Monthly Archives: January 2012

Cookies & Cans : Dateable Rocky Road Cookies

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In my world, dating comes with cookies.

Let me specify.

“Can I take you out to dinner?” comes with cookies.

“You want to hang out sometime?” no cookies for you.

You know why? Any fellow left in this day and age with the stones to legitimately ask a girl out on a for-real, grown-up date is worth baking these cookies for. This fellow not only has the courage to ask that petrifying question, but he’s one who picks you up and actually walks you back to your door, has a solid handshake when he meets you for the first time, come to that, he still shakes hands when meeting people.

(For credentials sake : My dates have been made cookies, brownies, and cupcakes. They were all truly quality fellows.)

Moral of the story: if you ask a lady out on that actual date, she’s going to be really hard pressed to say no.

Down to business…

Dateable Rocky Road Cookies
(adapted from A Cozy Kitchen)
makes about 18 cookies

1/2  cup cake flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 ounces milk chocolate – I used one bar Ghirardelli
(2 oz chopped into 1/4 inch chunks, 2 oz chopped into 1/8 inch chunks)
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen or refrigerated
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup small marshmallows
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Italicized ingredients/measurements are those differing from the original recipe

1. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together.

2. In a separate medium microwavable bowl, melt butter and 1/4 inch chunks of chocolate together in microwave. Melt 30 seconds, stir, 30 seconds, stir again. Continue until chocolate has melted down to very small bits. Just continue stirring until completely smooth. (It’s better to not melt this enough than burn it…your home will reek for days if you burn chocolate)

3. Add sugar, egg, and vanilla extract to chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth. It may look and smell like grainy carmel.

4. Add 1/2 flour mixture, whisk until combined. Add the other 1/2 and mix well again. You may need to switch to a spoon or spatula if the whisk becomes too clogged.

4. Fold in marshmallows, pecans, and 1/8 inch chocolate bits.

5. Cover with plastic wrap and let chill for one hour. Have a beer and hang out.

6. Scoop 1 1/2 inch sized balls onto greased cookie sheet, two inches apart, and put in refrigerator again to chill for fifteen minutes while oven preheats.

6. Bake 12-14 minutes at 350 F. The tops of cookies should be dry and slightly cracked. Carefully remove from cookie sheet almost immediately after taking out of oven, and let cool.

7. Take to aforementioned boy.

Come back on Wednesday to see what I have planned for February!


10 Things for Friday

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Here’s what I’ve been reading through my Google Reader  at 6:30 am each morning this week…

1. WTF of the week: woman banned from homebrew competition because she has lady parts. (source one, source two)

2. Muncie’s Heorot was the only Indiana bar to make it into Draft’s 100 best beer bars this year. While it is quite true that they have an outstanding selection (Delirium on tap!) and they finally got some good bartenders in there after my favorites left, all things considered (selection, price, service, owners, atmosphere, crowd, etc.), Savage’s and the Fickle Peach still take the top spots in my book for Muncietown.

3. Adorable solution for your messy spice bowl or shelf: small spice jars + blackboard chalk.

4. These cabins. Oh good heavens these cabins.

5. One morning last week.

6. After reading Helene Dujardin’s book Plate to Pixel, I thought “Hey, I might actually be able to learn how to take a decent photo.” She also makes me think I could actually make her Gluten-Free Salmon Bisque.

7. For those of you wanting to fancy up your liquor cabinet. Or if you’re like me, your “liquor cabinet” is a corner of your shelf devoted to the one bottle of scotch and one bottle of gin or vodka. Use some of that vodka, milk, and sugar, and you’ll have another smart drink to add (The Kitchn)

8. Camping/road tripping/skinny dipping video by Deschutes Brewery.

9. If you need to kill an hour or two, here’s an interesting & lengthy response by Stone’s Greg Koch to this inspired by this. It took me two mornings to read through it thoroughly. But now I’m curious about IBUs (don’t know much about them yet) and even more bewildered by some beer styles/classifications and their interpretations.

10. I need two more hours in the day just so I can make this grapefruit cake with grapefruit/mint glaze every day of my life. (Food 52)

Come back Sunday for the last cookie post of January! 

Cookies & Cans : Southern Star Buried Hatchet Revisited

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I may lose a few friends over this post. I may even get a few dirty looks.

