No-Fuss Roasted Potatoes

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Potatoes are not one of my favorite things to cook or eat since they act as more of a flavor vehicle for what they are cooked in rather than having a great deal of inherent flavor on their own. Mrs. Iron Chef however loves them so I do occasionally make them, but I am constantly looking for new ways to cook them. I came across an easy, no-fuss, one pot recipe on America’s Test Kitchen that I figured was worth a shot. Basically it calls for braising the potatoes first and then searing them, but it didn’t involve even taking them out of the pot, and only a couple of ingredients, so it really doesn’t get too much easier than this.

The Software

1 lb. Red Potatoes, roughly 1 to 1 ½ inches in diameter, washed and halved

1 cup water

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 teaspoons of salt

3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, in 6 pieces

1 tablespoon, fresh squeezed lemon juice

The Recipe

Arrange the potatoes in the bottom of a skillet (don’t worry about over-crowding, it won’t matter, I used a 10 inch, straight sided skillet) so that all of the cut surfaces are in contact with the surface of the pan. Add the water (it should come up about half way on the potatoes, add more water if necessary), butter, salt and garlic to the pan. Turn burner on high and heat the skillet until the water comes to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cover for about 15 minutes. Check if the potatoes are cooked after 15 minutes (a knife inserted should pull out easily), if they are not, cover until they are. Once the potatoes are done, remove the lid and remove the garlic to a bowl. Increase heat to medium high and continue cooking until the bottoms of the potatoes are golden brown – all of the water will evaporate leaving just the butter (this should take 10-15 minutes depending on your stove). While this is happening, mince the garlic and combine with lemon juice. Once the potatoes are done, remove from heat and toss in garlic and lemon. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Notes

I would recommend using a non-stick skillet for this process to keep the potatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan. The recipe scales easily, just put enough potatoes to fit in the pan and add enough water to come up half way on the potatoes. You probably won’t need to add more butter unless you use something larger than a 12 inch skillet. Fresh rosemary, sage, thyme or oregano would work well with this recipe. Just mince them and add them at the end with the garlic.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Burke-Gillman Smoked Tea Bitter Cask

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Yes, I figured that since I posted the Sorachi Ace Bitter, it was time to post the Smoked Tea Bitter review. This cask version used a scant one ounce of Chinese smoked black tea in the cask, something that is probably not a traditional cask ingredient, but definitely something that piqued my interest.

The beer pours the color of iced tea with significant notes of smoke on the nose with backing notes of dried fruit and malt. The beer starts out lightly tannic with hints of malt and hops before crossing into deeper tea notes before the smoke component shows up. The smoke starts strong with forest fire qualities (in a good way) before mellowing out into a pleasant campfire background without ever really disappearing. The beer finishes with a distinct black tea character showing light tannins and mild notes of dried fruit with notes of smoke and hints of caramel. The beer drinks like a light rauch beer without the heavy malt and smoke qualities, making it easier to drink. It is surprisingly balanced and deep without being ashtray like or losing the qualities of the beer in the process, and I found myself wanting to go back for another pint. It is definitely not a beer that you would enjoy if you don’t like smoked beers, but if you are looking for something very different, this would beer to try.

Populuxe Burke-Gillman Smoked Tea Bitter Cask races in with 4 mountain bikes out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Burke-Gillman Bitter with Sorachi Ace Cask

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I have had some great cask beers, some good cask beers and some mediocre cask beers. The style of the beer almost doesn’t matter, some of the best casks I have had over the last couple of years have been non-traditional cask styles or casks with really non-traditional ingredients. Populuxe has been on a roll with putting out their Burke-Gillman Bitter in cask form – a traditional beer done in a few non-traditional ways. (I have to get around to posting the Smoked Tea Bitter review). I usually try to post my reviews in chronological order, especially for one-off beers since there is no hurry to go out and drink them. This is an exception – the latest version of the Burke-Gillman Bitter, dry hopped with Sorachi Ace and Horizon hops will be available at the Cask Festival on Saturday, March 22^nd and this is one that is worth seeking out there.

