Lakefront Brewery India-Style Black Ale

Spring is finally starting to arrive here in Minneapolis. I think the groundhog was very mistaken in his call this February, spring did not come early. At all. I am thoroughly disappointed in that rodent. Everyone in the city seems to be antsy to get outside and enjoy the weather. Bikers were everywhere today! Now the remainder of the city should come to the bike shop and buy one from me. Seriously.

With the lingering cold weather, porters have been a very comforting friend to me. My favorite porter lately has been Flat Earth Brewery's Cygnus X-1 Grand Design Porter, which I intended to write about today. But since I forgot my ID for our trip to Surdyk's, I was out of luck. Once I found my darn ID, our neighborhood liquor store had a different beer in store for me, an India-Style black ale by Lakefront Brewery, Inc., a brewery out of Milwaukee whose slogan is "Pure Milwaukee Genius." Genius indeed. This wonderfully malty IPA reminds me of the full bodied-ness of a porter, but with the lively taste of an IPA. It starts out malty, and a little bitter, and it has a long floral, citrusy finish. And oh God, is it good. This beer is almost black, though in the sun it has a slight red tint. It leaves a light bubbly lattice on the glass, but not too much. And I was thoroughly surprised by the thick caramel head it poured. This beer is thick and hearty, and would be great enjoyed with a roast pork sandwich. Like the one I had at Brasa today. Great stuff. I think this beer would also be awesome used as a base for a steak marinade too! But that is for another day. Enjoy this beer while enjoying the cool crisp evenings of this slowly approaching spring.

Banana Almond Shakes

Ahhh, more detox stuff.

So I was doing great on my detox diet last week, I lasted a whole five days, but I had to stop because we went out of town to visit my man's family. Since I didn't want anyone to have to make a special supper for me, I decided to quit for a little bit. It was also me and my man's four year anniversary this week! Thus, I wanted to be able to drink some beer and eat some not-so-detox-friendly Indian food (white rice, cream, and paneer, oh my!).

So I started up again yesterday. After the first five days, I felt a lot less bloated, a little slimmer, and more... errr.... regular. So the detox definitely helped. I think I'll continue on until the 18th. So what else have I been eating other than great chili and the soon to follow Banana Almond Shake recipe? Lots of things! Some breakfast items include fruit, yogurt, shakes, and oatmeal. Lunch could be avocado and whole wheat sandwiches, tuna fish sandwiches (mayo doesn't have dairy, even though I still feel like I'm cheating), salads with orange segments and mustard vinaigrette, and rye crackers with yogurt dip. Dinner is about the same, though I usually try to stick to filling soups, such as Curried Parsnip Soup, lentil soup, salads, rye crackers with tzatsiki, or even steaks!

The lack of dairy has been hard on this Minnesota girl, but these Banana Almond Shakes taste like the real thing! I've gotten a little sick of yogurt shakes, so these really hit the spot! Almond milk is a new thing to me, and I don't know much about it other than it is great! It's smooth and silky, with a little nuttiness. I have used soy milk as a milk substitute many times in the past, and though I really like chocolate soy milk, I hate regular. It has this weird aftertaste that I just can't stomach. I will use it for cereal, making a roux, or smoothies, but I just can not drink it alone. Almond milk seems like something that I could just drink.

Anyways, these shakes are awesome! I tweaked a recipe from the Bon Appetite Magazine's Food Lover's Cleanse. I didn't have any ice cubes in the freezer, but I did have frozen fruit! Here's the recipe for one (big!!) shake.

1 cup almond milk
1 banana
1 cup frozen blackberries (substituted for the ice)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 T brown sugar
a little shake of nutmeg

Add everybody to the blender and process for for about a minute, until everything is well combined.
Enjoy!!

Food Lover's Cleanse

After the holidays (and making too many truffles for my family) and getting REALLY sick with the flu after that, my system is now a little, errr, unhappy. It probably didn't help that I ate pizza for 3 days straight (on an aside note, The Rustler pizza from Luce's is the BOMB! Mock duck, banana peppers, pineapple, cheese and bbq sauce? Yes please!).

Now that all the leftovers and most of the junk food is out of the house, it's time for a cleanse. I came across the Bon Appetite Food lover's cleanse yesterday and thought I'd try it out! It pretty much consists of avoiding alcohol, dairy, sugar, coffee, and bread, drinking a lot of water, eating at least one salad a day, and regulating portion size. You can check it out here: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/food-lovers-cleanse/rules.

So today I've tried to stick to the diet. I've done really good so far. For breakfast, I had oatmeal and a little brown sugar, a glass of juice in the middle of the day, and for lunch I had a nice spring green salad with cashews and orange sections with a white wine and sesame oil vinaigrette. Obviously the first day is kind of difficult, so I'm allowed some small... indiscretions. We had some chuck roast defrosting, and that needed to be used. So I decided to make chili! It turned out pretty amazing! I got to use my new dutch oven too!