It wasn’t for me. Before you get your pitchforks, let me say I don’t hate it, but Buried Hatchet has not been and apparently still isn’t the beer for me. We don’t get along very well, I don’t have the stomach for it, and we just don’t have the right chemistry. I’m so disappointed that we still don’t match up, because I know lots of people who downright adore this beer, but I do hope they won’t hold it against me.

Maybe this is something that just isn’t happening for the time being. For example, I’ve tried for the past four years to read David Foster Wallace – I’ll absolutely concede that he’s a great writer, and many of my friends are extremely passionate about his writing. But try as I might….I’ve started about four separate books and he doesn’t catch me. Maybe one day in the future I’ll have travelled far enough along my beer or literary journey and things will just click with either of them.

Is there a particular beer that everyone fawns over that you just don’t care for?

On to liquid forms of art…


Back to the basics
Southern Star
Strong American Stout (Southern Star), Stout (RateBeer), American Double/Imperial Stout (Beeradvocate)…sheesh
8.25% ABV
Bought at Friendly Package Liquors

All in all…
This aroma comes barreling at you from the second you crack it open. It isn’t an unpleasant smell at this point: a bit of the chocolate in Young’s Double Chocolate Stout + the alcoholic smell of a Founders Porter.  But once I poured it in a glass and took a semi-deep breath it smelled to me like curdled Founders Breakfast Stout, in that there was a heavily roasted black coffee scent, but it just went way too far & sharp for my taste. The color is unique, though – a little softer brown than a glass bottle of Coca-Cola, with a velvety thick and flexible tan head (kind of like a Volvo interior leather tan).

So Turkish coffee is prepared by boiling very finely powdered coffee with a little sugar, and served as such (the dregs will settle to the bottom of your cup). It’s insanely robust, but is also very sweet and unique. This tastes as if Turkish coffee was boiled with a pinch of cardamom, and with the acidity of the coffee turned way up. If the acidity, curdled, and burnt carmel scent weren’t there I would probably be a bigger fan. And I mean burnt carmel as in “I can’t believe I burnt this carmel and now its permanently affixed to my saucepan and setting off the smoke alarms.” The one aspect that I do love is the aftertaste of toasted slivered almonds.

Recommend to a friend?
Not this time around

Safe for lightweights?
No, so I will be using my ABV on something else next time.

Six pack worthy?
Well they come in packs of four, but I won’t be getting a four pack anytime soon

But don’t take my word for it…

Beer America TV
(video review – appearance by Scooter from Texas Brews, and a couple interesting facts about canned beer & “aluminum taste”)

The Hopry
(video & written review… I really appreciate that this gent provided a truly unique observation on the Hatchet flavor that I read/heard…tootsie rolls!)

Texas Brews
(written review)

Aleheads
(written review)

Cookies & Cans : Lime Shortbread Cookies

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Fractions.

Damn fractions.

I can rock mathematics. I really can. I had to teach myself calculus for my Economic Growth class at university, and I can recite and solve my favorite growth equation for you (nerd alert). But sometimes when I look at recipes, I have a brain hiccup.

Yesterday I made shortbread cookies with the best of intentions and highest of hopes. I had this adorable square silicone cookie pan to make tiny shortbread squares, but eighteen minutes into baking they were bubbling way over with butter visibly pooling in the middle. Ugly little buggers.

I may have used 2 cups of confectioner sugar instead of 1/2 cup…I’ll be honest. I did use 2 cups of confectioners sugar instead of 1/2 cup. Classy, no?

If I haven’t been clear already about not wanting to hide mistakes, sometimes completely absent-minded mistakes, this should reinforce that point. Sometimes I use tablespoons instead of teaspoons. Sometimes teaspoons instead of tablespoons. But every once in a while those mistakes turn into something delicious. These actually turned into perfect bite-sized lime tarte shells. But I woke up this morning still craving the real lime shortbread cookies, and thank my lucky stars they turned out spectacularly.

They look perfectly innocent, but I found it almost impossible to stop eating them…sweet, dry, and crumbly, with the perfect amount of lime – not overwhelming, but eager enough so that you just have to have another.

