Container Garden Update — July 11, 2014

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here. July 14, 2013 here for comparison.

The photos below were taken at sunset —

All of the tomatoes are doing well. The Tigerellas are slightly unusual. Note the stripes:

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Arugula and Goat Cheese Pizza

by A.J. Coltrane

The arugula is going nuts right now. It looks like it’s trying to bolt, so we did what we always do when something may be threatening to bolt – we whacked many of the plants’ leaves and consumed them. “Let’s see you go to seed now!” (It does seem to slow the bolting process. Maybe.)

Pizza with arugula as the star of the show. I think it’s relatively photogenic:

The Very Loose Recipe (I initially dumped in too much water, so I added more flour to make a 60% hydration. Hence the weird math.):

240g AP flour, 144g water, 5g kosher salt (2% of the flour weight, which is normal), 1 tsp instant yeast, 2-3 TBP olive oil.

I was pretty careless during production I guess — the large amount of oil was a screwup as well. (And no, I wasn’t having any beverages at that time.)

Preheat the oven to 500F.

Stretch the dough was very thinly over a pizza pan. (I used a perforated pizza pan for baking.)

Spread red sauce very thinly over the dough.

Cook for 7 minutes.

Add the goat cheese and cook another 6 minutes.

Remove from the oven and top with the parmesan and arugula.

—-

I was pleasantly surprised at how good arugula is on pizza! I never thought – “Salad greens on pizza, what a great idea!” But really, the peppery bite of the arugula with the salt from the parmesan, fat from the goat cheese and acid from the red sauce — it was really pretty good. The extra oil in the very thin dough made for a very crackery pizza.

The is the 24th “pizza/flatbread” post. Whew. I got to looking back through them – the photography is always… what it is. A couple of previous favorites:

The March 2011 “Pizza Dough” post. I scaled nine different recipes to a common denominator of flour volume. That was fun to do, if a little tedious at times. (No photos on this one, though Google loves it.)

The February 2013 “Heart Shaped Pizza“. Awwwww. I gave the post the evocative name – “Another Six Minute Pizza”. I’m such a romantic.

July 2012 – “Leftover Calzone Ingredients? More Pizza!” Featuring one “ok” pizza picture, one that’s better than that (the lower picture, in my opinion is the better one), and one very good picture of “the princess”.

And finally, the Super Bowl “Pizza Bianca – A Sizable Super Bowl Sendup“. It’s a 16″ x 22” grilled flatbread that was served at our Super Bowl party. It was a “big” hit.

Ugh. I always feel like I need to wash my hands after puns like that.

How to Take Apart a World Power

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Watching the Brasil-Germany semi-final, I figured that this was going to be a tough game for the Germans – it is a home game for Brasil, in front of an extremely loud, mostly partisan crowd, even with Brasil missing a couple of their best players and not exactly playing great soccer. I figured that Germany was going to press to try to get a lead and take the crowd out of it so when Muller scored; I figured that was exactly what they were trying to do. Then, about 22 minutes in, I figured that the game was just about over when Klose scored. The Germans were outplaying the Brasilians, and they have a great defense and the best goal keeper in the world with Neuer, so it would be tough to come back from 2-0 down. Well, then Germany went all blitzkrieg on the Brasilians and put 3 more in the net, in 6 minutes. I am writing this at halftime (and a couple of days before this will actually post) and I fully expect that Germany is going to use their 3 subs at the start of the 2^nd half, just to avoid anyone getting hurt.

Germany is playing their best game since they dismantled the US in the group stage. Yes, the score was only 1-0, but at no point did you get the feeling that the US was going to mount any real threat. Heck, watching the game, it seemed like the Germans spent most of the second half trying to set up Klose so he could break the World Cup scoring record. That is what the first half of the Brasil-Germany game felt like, even before it became a blowout. It does not matter what the Brasilians do, Germany has complete control of the game.

Rosemary Focaccia

by A.J. Coltrane

Another focaccia. I was happy with the crumb on this one.

The recipe:

Ingredients-

600 g King Arthur bread Flour

480g water (80% hydration)

15g salt (2.5%)

1.5 tsp instant yeast

1/2 cup total olive oil warmed in a skillet with rosemary. Let the oil cool. Strain out the fried rosemary. 42g oil goes in the dough (7% of the flour by weight). Reserve the remaining ~30g for the bottom and top of the focaccia.