So the chili is following the cleanse because it doesn't have any of the bad stuff in it, and as a bonus, it will be a nice protein boost for going back to the gym tomorrow. Deal with it.

I wanted to make something really nice for my boyfriend, and since he wanted shredded beef, I gave him shredded beef. We roasted the chuck roast and shredded it before adding the beef to my favorite chili. Here's how I did it.

Mix together:
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T soy sauce
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cracked black pepper
1/2 tsp dried minced onion
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp dried red chili flakes
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika

Salt and pepper the chuck roast (about 4 lbs) on all sides. Brown on all sides in a large dutch oven (mine is 5 Qt). Pour sauce over roast and toss in the oven. Bake at 325 for about 2 1/2 hours. I roasted for 3, and it ended up a little darker than I would have liked. Baste the roast about every 1/2 hour, and half way through cooking, flip it over.

When the roast is finished, take it out of the dutch oven and let it rest for 15 minutes to let all the juices redistribute. Scrape out any crud on the bottom of the pot. Next we'll work on the chili.

You will need:
1 medium red onion (diced)
2 green peppers (diced)
1 red pepper (diced)
1 jalapeno (I remove 1/2 the seeds)
3-4 cloves garlic (diced)
1 14 oz. can kidney beans (drained)
1 28 oz. can chili beans (drained)
1 28 oz. can diced tomato (reserve liquid)
2 chipotle peppers (diced)
2 cups chicken broth
1 T chili powder
1/2-1 tsp cinnamon (I like a lot of cinnamon, it adds a really different taste to the chili!)
1/2 tsp cumin
2 T brown sugar
1/2 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Shred the beef and set aside (it's probably best to get this out of the way before you start cooking everything, unlike what I did...)
Add a little oil and the onions to the dutch onion. Get them nice and carmelized. Add green, red, and jalapeno pepper and cook through. Add beans, tomato including the liquid, and chicken broth. If you want a less hearty, soupier chili, add a cup or two more chicken broth. Next add spices, brown sugar, and chipotle peppers. And finally, add the beef.

Bring everything to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes. You will end up with this fantastic-ness.
You get the awesome spicy broth, the little bits of carmelized pulled beef, and all the veggies. That is definitely the most important part of a chili to me, all of the veggies.

Well, hopefully I can add a few more recipes for this cleanse over the next two weeks.
Bon Appetit!

It's been a long time...

Oh. My. Goodness. It's been a long time since I've written on here! So... What have I been up to lately?

Well, a decent amount. Job Searching (Fun! not really), belly dance class with my cousin (really fun), seeing an therapist who is helping me learn to take joy and pride in the process of life instead of just the results, dieting and going to the gym (and losing 12 #'s!), and finished up my garden!

Here's some good gardening pics:

Those zucchinis were HUGE!
My cherry tomatoes were as tall as me! The neighbors said they were the best on the block!
There are those monstrous zucchinis again!
I remember walking out to the garden one day after working about 5 days in a row. I didn't have time over those days tend to my garden, and to my amazement/horror, BOTH of these zucchinis were in there! they were about the size of my forearm.... Obviously smaller zucchinis are better, and this was INSANE, but it was fun to see how quickly these buggers grew!

My boyfriend and I also went up north this summer and had a lot of fun! We went to Tettegouche State Park and Palisade Head.
This is me at Palisade Head with a blueberry. This morning we had camped out on the beach on the lake and woke up to a beautiful sunrise. We drove up to Palisade Head after breakfast, ascended a narrow, one lane road that wound through a thick forest and climbed monstrous hills and slopes that bulged out of the side of the headland. Palisade Head is basically a giant rock that hangs out over Lake Superior. On this particular day, the hillsides were much warmer than the lake, and in the distance of this picture, you can see the dense fog over the lake. Gusts of wind brought the cool fog up onto the hillside, quietly bringing a refreshing relief from the oppressing heat.
It was absolutely breathtaking.

I also went to a Twins/Detroit Tigers Game at the new Twins Stadium. That was a fantastic experience! I loved the new stadium.
And my man and I both cut all of our hair off. He had dreds half way down his back, and my hair was about the same length, though normal...It was muuuuch longer before...
Well, I think that's all for now, but tomorrow I will have a new recipe for you!
Peace Out!

Two Tomato Tempeh and Pasta

Frantically searching through the fridge for dinner, I discovered that I only had a few slightly strange ingredients. What was I supposed to do with tempeh, sun-dried tomatoes and regular tomatoes, mustard, rosemary, and lemon? Though it sounds weird, this dish turned out to be fantastic.

