cooking without fear
(This is my friend Mike’s first post on He Cooks, She Cooks. Let him know how much you enjoyed it.)
Fried pickles are one of my favorite deep fried foods. They’re kind of a mess, but pretty easy to make. They’re crispy on the outside, a little soft on the inside, and have a nice, mild pickle flavor. And they go great with a good pale ale or bitter brew. They are great plain, or with a spicy dipping sauce.
I don’t even like beer most of the time, but this cookie recipe is a keeper.
You start with two bottles of beer then boil it down with honey until you only have 1/3 cup of liquid. Then mix it with standard cookie ingredients, plus ground coriander and orange zest.
If you enjoy the subtleties of a good brew, as Michael does, you’ll appreciate how the orange and coriander work with the flavors in the Belgian white.
Otherwise, you’ll just be thinking, “Huh, beer cookies? These are better than I imagined. I want another.”
The cookie itself is very cakey, and it stays incredibly soft even after a few days. I mean melt in your mouth soft. The glaze gives it just enough sweetness. To me, it finishes a little bitter, but as I said, I’m not usually a beer fan. Even still, I love these. Perfect for someone who doesn’t like their desserts overly sweet.
Michael and I made these in the winter when I saw the recipe on Cookie Madness. When we made them again last weekend, they were better than I remembered. I’ll definitely be making these in the future. Continue reading »
I’ve loved beer since my first sip of a Belgian kriek in Brussels, on January 2nd, 2007. I knew at that moment, for the next 2 weeks, I was going to have a beer with every lunch and dinner. It was as expensive as water sometimes, and tasted waaay better. Also, what better place to start drinking beer with seriousness than Belgium, Austria, and Germany? I tried as many as I could and when I came back, despite still only being 20, I knew I must continue to try different beers at school. I found friends who liked me enough to listen to exact and strange orders for beer runs. One girl kept asking me if I was sure it was called an Oatmeal Stout, “Oatmeal? Really? Oatmeal?”. ::sigh::
I quickly exhausted Walmart and Gerbes’ selections, and found myself going with my mom to Binny’s, Sam’s, Cost Plus World Market and Trader Joes when I was home and Arena and Hyvee at school.
A consistent goal of mine has been to “complete” a brewery. I’ve only done this a few times, as good breweries keep releasing new seasonals or testing new beers entirely. My stipulation is not to include trying beers available on tap only, though that would be ideal, it’s not really feasible as my beer wall relies on cutting out the box. For bottled beers, I’ve only finished Leinenkugel, New Belgium, and Goose Island. I am really close on Schlafly and Boulevard (just missing some seasonals). Of course, some breweries don’t make that many styles, so for example, Berghoff is much easier to get through than Schlafly.
I have incredible pride in my hometown, Chicago, and consequently, one of my favorite breweries is Goose Island. I hold many great memories of those boxes. The first time I drank Honker’s Ale in a keg at a friends party in Wrigleyville, the refreshing sips of 312 had outside Cloud Gate at Millenium Park, and many more.
Check out all the beers I’ve tried so far and if you see some glaring omission, please suggest it with the form below.
So I probably bought more than four six-packs in February, but honestly, these are the four I remember off the top of my head.
So I was at a friend’s house and one of her friends instant messaged her to ask if she knew any photographers available for freelance product photography. Her answer was she had one in her basement.
And with that, I got another freelance job. It’s that easy to hire me folks! (seriously, email me for rates)
Basically, Cary Silverman, a student at MU, has started four businesses prior to this newest endeavor… alcohol flavored popcorn, appropriately titled Pub-Corn.
The three flavors he has now are Beer, Piña Colada and Irish Cream. I would say Beer tastes like the Natty Lite or Milwaukee’s Best flavor territory– its kinda stale, but kinda reminds you exactly of a cheap bar or a frat-tastic party from freshman year. Either way, its interesting. Piña Colada on the other hand, that’s like candy. It was quite sweet and I’m surprised how well it worked with the popcorn medium. Irish Cream tasted the most like alcohol, but kinda chocolaty too. It was a good representation.
All inspiration for the mini box studio goes to strobist, a wonderful lighting blog that will teach you almost as much as my college level Advanced Techniques course did.