Catching Up in the Kitchen!

Sorry it's been forever since I last posted! The latter half of 2014 was VERY busy, from the road trip to Wrigley Field right through the couple weeks I spent in NYC in December (ostensibly for the purpose of helping launch Amzn's most recent FC in Manhattan) but y'all know I was really there for the beer! This post would be much too long if I tried to dump all this on the table at once, so I'll drop a bit of it at a time, to avoid boring both my devoted readers to tears!

Wrigley Field celebrated its 100th year in 2014, so I figured I'd better haul my butt up there for a game and the full tour.

The tour was money well-spent! They dragged us all over the ball park, so you got to see a lot more than you would just catching a game, and learn a lot of Wrigley history in the process.

Of course, after the tour, we had a couple hours to kill before the game. Fortunately, Goose Island Beer Company has a brewpub location just up the street from Wrigley. They are swamped on game days, so they have a "fixed flight" menu (three of their most popular beers and one seasonal offering, absolutely no substitutions.) So I was only able to try one new beer that day, a Belgian Brown Ale called Hagglethorn. It rated a 4.5, so it turned out to be a good choice. 

 Their menu consisted of typical bar fare. Sounded and looked great. Unfortunately, they were so busy their fried options had that greasy "not quite cooked through" taste and feel you get when your fryer is set to too low a temperature...or you're so busy your fryers can't keep up with the volume. So if it's game day, I'd take a pass on the food. Have some great beers and grab a couple dogs at the game!

And back to the game! I was in the cheap seats, but I managed to grab an Old Style while the Cubs lost. Mebbe this year will be "Next Year!"

After the game, we headed for Munster, Indiana and Three Floyds Brewing Company. Showed up at 8:45 on a Saturday night, and there was still a 45 minute wait to be seated. Very much worth the wait, though! Our wait was shortened somewhat by the party ahead of us: they decided to buy a six pack at the "to go" kiosk off to the side of the brewpub to tide them over while they waited, despite the signs warning guests in no uncertain terms that they would be asked to leave. 

Anyhow, I was able to try a couple of amazing beers while there. On the left is Deesko! a Berliner Weisse that was absolutely delicious. It's not a year-round offering, but can be found outside the brewpub. On the right is Speed Ball, a coffee stout that was also fantastic. Unfortunately, it is only available at the brewpub (so far.) They also had the most amazing fried cheese curds ever.

 The staff was super friendly, the beers and food were amazing. Well worth the trip and the wait!

Summertime Blues

Heyya folks...sorry it's been awhile since I posted, but it's summertime and sh*t happens.

So, y'all know I've been brewing a lot more this year, and I've been a little concerned about how much spent grain ends up getting pitched in the garbage after each brew date. So, I snagged a recipe for spent grain dog biscuits from a great site called 17Apart. (They have additional dog treat recipes, among other interesting things. Go check them out!)

Anyhow, this was nearly as much fun as making meatloaf! Y'all know the only reason I do anything in the kitchen other than brew beer is because I love playing with my food...and nobody says "stop that!" when it looks like you're cooking!

The recipe from 17Apart is pretty simple:
4 cups spent grain
2 cups flour
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs

The 4 cups spent grain was almost exactly what I had on hand from brewing up my Wild as Rome Watermelon Wheat. (I used a Boundary Waters Wheat Beer Extract Beer Kit  from Midwest Supplies as my base for that watermelon wheat. It included 1/2 lb. Caravienne and 1/2 lb. Carapils® specialty grains. Handy! :-)

Chunk it all in a mixing bowl and it's gonna look something like this (the peanut butter squidbillie takes some finesse, however!):

Once you've got it all mixed well, roll it out on a floured surface, and get out the cookie cutters! The three sized of dog bones and the fire hydrant came in one set, while the rabbit and carrot came in another (with a flower, not pictured here.)

  Here's a pic of the various shapes before baking:

and after:

These were baked at 350 degrees for half an hour, then reduce heat to 225 and bake them two more hours. The idea is to dry them out as completely as possible, without burning them and setting off your smoke detectors. Once they've cooled off, you may want to clean them up a bit before bagging them. They should keep for a couple of weeks or several months if you freeze them.

Once they were finished, I solicited the opinion of renowned biscuit critic Seamus Shamrock. He gave these biscuits Two Paws Up!

I mentioned earlier that the spent grain for these dog biscuits came from a wheat beer kit I cooked up as a base for my Wild as Rome Watermelon Wheat. To counter the sweetness of the wheat and avoid it turning into a Jolly Rancher Watermelon brew, I added an ounce of dried chipotles, which I also snagged from Midwest Supplies. Midwest offers a wide variety of dried peppers for folks interested in making their own hot sauces, but these can also make great additions to homebrew if you want to add a little heat and/or smoke. Wild as Rome is going into bottles tonight, so we'll give the FG test sample a taste to see what we might be looking at soon. It's a wheat, so it won't have to sit too long--couple weeks to carbonate and it should be good to go.

In the meantime, I managed to see Switchmen and Shooter Jennings at Busters. I'd never heard Switchmen before, but they put on a great show: solid straight-forward rock'n'roll! I'd been looking forward to seeing Shooter, as I've always enjoyed his songs. Love listening to his show on SiriusXM's Outlaw Country channel!

In addition to the Switchmen, I also got a chance to hear Billy Don Burns do a coupla songs and heard Josh Morningstar for the first time. Extremely talented singer/songwriter. Expect great things from this guy!

As if all that excitement wasn't enough, the following week I got a chance to catch the Restless Leg String Band down at Cosmic Charlie's. My favorite Lexington music venue, and RLSQ did some fantastic picking! Very hippie crowd, lots of great folk having a great time listening to some fantastic bluegrass. Saw a girl in her pajamas dancing like I haven't seen since Jerry left us! Really impressed with this band and looking forward to catching them again!

 Well, that's enough babbling for one post, even if it has taken me a month to jot these rambling notes down. It's summertime, go try something new! I'll still be here when you get back!