So what exactly is Tempeh? To wikipedia.com, it is an Indonesian food "made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form". To me, it's manna sent down by God himself, soft bean curds with a nutty taste. To my boyfriend, it's a weirdly-textured fermented soy bean cake. Okay, maybe to some it does have a weird texture. But when sliced and sauteed in butter, it's awesome.

So here's what went down:

I started off with a package of tempeh. Since this meal was only for me (read: would feed two normal people) I only sliced up about half of the tempeh.

Oh, look at all that bean-curdy goodness...


So I dumped all my tempeh in a cast iron skillet with 2 tablespoons of butter.

I also had some pasta going. I really like rotinis!!
Anyway, cook those babies until they're a little browned and remove them.
Chop 1/2 cup tomato, de-seeded, 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, either from oil or reconstituted with some vegetable stock, 2 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon both thyme (I grabbed this from the garden) and rosemary and kosher salt to taste. We'll also use about 1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard. You can obviously change up the proportions, but I was working with what I had. And I can only take so many sun dried tomatoes.

Add everybody to the skillet, except for the regular tomatoes. Let them saute for a minute, and add the tempeh and tomatoes.
Saute everyone together until the tomatoes and garlic are cooked through and soft. Serve atop some pasta with a little sprig of thyme, just for aesthetics.




Marley's watching somebody get pulled over. Oh, lyn-lake neighborhood, I love you almost as much as I love tempeh.

This could have probably fed two people, but I devoured it. Don't judge me. I have a lot of love for this wonderful soy bean cake...

Easy Mac 'n Cheesy with Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Cherry Tomato

For the final speech of my college career, I am discussing healthy food habits and America. Through this speech, I assert that to spread the knowledge of healthy eating to the American population, changes need to be made on the National, Organizational, and individual levels. So, to end my speech with a fun twist, I decided to share with my class one of my favorite recipes: homemade mac 'n cheese. This is a healthy twist on a college staple, one that is MUCH tastier than the Blue Box... And doesn't take much longer at all!! I put a high priority on cooking skills, since I cook every day of my life. Cooking gives me a chance to relax, put my creative mind to work, and control exactly what I'm eating.

PS People who know how to cook a REAL meal are pretty hot!!!

Now you can make infinite variations on this dish, adding chorizo sausage, bell peppers, and jalapenos to make a Tex-Mex Mac, or Artichokes, spinach, red onion and feta for a Greek style Mac, pretty much the combinations are endless. All this takes is a little passion and excitement about learning something new!

This particular meal incorporates three of Michael Pollan's food policy guidelines from Food Rules:
1. Never eat anything advertised on TV- this rule is meant to wean out processed food from your diet. Obviously, if Dairy Farmers of America a commercial, you can still eat cheese. Use your discretion
2. Eat Your Colors- A variety of colors in a dish means a variety of nutrients.
3. If it came from a Plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't- Once again, this is just taking processed food out of the equation.

So here's the main event!
Mac 'n Cheese with Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Cherry Tomatoes

First off, start a pot of water boiling on the stove. When the water comes to a boil, start cooking the pasta. I usually use about 2/3 of a 1 lb. box of pasta. Pasta styles depend on your preference, you could either go with the traditional macaroni noodle, but I really like rotinis.

Start out with a cup each of Broccoli and Cauliflower. Cut into florets, or about bite-sized pieces. Put broccoli and cauliflower into microwave safe bowl.

Steam for about 2 1/2 minutes on high, or until a fork can pierce the stem of one of the veggies easily
Wash about 1/2 cup of Cherry Tomatoes. If you have extra large "grape" tomatoes, halve them. Add to cooked broccoli and cauliflower and set aside.
Now is the important part that takes a little bit of attention and skill. This next step involves making a Roux. A roux is basically a mixture of butter and flour, cooked together, and then the addition of a liquid to make a thick sauce. The flour acts as thickener, and the butter is used to cook out the floury taste. This particular roux will be a thinner one, so that the sauce can spread throughout the noodles but still thick enough to stick to them.

Don't let this cooking technique deter you. It doesn't take very long and it's pretty easy. It takes about 7-8 minutes to make and can be made while the noodles are cooking. Just to help y'all out a little, I'll break it down for you.
First, melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. When the butter is completely melted, add 2 tablespoons flour. Immediately start whisking with a fork. Continue whisking for about 1 minute.
It's kinda hard to make a roux and take pictures at the same time.
It'll start to look like this after you've whisked it enough. I do not recommend walking away from this, you will most likely burn the roux.