The beer pours cloudy brown in color with nice notes of caramel and orange with just a hint of grassy note and very light roasted notes. For a cask beer, this one has big, complex flavors. The beer starts out with a medium caramel profile with hints of roast before the hops start to kick in. The Sorachi brings a very light herbaciousness to the party and the Horizon brings a nice orange kick and just a touch of bitterness. These notes intertwine with the caramel and remain throughout the beer all the way to the finish making for an almost hard candy like profile as they are joined with just a touch of sweetness from the malt. The finish is very long for a cask beer and is incredibly pleasant and smooth. The beer drinks extremely easily and at less than 5% ABV, it goes down way too easily, leading you to want pint after pint.

Populuxe usually does a great job with their casks, but this one may be the best one they have ever done.

Populuxe Burke-Gillman Bitter with Sorachi Ace Cask lays down its cards with a perfect 5 Royal Flushes out of 5.

Get this beer early at the Cask Festival – it is worth the experience.

Beer of the Week: Elliot Bay Brewing Paint It Black Lager

By Iron Chef Leftovers

In looking through my beer notes, I realized that I had quite a run of dark beers in December. I guess I was either just drinking to the season or drinking what was new and interesting. Either way, a December trip to Elliot Bay Brewing yielded a beer which I had not seen before – the Paint It Black Lager. Black Lagers are a beer style that you don’t see too much these days so that appealed to me and it figured that I had to give a shot to a beer that was named after my favorite Rolling Stones song. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any details about the beer on the interwebs.

The beer pours jet black with a creamy brown head. Roasted malt dominates the beer with hints of grain and mild hops supporting on the nose. The beer starts out on the palate strong with a slightly boozy vanilla, followed quickly by a pleasant milk chocolate and grain component, before moving into light coffee and sweet roasted malt. The finish is long and pleasant with lingering notes of coffee and chocolate supported by sweet malt and just the faintest hint of hops. The beer is deep and layered, and a nice change of pace if you are looking for something dark without venturing into the world of stouts or porters.

Elliot Bay Brewing’s Paint It Black Lager strums in with 4 Red Doors out of 5.

The Mariners and Spending Money

By Blaidd Drwg

Reason #124342423 that Jack Zdurencik will be fired this season and the Mariners will continue hopelessly spinning their wheels. This is from a Jim Bowden article on ESPN.com:

Several general managers told me they don’t understand how the Seattle Mariners could give Robinson Cano almost a quarter-billion dollars and then claim not to have the money to bring back Kendrys Morales or make a run at Ervin Santana.

Seattle is emboldened by its lucrative local television deal, but many general managers are wondering what the Mariners’ plan is. How does a team spend that much money and go from fourth-best in the division to … fourth-best in the division. The Mariners haven’t really improved at all, and with so many needs they would have been better off spreading the money around.

Cano complained a few weeks back about the team not spending any money. I don’t think that he was wrong, and it appears that other MLB GM’s feel the same way. I am starting to think that the Cano signing was just to try to keep season ticket holders from defecting (I am still glad that I did not renew my tickets) and not about trying to make the team better. Unless they catch lightning in a bottle from about 5 of the guys in their lineup, this is basically a .500 team.

And for my next prediction – the Taijuan Walker shoulder tightness will end up being more serious than expected and he will need major surgery at some point before the end of the season and be out for all of 2015.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Brews Blimey That’s Bitter Cask

By Iron Chef Leftovers

It takes some guts to do an imperial IPA as a cask, not only because these beers are a monster to brew, but you run the risk of having something that is borderline undrinkable with all of the alcohol and hops involved. Reuben’s took a chance by putting Blimey on cask, of course adding more hops to the cask, because, you know, it wasn’t hoppy enough.

The beer pours hazy orange in color with a mind numbing amount of citrus and citrus peel – it smells like fresh orange rind with bare notes of orange blossom and grain. The beer starts out lighter than its carbonated cousin with a slightly sweet/floral component before moving into juice oranges, orange peel and orange blossom. The finish is incredibly smooth with significant hop bitterness with plays well with the citrus and a touch of resin at the very end. The alcohol isn’t perceptible in the cask version of the beer, but the resin is, giving the beer a touch of burn at the back of the throat at the very end. The fruit is definitely more pronounced in the cask version, so if you like citrus dominant IPA’s, this is the one for you.

