Mozzarella Arugala Fritatta on toast topped by baby artichokes braised in white wine tomato sauce with lamb sausage

I have a bunch of baby artichokes so I made a pasta sauce with them. I quartered and cleaned them, sauted in oil with drippings from lamb sausage. After browned all over I added garlic, sliced sausage, and white wine and cooked until artis tender. I then added a jar of tomatos, some oregano and reduced. I cooked up an arugala frittata with melted homemade mozzarella which i placed on toast and topped with just the artis from the sauce. I will use the rest of the sauce on pasta later tonight probably. Very tasty, artis braised in wine with lamby oils is an awesome rich combo. The Arugala offered a sharp bitter contrast this.

Chantrelles and kale with brown rice pilaf amd winter ale

So yesterday I got my hands on a half pound of chantrelles which I took home and cooked for dinner in olive oil and seasoned with tarragon and marjoram. I served them on a brown rice pilaf with almonds and organic Dino kale with a little goat cheese. With a piece of Macrina potato bread on the side and matched with a winter solstice ale from anderson valley it was a splendid healthy meal. The malt beer matched the earthy mushrooms and the hops could be discenred above the anisey tarragon.

Homemade pasta with cantaloupe-pancetta sauce with Sauvignon blanc

Got this recipe from Emeril Lagasse's book Farm to Fork. This sauce sounded crazy but then I remembered melon balls wrapped in Prosciutto and was like "bam, its on like donkey kong!"

Cooked pancetta then added shallots before putting a whole cantelope in and letting it cook until broken down. Cream and diced Marjoram were put in and the cooked homemade pasta. This was plated and topped with parm reggie and cracked black. With a mildly dry Savignon blanc from the columbia river this dish was amazing, the fresh marjoram was an excellent touch that brought it all together. Imported Italian pancetta was proper.

It could have gone with a pyramid apricot ale well or Mac and Jacks, something fruity. Serve with a simple green salad with vinegrette or some sort of acidic side dish and this is a great unique meal.

fall green salad with honeycrisps, blue cheese and tarragon with Lagunitas IPA

So this exquisite salad I found in a book called Mixt that had various fancy pants salads split into seasons. This fall salad had butter lettuce topped with thin sliced fennel bulb, sweet honeycrisp apples, Asian pear, blue cheese (Oregonzola), seasoned Hazelnuts (cayenne, coriander, cumin), pom seeds, and fresh tarragon. It was dressed with simple shallot vinegarette.

I got all the ingredients sans the dressing from the Pike Place Market, where I work and shop. I love this place, there are many great vendors, some coming in from local farms and cooperatives to sell incredibly fresh local, sometimes organic produce. It is really easy to keep a grasp on seasonality by walking the market and see what is in new, what is going down in price, what is on its way out. Great to meet producers and they hook you up once they know you.

This salad was served with a Lagunitas IPA which is a solid brew of this saturated and played out style. IPA were my favorite not to long ago but my taste has evolved and now I prefer the balance of a pale ale or a brown/red with there candy sweetness. Sometimes i still crave intense hops and go for an IPA and I still feel any strong blue cheese demands it, or a barleywine/belgian strong ale.

The anise character coming from the fennel and tarragon went alongside the bitter floral hops in a pleasing way, so did the sour character of the Pom seeds. I thought the Hazelnuts where maybe a little to spicy and could have been taken out altogether because you alredy got crunchy apple and salty cheese.

This is an amazing salad, but would have been better paired with a belgian. could you make a vinegerette out of beer? I love when you can make different little combos out of a meal, not just everything together in a homogenous goo. A piece of asian pear with blue cheese, tarragon and pom seeds is amazing.

potato sage Gnocchi with pumpkin, hazelnuts, bacon, and brown butter

After eleven months to the day, Im back up in Herr with some bomb vittles. I've had some great food to eat since I last wrote, moved to Colorado and am now back in Seattle, working at Beechers Cheese. I lost interest in beer and cheese for awhile there, but I'm finding my palate is getting excited by it again. I have the chance to sample many good cheeses and have alredy found some decent pairings which I will formalize on the blog soon.

So I served this amazing dish with a Dog Fish Head Punkin Ale, which is the best pumpkin beer I've had, its a brown flavored with cinnamin, allspice, nutmeg, and brown sugar. It is mildly hopped, and has a true pumkin flavor with restrained spices and some malt notes showing through. I also had it with pumkin bread and this was amazing. I wana do pumpkin cookies with blank slate or marscapone flavored with rum and pumpkin spices.

So the dish was the first I made out of the Wildwood cookbook which is an excellent Pacific Northwest cookbook split into regions and types of foods (wilammete spring veggies, Yaquina bay seafood) Some of it is a little out of reach for me, but sounds amazing (Red wine braised duck legs with cherries, parsnip puree and balsalmic roasted pears.

I made the Gnocchi the day before, grating organic Yukon golds into semolina and seasoning with fresh sage, cayenne, allspice, nutmeg.

I prepared some brown butter, one of my favorite ingredients, and added cooked bacon, lemon juice, hazelnuts, parsley and a roasted and course cut sugar pumkin. This went on top of the Gnocchi with some Parm Reggie. The flavors blended perfectly, it tastes like Fall. the crunchy roasted hazels contrasted the soft sweet pumkins held together by carmelly brown butter with bacon. I feel the sage should have been cooked into the brown butter to bring out a stronger flavor and the bacon should be replace by Pancetta. The Gnocchi were amazing and the beer went along nicely, even though it couldn't real match the intensity richness of the dish.

Chimay Blue with Teleme

So the Teleme has been in the fridge for eleven day and its starting to ripen and smells delicious. Like the dankest yogurt ever! Chimay is a near perfect Belgian strong ale and the cheese was described in the previous entry.

Chimay Blue
Aromas of spice (nutmeg, clove, anise) carmelized brown sugar fruits (raisin, orange, plum, banana) and a blue cheese like yeastyness. The nose is deep and alluring, strong and inviting. Some carmelly malt is present as well, but the floral spicy yeast dominates. Flavor is like the best apple cider you ever had. A woody malt start flows slowly into a rich fruity mid with carmelly finish. A delicate and incredilbe transition of flavors, like really good scotch. The spices noted in the nose intermingle with rich dark fruit malts and elegant belgian yeast in a most pleasant balancing act. You taste alchohol but its only one character in a complex mingle. Palate is equally complex and marked by smooth and definite transitions. Mild tang and tingle build to sour character while the mouth becomes increasingly silkly. After goin thro a dry phase there is a sweet whisper of a finish, slightly sticky mouth, like you just ate a nectarine.

A bite of Teleme is washed away with a swig of Chimay and pure bliss washes the body. Sour cheese matches perfectly the sour character and mouthwatering palate of chimay blue. The Spice come through momentarily but the cheese returns. Both the cheese and the beer display a delicate evolution of flavor and palate effects, and they get along real well together. The pungent potency of Chimay is smoothed out by this high fat, creamy cheese. The beer clears the palate asking for more cheese, which melts in the mouth.

Beer chased by cheese accentuates sour cream/yogurt charcter of cheese. It can't tell you enough how well this complimentary matching is working for me, its zesty yeasty beer and sour tangy cheese.