Category: Food

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Zwickelbier

By Iron Chef Leftovers

untitled2It has been a rough stretch of hot weather for Seattle, considering that most places don’t have air conditioning. That means a shift in my beer drinking habits – what is usually orders of IPA have lately been pints of lighter beers with a milder flavor profile and low hops as I am looking for something more refreshing. Reuben’s put on their Zwickelbier, which is an unfiltered lager and a style you don’t see really in the US. The beer clocked in at just 5.0% ABV and 24 IBU making it perfect on an 80 degree day.

The beer pours cloudy yellow in color with a white head. Notes of grain, pear and grapes show on the nose with hints of fresh cut grass and lemon hide in the background. The beer starts off with a nice grain not before bringing fruit to the party – green grape and pear give way to light apple and lemon with just a hint of bitter lemon peel. The finish is smooth with all of the flavors melding together in a crisp and slightly dry lager finish. Clean and refreshing, this is definitely a beer you want to be ordering on a hot day.

Reuben’s Zwickelbier keeps its true identity cloaked with 4 disguises out of 5. (There is an inside joke there, maybe some day I will tell it)

Beer of the Week: Cigar City Homefront IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

homefront-ipa-websiteWay back in 2011, Fremont Brewing, along with a brewery in NC called, ironically, Center of the Universe Brewing started making Homefront IPA as a fundraiser for a group that helps veterans returning home from war. The hook of this beer was that it is an IPA aged over Louisville Slugger baseball bats. The program has expanded and now includes 11 breweries. I was lucky enough to snag a bottle of the Cigar City version in a beer swap (wish I had the Fremont version to compare it to) and it came in a 22 oz bottle clocking in a 6% ABV.

The beer pours golden orange in color with a creamy white head. Strong notes of citrus and pine with supporting notes of resin and grain permeate the nose. The beer starts off on the palate with notes of grain and hints of floral hops before building in with an increasing bitterness with light notes of citrus peel and resin with touches opt pine needles. The finish is not a big one – a pleasant fade of bitterness with very light notes of maple syrup and a touch of sweetness with a nice lingering citrus peel note at the end. As the beer warms the citrus notes are replaced by a dry woodiness that is fine but unspectacular.

Cigar City Homefront IPA does its duty with honor, bringing in 3 star generals out of 5.

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.)

140607 pizza

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

140607 pizza slices

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.

Rosemary Focaccia

by A.J. Coltrane

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

140628 rosemary focaccia

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).

untitle8dThe 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

maritime_logoThe 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?

untitlasedThe 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.

140607 trellis and ladder

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.