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Hello November! With the tricks and treats of October now behind us and the shorter days brought on by daylight savings upon us, the holiday season before us can be feel a bit daunting. But I say, bring it on!
While not overly excited about sunset before 5 p.m., the evening fires and warm kitchen are so pleasant when the elevate the gloom of darkened skies coupled with cooling temperatures. But enough of the pleasantries about the ambiance of the crackling fires, 
bottles of wine and aromatic scents from the oven filling the house.; it is time to get to work! It is time to start to planning for the holidays….it is the most wonderful time of year!
If you are baking pies for the Thanksgiving holidays, it is a good time to get a jump on making pie crusts. And while I will labor through attempting to replicate my mom’s recipe, it somehow never turns out the same…but I will continue to try and am pretty confident that the pie will be enjoyed just the same.
And, as a matter of course, it is a good time to start any and all dough that may be needed for the holidays. Having the dough ready to go when you are will help ease the hurriedness that comes with the season. This will help what you plan to do turn into what you actually do; imagine that. And really, if already hearing Christmas music or seeing Black Friday ads haven’t made you start feeling the magic, get the mixer going and fire up the oven and get ready…it’s game time!
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day and surviving Mother Nature’s wicked sense of humor, dumping a blizzard on us this week; cooking with Guinness is in order. Aside from the rich earthy flavor, the stout can add depth and richness to a slew of recipes; it is also the added comfort of eating your beer!
A little Guinness goes a long way…both in cooking and baking. The more the stout is reduced, the stronger, more intense the flavor will be. In fact, as I was skimming through recipes years ago and saw Guinness as the key ingredient in one, I had to try it. The recipe was for ribs and they were a hit. Yes, I am sure the seasoning I coated the ribs in and the sauce they were later smothered in
attributed to the recipe’s success. The fact that the ribs boiled in a pot of Guinness for hours added both flavor and tenderness to the meat. As a result, it became obvious how the stout and other beers can boost recipes and have cooked and baked with it ever since. And while there is such a depth to stout, more and more brews are being created all around us to expand our palette and thus expanding the vast amount of flavors to create new recipes or enhance old ones. And while I do not stray too far from Guinness for ribs, I have substituted on occasion with a brown ale or porter. Even if these darker, heavier drafts are not typically drafts that appeal to you to drink (why I don’t know), try not to be discouraged to try them in food.
A safe test for any beer recipe is beer bread. This is a recipe that you can try time and time again with a variety of beers and each time you will gain a new flavor. While I love brown ales I may defer to an IPA or Gose in a beer bread to change things up. And if you like (or love in my case) steamers, try steaming them with beer; trust me, you’ll never go back. Finally, let’s not forget beer can chicken. Good news is that there are great micro-brews that come in cans now, so don’t sell the chicken short by using Bud. Embrace the bounty of brews that we have available and get that flavor into your cooking and baking.
Cheers to beer…it makes good food!