Lime Shortbread Cookies (round two)
Yields 30 cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups + 2 tablespoons All-Purpose flour
3/4 cup + 1 teaspoon powdered (icing, confectioners, 10x) sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons lime juice
zest from one lime

1. Cream butter in mixer, then beat in vanilla, lime juice, and lime zest.

2. Sift flour, confectioner sugar, and salt together. With mixer on low, add 1/2 of the flour very slowly until mostly incorporated.

3. Remove mixer bowl, scrape dough off beaters, and then get prepared to get your hands dirty. Instead of using the mixer to incorporate the rest of the flour you will use your hands.

4. Pour the rest of the flour mixture into the mixer bowl, and lightly fold the flour in. This ensures you don’t overwork the gluten in the flour (making the cookie tough), and the warmth from your hands helps dissolve the sugar in the flour. It’s going to be extremely sticky and messy at first, but if you are slow and steady, then a singular ball of dough will slowly form.

5. Using a spoon, scoop out about 1-inch sized balls and place on greased & floured cookie sheet, or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Place them 1 inch apart, and bake for 22 minutes at 325 degrees F.

6. Remove from oven, and let cool on cookie sheet for 10 minutes. Then transfer to cookie rack or another cookie sheet. Once completely cool, sprinkle confectioner sugar generously. (I used a strainer to do this – just spoon sugar in and lightly tap so that the sugar sprinkles evenly)

Be sure that you have an enormous glass of milk or water with you when you eat a dozen of these. 

Come back Wednesday for the final canned beer post of January!

what I’ve been reading at 6:30 AM

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I like waking up at 6:30 AM. Yes I said it. I’ll be more specific, though. I don’t like the actual waking up part. I loathe that. Doesn’t everyone? But I love the hour I have early in the morning to myself, just to watch the news, have two cups of coffee, and catch up on various internet readings. 6:30 am – 7:30 am in my life is always quiet and still. I’m thinking about summing up a few of my favorite bits from the week in a list each Friday, so here goes!

1. A romantic and entrancing video on the art of making Dutch oven bread from Kinfolk magazine

2. My favorite post from It’s a Fucking Beer so far, on Guinness Black Lager…“Hey, we have a fucking harp on both our logos. Let’s mix the two together and come up with something twice as bland.”

3. I FINALLY got to have my first Hopslam of the season, and Hoosier Beer Geek has my favorite post on the brew so far….“As for the nose, I may as well have stuck my sniffer straight up the ass of a Georgia Peach.” yessss

4. I spent several of my morning coffee times re-reading The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World. I hope you get to do this as well.

5. Now all I can think about are Joy the Baker’s chive waffles with sour cream and eggs. Legit excuse as breakfast for dinner.

Cookies & Cans : Hot Toddy

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Friday I put a six-pack of Hopslam in my refrigerator, so naturally, Saturday morning I was hit with the most horrid cold. Hopslam must wait…le sigh…Instead of drinking a canned beer (my taste buds are wonky) or baking cookies (and transmitting my cold to whoever eats them…ew, gross), I’m having my first hot toddy today. I need some relief other re-boiling water over and over again so I can stick my face in the steam. I was so happy that this worked, at least for a few minutes – though it did make me thirsty, it honestly helped clear my head and was dangerously sweet & tasty. This isn’t going to cure you of your cold, but if anything, the bourbon can help make you feel a wee bit cheerier. I’d prescribe this for the end of a truly terrible, windy, icy, and cold winter day.

Hot Toddy Wonder
Recipe is from Tracy Shutterbean. Thank you darling.
2 Tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon grated ginger root
1 ounce or more bourbon. (Or pour a splash more in when no one’s looking)
Juice from one large lemon (or to taste)
8 ounces hot water

1. Cut a two inch piece of ginger root, and using the side of a spoon, scrape off the skin to peel, and then grate.
2. Put honey, bourbon, lemon juice, and ginger root in an empty glass measuring cup. I started off with half the lemon juice, and added more later to make sure I didn’t use too much.
3. Boil the water, and pour 8 ounces in to the measuring glass. If you need to, stir until the honey is fully dissolved. Let this steep for 2-3 minutes.
4. Strain the toddy mixture into a serving glass, and enjoy your few minutes of sweetness. And the bourbon. Always enjoy bourbon.

