Yeastie Boys: Golden Age of Bloodshed

This one is a golden ale, a "Beetrooted Belgian Strong Golden Ale", according to the blurb from the Boys themselves.  The beetroot adds perhaps a bit of sweetness, but not much, and aside from that, the main thing it does is produce an exceptional colour.  The beer is nice, smooth, and a proper Golden Belgian.

Daring Bakers, June 2013: Pie!

Rachael from pizzarossa was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens.  I went for the charmingly named 'Crack Pie', an oat-crust, gooey centred beast of a thing.

Ingredients

Crust
125g unsalted butter, room temperature, divided 85gm & 40gm
5 1/2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar, divided 4 & 1½ tbsp
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 tablespoon dry milk powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (115gm) unsalted butter, melted, cooled slightly
100ml cream
4 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar for dusting

For the crust: Preheat oven to 180c.

Combine larger portion of butter, larger part of the brown sugar, and the white sugar until well beaten. 

Add egg, beat that in until pale, fluffy.

Add oats, flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda. Stir to combine

Spread mixture on baking paper on tray.  Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.  Let cool completely on wire tray (about an hour)

Crumble the cookie into fine pieces.  Add remainder of butter, brown sugar, and combine

Spread into pie tray, pressing down, and building up an edge.

For the filling:  Preheat oven to 180c.

Whisk together sugars, salt and milk powder in a bowl.  Add melted butter, whisk to combine.

Add cream...

... Egg yolks and vanilla essence.  Whisk again to combine.

Pour into crust.  Bake at 180c for 30 minutes.  Drop temp to 160c, cook 20 minutes longer.

Take delicious looking pie out of oven. Let it cool

Cut slice of delicious looking pie.  Discover that it is also delicious tasting.

Daring Cooks June 2013 - Meatballs

Rather an open challenge this month...  Shelley from C Mom Cook and Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to try meatballs from around the world and to create our own meatball meal celebrating a culture or cuisine of our own choice.

I told M about the challenge and she got excited, thinking, it turns out, that I would be making Italian style meatballs.  But, I had hatched a plan to make chipotle/spring onion pork meatballs, with a blackened pineapple salsa.  Not exactly what she was expecting.  Oh well.  As it turned out, she liked these too, so it didn't go too wrong.

Chipotle Pork Meatballs with Pineapple salsa, rice and beans.

Take 600gm pork mince, 3 spring onions, 3-4 canned chipotles and a tablespoon of the adobo sauce from the chipotle can.  Combine together.  Add an egg and some wheatgerm (1-2 tbsp) to bind it together.  

Generously coat your hands with flour, and place more on a plate.  Roll meat mixture into balls.  Roll each in flour and line them up.

Drop the meatballs into a pan with a thin layer of oil (rice-bran) in the bottom.  You will cook them long and slow, for 25-30 minutes, shaking them so they don't stick, and turning to brown all sides.

In the meantime, grab some pineapple (I used a tin of pineapple chunks in unsweetened juice.  Drain some, and drop them into a hot hot pan to blacken quickly.  Won't take long at all.

Set the pineapple aside.  Look back at the meatballs, make sure they aren't sticking!

Cook rice.  (You know how to do that. I used brown rice). Warm your beans (1x can, red kidney), with a couple tomatillos (adds flavour to the beans/rice).  Stir rice into beans.

Maybe make some bbq sauce for the meatballs, if you want.

Salsa!  Dice an avocado.  De-seed a tomato, discard seeds, dice the remainder.  Tear up some mint and coriander leaves.  Toss it all together. Squeeze a lime over it.  Add salt (the black here is Falk black salt, it is delicious)

Voila!

Rogue - Double Dead Guy

Drink this!  Strong (9%) but good. Toffee-malt flavours, lots of sweet, decent hoppiness. Massively tasty.

Quinoa & Roast Cauliflower with Haloumi

Pretty good!