The Process-

1. Mix ingredients (except the “top and bottom oil”) on low speed for 12 minutes. Let rise 1 hour. Spread ~2 tsp of the olive oil onto a parchment covered sheet tray.

2 Mince a little more rosemary for the top of the dough. Toss this in with the reserved olive oil so that they can hang out a while.

3. Move dough to the sheet tray, let rise 1.5 hours, covered with another inverted tray. (This is easier if you first dip a spatula and/or your fingers into the reserved oil. The dough will be very sticky.)

3. Just before the dough is to go into the oven, top with the reserved oil/rosemary.

3. Preheat oven to 425F. Bake 12 minutes, turn the sheet tray around and bake another 12 minutes.

4. Previous attempt is here. Also here, here, here, and here. It seems I like making focaccia.

——-

I’m guessing that the crumb came out better than usual because:

A) I used only 7% oil inside the dough, and a light hand was used with the oil on top. Historically it’s been 8-10% oil within the dough.

B) The 1 hour initial rise before placing the dough into the sheet tray.

C) It was warm in the house.

———

If I were to try it again I’d take it a little easier on the rosemary — maybe not warm as much rosemary in the oil, or not leave it in for quite as long.

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Granite Oat Pale Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Having the beer notes online allows me to quickly reference what I previously thought of a beer. It comes in particularly handy with NW Peaks when their Mountainbeers get brewed again and I can compare what I thought of the beer year over year and see how the recipe has changed. Granite Oat was one of the adjunct beers from last year’s experiments and it was interesting (in a good way) so I was happy to see that NW Peaks decided to bring it back into the fold this year.

From the NW Peaks Website:

The Name, the mountain. Granite is an accessible mountain right off I-90 just west of Snoqualmie Pass. With a summer trail that goes to a fire lookout at the summit, it’s a perfect day trip for those that want an accessible, but slightly strenuous day hike. From the summit, the views from Rainier to Baker are spectacular on a nice day.

The Beer. April brings another ‘adjunct’ beer to the mountainBeers. We used oats (20%) in this beer and then paired it with a couple of unique hops from New Zealand. Granite ended light and dry with a subtle oat, silky mouthfeel. The featured character are the hops that come through as distinctly melon-like, with floral and citrus notes also present. At 4.8% ABV, Granite has the characteristics of a session IPA (… but with Oats).

The beer pours copper in color with a white head. Strong notes of oats and yeast dominate the nose with hints of grain and spice in the background. The beer starts out with a mild sweetness with notes of oatmeal and sugar before becoming crisp and dry with hints of grain and yeast. The beer finishes slightly bitter with a backing note of oat and barley. I thought that the bitterness initially threw the balance off slightly as it was almost bracingly bitter (probably because it was unexpected and had a bit of a bite) on the first sip, but it quickly mellowed on the next sip and added a lightly bitter pleasantness to the finish. As the beer warms, there are some fruity esters that become present, rounding out the beer further and adding a new layer of flavor to the profiles.

NW Peaks Granite Oat Pale Ale comes up to the fence and straps on 3 feed bags out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Maritime Pacific ESB

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The name Bitter in a beer is a bit of a misnomer as we have come to think of beers today. It is really just a comparison of the happiness in relation to a mild and a plain from the days of old in merry old England. It makes it hard to convince someone who does not like very hoppy beers that Bitters are in fact, very mildly bitter and not what you would find from and IPA. Maritime Pacific does and Extra Special Bitter as one of their seasonal beers and like all of their beers, they are well crafted if unspectacular.

The beer pours ruby-amber in color with strong notes of caramel and hints of grain on the nose. The beer starts off on the palate with dominating notes of lightly sweet caramel which carry throughout the beer. There is an increasingly pleasant bitterness what builds and mingles with the sweetness, playing tag and alternating between the two, but neither is particularly deep but the do compliment each other. The beer is balanced and easy drinking with just enough sweet maltiness that it is not cloying and just enough bitter to be interesting but it seemed to be lacking just a bit more complexity to bring it to the next level. Still and enjoyable beer and a good one to introduce someone to the world of bitters.