I hope to kick this cold soon, as I want to get back on my feet to bake cookies and enjoy some canned beer. But never fear, if I’m not well by Wednesday I’ll still post something pretty for you to look at, drink and/or eat.

Cookies & Cans : Boulder Hazed & Infused

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Yesterday I spent my afternoon making homemade granola and doing yoga with Iron & Wine. Guess who made a few resolutions? Among running & actually riding my bike again, being more diligent in practicing yoga is on my list for 2012. I typically have such a hard time just focusing on it in the moment – pushing to-do lists out of my head, thinking about what pose to do next, figuring out what ingredients I need to buy at the grocery store, yadayada. After about ten minutes of determination, I finally wind down and feel balanced. And even though after 30-45 minutes I’m done for the day, I don’t like to give up that balanced and centered feeling . Not thinking about problems I’m helping my customers with, or how much laundry I need to do, or what in the world I’m doing with my life. Maybe “practice more yoga” isn’t a proper resolution itself, but rather being more calm, relaxed, and patient. Learning other poses, running further & faster, getting better on my bike – those unfortunately don’t happen overnight. Most worthy things in life don’t happen that quickly, do they? So I’m trying to exercise patient persistence. Stillness. Embracing questions, rather than scrambling for answers. Sigh. I’m taking full advantage of this moment as long as possible.
(other resolutions: getting more than two beer glasses, and
learning how to take pictures without capturing my own reflection)
Back to the basics
Boulder Beer Company
Amber Ale
4.85% ABV
Bought at Friendly Package Liquors, Muncie

All in all
This Hazed & Infused fits the “quiet & relaxed” bill – it’s afternoon in a can. It directs slanted warm light through a hazy orange glass, is deeply satisfying, relaxing, and reassuring. It isn’t lazy enough to put you to sleep, but just laid back enough to take a deep breath in. It even smells light, ginger ale with a spritz of lemon, and a whiff of rising bread dough…one of my favorite aromas to have in a kitchen.

Best of all, it is thirst quenching, and best enjoyed in large swigs. This is no sipping beer – it’s a very easy drinker, middle of the road (not in reference to quality) amber taste with about ⅛ teaspoon of sweetness, and a few seconds of hoppy aftertaste. (Hoppy? Hop-filled? Hopolicious?) To quote the back of this can it has some “tasty waves.”

As far as how it feels, it has the tiniest bit of carbonation, but doesn’t feel flat in any respect. It has a nice lively body, and is my definition of gulp-able beer aka this one went extremely fast. I do prefer drinking this one in the can, but I’m glad I also poured it in a glass, as that orange color in the sun was pretty. (It does get more murky though when not in direct sunlight)

Recommend to a friend?

Absolutely.

Safe for lightweights?
Yes.

Six pack worthy?
Yes, and in fact, I’m picking up more on my next trip to Friendly Package.

Cookies & Cans : Gooey Nutella Cookies

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I’m going to assume that I don’t need to spend a paragraph talking about the merits of Nutella itself. I’m going to assume that most people know how it’s a perfect, addictive, spread that is too easy to consume in very large quantities. If you don’t…let this be your introduction to a chocolate-hazelnut spread that has the potential to change your life. Serious business here.

My favorite way of having Nutella will always be inside the traditional crepe – bought at a corner cafe in Montmartre to-go (the one on the first floor of the white building in the picture below, Le Ronsard). Wrapped in a cone shape with parchment paper, it absolutely oozed hot gooey Nutella on your fingers and dripped to the road. Around the sidewalk under the ordering window, you could typically find tiny droplets of Nutella congregating at the stand, and spreading out like bread crumbs as customers walked away. And if my friends and I were feeling particularly patient, we’d climb the stairs up to a grassy area at the top of the hill to plop ourselves down, savor our crepes, and spend several lazy hours gazing at the city.

(aforementioned hill below the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre)

I may not be able to have that moment whenever I feel like it now, but thanks to Nutella being available in the US (and gaining in popularity – yes!) I can use it in every other way possible. Frostings, breakfast, cakes, snacks, lunch, cookies…

These are a play off of traditional chocolate chip cookies, with a prominent hazelnut taste from the Nutella, and a soft exterior with a pocket of chocolate goodness in the middle. I personally love having pecans in cookies like these, but I think you could easily replace them with more hazelnuts, or even macadamia nuts if you’re feeling fancy and want to spend a little more on your dessert.

