Food beginnings

Following the amazing array of food blogs such as Serious Eats, Smitten Kitchen, Umamimart, and Not Without Salt one can easily get jealous and antsy to cook. That has been me lately. Thankfully, I have had plenty of reason to. So, even if nobody reads this, I need an outlet to express my passion for cooking and the results of my labors.

For Christmas Paul and I were gifted our own Beer Brewing Kit. While I am extremely excited by this opportunity, I am more intrigued with the produce than the process. So, while Paul and his lova-lova-beer-brewer-extraordinaire, Jon, boiled, steeped, mixed, etc. I took pictures and provided an endless supply of snacks.

Steeping the bag of brew

One of my must-haves in the kitchen is fresh bread. Using the no knead recipe from 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day' by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, I always have a large container of bread fermenting nicely in my fridge. On the day of the beer brewing party I decided to make some focaccia.

Focaccia - Olive Oil, Cayenne Pepper, Coarse Salt,

Dried Thyme and Oregano

Take a good grapefruit size lump of bread out of your container

and press into the corners of a small cast iron pan with about 1/4-1/2 cup

of extra virgin olive oil. Make some divots in the top of the

dough and allow to rise for 40 mins to an hour.

Preheat your oven to 375 and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown on bottom.

Depending on how cold your bread is and how long you have allowed it to rise it may take longer

than 25 minutes.

Popcorn with smoky olive oil and pepper, salami,

cheese, cornichons, fresh green olives,

Paul's lamb sausage cooked in beer and caramelized onions

Beer in the Carboy - first step complete.

In two weeks that 5 gallons of beer will, fingers crossed, be 4 cases of beer. And there will be beer for days!