Was the cask version better than the regular? That is a tough call since they drank like 2 very different beers. Either way they were both fantastic and worthy of the 5 hop cones out of 5 that the cask version receives.

The 2014 Cheap Seat Eats Bracket Of Peril!

by A.J. Coltrane

It’s the 2014 Cheap Seat Eats (hosted by ESPN) tournament bracket! Match wits with the CSE writers! It’s free!

Same as last year:

Up to three brackets per entry.

Bracket Name: Cheap Seat Eats

Password: TakeMeOut (As in, take me out to the ballgame, note that it’s case-sensitive, and there are no spaces.)

Link to the challenge!

The prize is absolutely nothing, which is what Sir Galahad gets in this scene from The Holy Grail:

Congratulations to last years’ winner, Annie S.!

Beer of the Week: Salish Sea Brewing Brown Porter

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I will give new breweries a shot, just because you never know what gems you might uncover. I recently had the opportunity to try the Porter from the newish Salish Sea Brewing out of Edmonds when they were on as a guest tap at Stoup Brewing. It was a cool December day and the porter seemed to be just what the doctor ordered.

From the Salish Sea website:

Not your typical porter… Our house porter is light, crisp and clean. Featuring Simcoe Hops and a clean finish. Full with flavor, light in body, with a great light coffee finish. 5.5% ABV 35 IBU

The beer pours dark brown, almost black in color with mild notes of roasted malt and hints of grain and sugar on the nose. The beer starts out dry on the palate with very little grain and malt and just hints of roasted flavors. The beer then moves on to a fairly long sweet streak before finishing faintly malty with a slight astringent burn at the very end of the palate at the back of the throat with minor hints of roasted grains making an appearance. I kept hoping for the flavors to wake up the further into the beer I got, but it never happened – if anything, the beer got sweeter as I went on. I felt like this beer would have been better served by being called a brown rather than a porter.

Salish Sea Brown Porter limps into port and offloads with just 2 cargo crates out of 5.

Overwintered

by A.J. Coltrane

I had tried planting some winter-hardy vegetables in late November as an experiment. Here’s a pic from right before Christmas:

New growth in December. [L-R - Pac Choi, Parsley, Cilantro, Spinanch]. The new leaves look happier than the leaves that were on the plants at the time of transplanting. — New growth in December. [L-R – Pac Choi, Parsley, Cilantro, Spinanch]. The new leaves look happier than the leaves that were on the plants at the time of transplanting.

And March 17:

(L-R) Spinach, Parsley, Cilantro, Pak Choi

I think to some degree the Pak Choi smothered the Parsley in the crowded confines of the mini green house. (The three mostly empty cells.) Also, Thanksgiving was too late to start — September would have been better. Next year we’ll probably try hoop houses and cold frames for plant protection — the mini green house worked just “ok”. Overall it was too cramped and too wet inside. The Pak Choi was attacked by slugs all winter. The Spinach received some slug abuse too, though to a much lesser degree. Still, the overwintered veg are *way* ahead of the Mache and Radishes in the front yard:

On the far left is Mache, planted January 5. On the right are Cherry Belle Radishes, planted February 10. The tiny plants in the middle are French Breakfast Radishes (March 7.)

Next winter we’ll try to focus on stuff that the slugs don’t love to eat.

Wine Reviews On CSE

By Iron Chef Leftovers

After much negative feedback and just a general lack of qualities in the reviews, we have decided to fire Larry LeCroc and have taken appropriate action to sack the parties responsible for hiring him in the first place.

They haav bean replaced weeth a noo stav to doo win revoos.

The staff responsible for sacking the wine reviews have been sacked. As it turns out, they were the same people responsible for the great credit fiasco a number of years ago. I need to do a better job of vetting our employees and I can assure you that this should never happen again.

Yes – I went a long way for this joke.