Gooey Nutella Cookies
Recipe adapted from my heroes at (never home)maker

1 cup cake flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
3 Tablespoons Nutella
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 pinches salt
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg, room temperature
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped pecans 

Italicized ingredients are those differing from the original recipe.

(1) Cream butter & sugar together until light and fluffy in a small mixing bowl. Add Nutella, vanilla, and the egg, mixing again until smooth. If you are using a mixer, you may need to periodically scrape the beaters and bowl several times for everything to be incorporated.

(2) Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Turn the mixer back on low, and slowly add 3/4 of the flour mix.

(3) Scrape excess batter off the beaters, and fold in the last 1/4 of flour mixture until incorporated. Then slowly fold in the chocolate chips and pecans with your spatula or spoon.

(4) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let chill in refrigerator for 1-2 hours. Then scoop out 1 inch balls of dough onto a well-greased cookie sheet 2-3 inches apart, and bake at 350 F for 10 minutes, or just until the tops of the cookies are no longer shiny. (Since this cookie dough is on the sticky side, I would recommend using a spoon rather than rolling out the dough in your hands.)

(5) Enjoy with a tall glass of milk & the songs of Georges Brassens.

If you prefer to have a cookie more similar to the traditional chocolate chip, and with less of a “gooey,” nature – use only 2 Tablespoons Nutella, 1/2 cup chocolate chips, and 1/2 cup pecans.

Look out for my next canned beer post this Wednesday!

Cookies & Cans : Sun King Osiris

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If I was to look back on this Osiris six months from now, I would remember that it smells like humid and hazy North Carolina mountains at 6 AM. Not earthy, but evergreen sweet – an entire day in the sun and on the water ahead of us. Soft flowers out front. The damp wood of the porch swing.

Unless a beer is simply out of this world with powerful features, it’s challenging to remember all the unique tastes and facets I noticed about it without writing anything down. So I try to mentally note at least one unique feature or reaction I had such as…

Left Hand Milk Stout = smooth, amazing label. go-to beer.
Hopslam = so hopped up I saw stars
Thomas Creek Vanilla Cream Ale = pheeewww (that’s my interpretation of a balloon deflating)
Stone Ruination IPA = I want to take you home tonight
5 AM Saint = you sir, get waffles in the morning

Most of those are reactions, but I personally find it is a more effective way of recalling and conveying how I felt about a beer. Plus, if I’m out and my friend asks me what I thought about a certain beer, I’d rather say “hellsyes. I wanted to run out in the streets and tell everyone how amazing it was,” than “hellsyes. It had a light and airy note of pencil shavings.” Okay okay please call me out if I ever say anything like that, but I hope you see what I mean. Of course if I had to choose between two similar beers I’d hope that I would have enough sensory memory to compare the two in more depth than with one immediate reaction, but my beer brain capacity has some developing to do.

I’ll remember that the smell of this Osiris was like stepping into a greenhouse.

Back to the basics
Sun King Brewery – Indianapolis, Indiana
American Pale Ale
5.6% ABV
Bought at Friendly Package Liquors, Muncie

All in all
Clear, yellow-orange color (a pretty orange, not Philadelphia Flyers orange…sorry dudes, that is not a good color), with a soft white head that disappeared quickly, but left a thin layer until about ¼ of the beer was gone. The hops & tart grapefruit taste were satisfying and hit square on the center of my tongue…It felt very clear, but was equally dry, leaving me wanting something more quenching-perhaps a glass of water or that juicy grapefruit? Overall it was very sharp, and worked until the end when it left a bitter penny taste at the back of my mouth. Did anyone else try to use pennies as a way to make your temperature read higher when you wanted to stay home from school “sick?” Just me? It didn’t work at all. But using a heating blanket did. Shhhh…

Recommend to a friend?
I would tell them about the great aroma, but the aftertaste & dryness makes me hesitate in recommending it to someone who isn’t a fan of pale ales.

Safe for lightweights?
5.6% ABV – yay!

Plus one?
Sure thing.

And look out for my next cookie recipe on Sunday!