Next, add 1 1/2 cups milk. Continue whisking to fully integrate the butter/flour mixture into the milk.
Keep stirring, bring milk to a boil, and it will eventually (3-4 minutes on medium-low heat) start to thicken up.
Now, add 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard, or any other kind of mustard you like, to the sauce.
And then add 1 cup of shredded cheese.
You'll know this sauce is done when you the fork leaves a line in the sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Now, dump the pasta into a casserole dish. I always use a 9 inch round casserole dish.
Dump the veggies in with the noodles.
Mix the veggies into the noodles a little.
Now, add the cheese sauce.
Now, put 1 cup of cheese on top of the noodles and veggies.
I added a little salt and pepper, and a little Parmesan cheese.
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. It'll look like this....
Yeah, this was devoured pretty quickly. There wasn't even any for seconds!

Make cooking a priority in your life. It's fun, not too time consuming, and a lot better for your health!

Easy Mac 'n Cheesy with Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Cherry Tomato

Cooking time: Est. 40 minutes

1 cup broccoli, cut into florets
1 cup cauliflower, cut into florets
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes
2/3 lb. rotini pasta
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste
parmesan cheese (optional)

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.

Start water boiling, when water is at a boil, add pasta. Cook until al dente.

Microwave cauliflower and broccoli in a microwave safe bowl on high for 2 1/2 minutes or until stem is pierced easily with a fork. Add washed cherry tomatoes, set aside.

Melt butter in sauce pan. Whisk flour into butter, continue whisking as it cooks for 1 minute. Whisk in milk a little at a time. Bring to a boil. Continue whisking.

When milk/butter/flour mixture thickens up, add 1/2 the cheese, dijon mustard, and salt and pepper to taste.

Place pasta and veggies in 9 inch casserole dish. Mix pasta and veggies together. Add cheese sauce. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Add salt, pepper, and parmesan to taste.

Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until cheese is melted, bubbly, and slightly brown.

Service industry in America

So I've been in the service industry, mostly hostessing and waiting tables, for about, mmmm, 4-5 years. I refuse to work in corporate-owned restaurants after my first job (disaster!) so now I only work in family owned restaurants. And let me tell you, without seeing the absolute worst treatment of servers (which occurs in corporate restaurants, unsurprisingly), I have some pretty horrific stories.

We'll just disregard what happened this weekend at work.

What I want to talk about is the treatment of service industry folks in the US. These people work long hours dealing directly with other people, do not get health insurance, and are rarely paid over minimum wage. I am obviously biased because I work in the industry, as do almost all of my friends and room mates, but just take a moment to think about all the work that these people do. Think of it in a Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club-esque way... these people wash your car, take care of children, prepare and serve your food, help you find things in the store, ... and guard you while you sleep! (I couldn't help it...)

The typical attitude that managers... and sadly, the ever present asshole customers (of course not all of them are...), hold is that the customer is ALWAYS right. Now, this is good business practice, but to a point. When your employees are barely being paid a living wage and have to deal with all of this anxiety, well, does this seem like a good way for people to live?

I'm starting to think that this is why people "go postal" and come to work "and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers." (sorry, I felt this reference really proved my point).

I just think we need to change the way we treat the service industry employees, I mean, they're the largest body of workers in the country, right? The problem is that Capitalism needs some party to externalize its costs to... and that goes to the service industry people. So that everyone can get cheap goods, the service people are treated horribly and hardly make any money.

So I am writing this post after talking to my favorite cousin about life in America. It seems like we have to go through a lot of crap to get to the all important "American Dream". This high anxiety, time-poor lifestyle we all endure seems to blind us from what is important. We want money, power, things... but at what cost? I, for one, am sick of selling lamb chops and beef kabobs. I am going to change this as soon as I can... and work in a job where people actually give their employees a voice.

Speaking of giving employees a voice, right now I am eating at "Hard Times Cafe", a restaurant that treats its employees right with healthcare and vacation time. It's an all vegetarian/vegan cafe, and I am enjoying one of my *favorite* sandwiches: the Tempeh Reuben. All you non vegetarians may scoff at tempeh (my man being one of them), but all you other veggies know what I'm talking about.
I ate half the sandwich before I realized I was going to take a picture of it. That's what Tempeh does to me.

*For anyone who doesn't know, tempeh is a fermented soybean cake. It's a little like tofu, with a much nuttier taste and a strange texture, which is kind of like softened soybeans. For those of us who can understand textures... its amazing.

So tip your servers right, only complain to managers when you really mean it, and take a moment to look at situations from the service industry employee's perspective: they take a lot of crap, and do the jobs that no one else wants to do. A lot of them are in this country illegally trying to make a living to support their families. They have the same dreams and ambitions as you at a deep level, and they're human beings. Shouldn't we all be treated with equal consideration and respect?