Maritime Pacific ESB draws an average 2 pints out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Stoup ISA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

One of the nice things about living in the Northwest is that, despite living in the land of big, hoppy beers, breweries know that there is always a place for a more session version of the IPA – something that has lower alcohol but still has a significant hop profile to keep all of the hopheads happy without killing them with a 7+% ABV beer on a warm day. Stoup Brewing started producing one early in their life, giving drinkers a nice break from the big IPAs.

From the Stoup website:

Silver medal in the Session Ales category at the 2014 Washington Beer Awards ®

ABV: 5%, IBU: 45, Lovibond: 5

A vibrantly golden brew crafted with the Northwest beer drinker in mind. Hopped to satisfy, moderately dry in the finish, and restrained in alcohol content, our India Session Ale is ideal for a long Seattle afternoon of beer consumption with friends. Or alone. Who are we to judge?

The beer pours pale yellow in color with light floral notes on the nose and hints of hops and citrus in the background. the beer starts off on the palate with mild grain before coming in with very light citrus and a pleasant bitterness that keeps building into the finish before fading with more grain with just a hint of citrus peel. Big flavors and nice balance from a session with nice hop bite to keel the hophead in me happy without being palate blowing.

Stoup ISA jams in with a solid set of 3 session players out of 5.

Container Garden Mini Update — July 7, 2014

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here. July 7, 2013 update here. (The 2013 post is highlighted by the “zucchini breakage disaster”. And the fact that the post permalink says it’s the year “2103”. Oops. I started to make the same typo this time and caught myself.)

The zucchini have cleared the top of the trellis! I’m now trying to train them over the top and down the other side. We’ll see how that goes.

Continue reading “Container Garden Mini Update — July 7, 2014” →

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Expansion IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

One of the issues that Populuxe Brewing has is one of size. They make some excellent beers that don’t stick around too long on tap because they are being brewed in small batches on their 1.5 barrel system (which is about 50 gallons at a time). At some point, there is going to be a brewery expansion, but that is still a bit away. In the meantime, the brewers at Populuxe wandered off to Stoup Brewing to brew a beer on Stoup’s much larger system and the result was a 7%, hop-laden brew which has been dubbed Expansion IPA. It was just released this weekend and for the first time ever, I can say you don’t have to worry about running down to the brewery right away to try it – they have a pretty good supply on hand.

The beer pours slightly hazy orange in color with an off-white head. Strong notes of orange and grapefruit with light notes of orange peel and tangerine show on the nose with just the faintest hint of green hops. The beer starts off with a pleasant grain note on the palate before moving into a significant hop profile with strong orange and grapefruit flavors and a building citrus peel bitterness. The beer finishes long with a pleasant balance of slightly sweet citrus and a mild bitterness of citrus peel. Easy drinking without overly bitter, there is a nice, layered balance in this beer.

Populuxe Expansion IPA finds room to grow with a strong 4 annexes out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Naked City Mild Davis

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The resurgence of mild beers is nice – they are low alcohol, usually have a nice malty flavor profile and can be very refreshing if they are served on a warm day. They are usually my go to beer when I am looking for something that is lower in alcohol and has a deeper flavor on warmer days. It is even better when served either on nitro or cask, giving the traditional English feel to the beer. It also means that when I see a mild on tap somewhere, I am going to get it. This was the case at Naked City where they had their mild on nitro. It clocked in at just 3.8% ABV.

From the Naked City website:

Our Northwest interpretation of a classic English Style Mild Ale. Mild Davis is brewed with British Pale, Ashburne Mild Malt, Brown Malt, and Crystal. Lightly hopped with Willamette. Served on Nitrogen for an extremely smooth, silky mouthfeel.

The beer pours amber in color with a creamy white head. There is no dominating or defining note on the nose of this beer – mild notes of caramel, malt and toffee all appear but none is overly present. The beer starts off on the palate in a non-descript way with really mild hints of malt before moving into very light caramel and toffee and finishing light with those flavors and just a touch of malty sweetness and a creamy mouth feel. Light in flavor and easy to drink, it was fine but it lacked a bit of depth in character that I like in a mild.

Naked City Mild Davis announces its presence with 2 trumpets out of 5