Ginger Cardamom Chicken Marinated with Pumpkin Ale

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This recipe was served alongside yesterday's curried squash as part of a beer paring assignment.  While the curry was stellar on its own, I rarely turn up the opportunity to actually COOK with the beer.  Upping the ante a bit for the homework, I incorporated the beer of choice directly into the recipe.

Brooklyn's Post Road Pumpkin Ale:

The beer has a wonderful spice aroma that I wanted to play up in the chicken.  As the poultry was paired with a curry for dinner, I opted to keep the spice palate fairly tight.  Instead of using  broader more complex flavor of the garam masala blend used in the curry, I choose to focus on the cardamom and ginger.  The beer does not contribute much flavor, but played a key role in tenderizing the meat.  In the end the flavor was fairly simple...only a subtle hint of spice with a warmth from the ginger...but it was by far one of the juiciest and most tender boneless, skinless chicken breast recipes I've tried to date.

I used whole cardamom pods in this recipe, but feel free to substitute the ground spice instead.  Start with 1 1/2 tsp and adjust to your liking.

the recipe is my own

serves 4-6

The Ingredients:
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 - inch knob of fresh ginger, minced
1 black cardamom pod
6-8 green cardamom pods
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp lemon juice
10 oz pumpkin ale

The Process
Dry roast the caradmom pods in a small skillet over high heat, until lightly toasted and very fragrant, about 2 minutes.  Set aside to cool.

Once cool, coasrely crush with the side of a knife or with a mortar and pestle.  Combine all of the marinade ingredients into a gallon-sized zip-top bag.  Add the chicken.  Refridgerate and allow to marinate for at least 1 hour (mine bathed in the beer for almost seven).

Preheat the broiler or grill.  Remove the chicken from the marinade, discard the marinade.  Grill the chicken for 10-15 minutes, or until no longer pink, turning once (internal temperature should read 170F).  Serve.

Sweet Potato Beer Biscuits

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I am on a beer cooking kick at the moment.  There are a few to blame for this.  First, the Better Beer Society for tasking us, the students, with pairing a harvest beer with a meal.  Second, the breweries for continuing to release such wonderful and inspiring harvest beers.  Third, our CSA for loading our last boxes to overflowing with sweet potatoes, squash and other amzaing fall bounty.  And fourth, the Beeroness, Jackie, for continually posting such mouth watering recipes.

A perfect storm...

adapted from Jackie at the Beeroness

yields approximately 10 biscuits

The Ingredients:
1 large sweet potato, cooked, peeled and mashed (about 3/4 cup)
2/3 cup ale (pumpkin, Oktoberfest or hefenweizen)
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp brown sugar
pinch of cinnamon
1/2 cup chilled butter (1 stick) cubed
additional butter, melted, for brushing

for the maple sage butter
3 Tbsp butter, softened
1-2 sage leaves, finely minced

1 tsp pure maple syrup.

The Process:
Preheat the oven to 425

In a medium bowl, mash the beer and sweet potato together until well combined.

In a second bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and cinnamon.  Using a pastry cutter or your fingers add the butter, mixing and cutting until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Add the sweet potato mixture to the flour and mix until just combined.  Using well floured hands, roll the dough into a ball and turn out onto a well floured work surface.  Flatten and shape the dough into a rectangle about 6x14-inches and  about  1 1/2 inch thick.  Using a floured knife, divide the dough into 10 equal rectangles.  Transfer the biscuits to a parchment lined baking sheet.  Brush generously with melted butter.

Bake for 15-18 minutes.

Meanwhile, mash remaining butter, sage and maple syrup together in a small bowl.  Form into a small pad and chill until ready to use.

Serve the biscuits warm with flavored butter.

"Pumpkin Beer" Pumpkin Bread

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Fall very, very quickly encroached upon this part of the world.  In a blink of an eye September...and soon now October... is over.  I'm well behind in posting here.  And for a brief while, we were also running behind on home brewing. But Life seems to have found a balance again...

Last year we brewed a pumpkin ale via an extract kit.  The recipe provided alternative directions for brewing the beer with added mashed pumpkin.  Still feeling like novices, Ross and I opted for the simpler route.

This year we upped the ante.  Two extract kits were purchased.  One we brewed as is.  The second batch had the additions of mashed pumpkin and 3 more pounds of grain (that's quite a bit to steep in our 5 gallon pot!)

So far both worts appear much the same.  The taste comparison in six weeks should be interesting.

After the wort was strained I was left with well over three cups of mashed pumpkin infused with barley notes from the boil.  Rather than see that all go to waste, I'm made quick work of it...turning the pulp into two loaves of pumpkin bread.

The title is perhaps a wee bit misleading, as no actual beer was used in the making of this recipe.  But, waste not, want not.  Perhaps the next batch of pumpkin bread will enjoy a little leavening from our very own pumpkin brew.

Any pumpkin puree would do in the recipe.

adapted from Elise's recipe at Simply Recipes

yields two loaves

The Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
1/2 cup water
4 eggs, slightly beaten
2 tsp baksing soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
2 cups pumpkin puree

The Process:
Preheat the oven to 350.  Throughly grease two 9x5x3 loaf pans and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients and whisk by hand until well incorporated.  (do not worry about over mixing if you are doing this by hand...it is a lot harder to do than you'd think!)

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in to the center of the loaf comes out clean.
Remove from oven and allow to cool at least thirty minutes before slicing.

Harvest Root Vegetable Stew

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Root vegetables are filler.  Peasant food.  Cheap.  Heavy.  Starchy. Sustaining.  Absolutely delicious.  And oh so plentiful this time of year.  We sadly received the last of our boxes from our CSA farm last week.  But boy, howdy was it heavy.  Three or four types of potatoes, parsnip, carrots, rutabaga, turnips, radishes, sweet potatoes,leeks, squash...

All that I love best about fall.

This recipe is sort of a garbage casserole.  Really.  Anything goes.  Particularly if it is starchy.  Throw it in.  The end result will probably be tastier than you expected.

the recipe is my own

serves 6-8

The Ingredients:
3 Tbsp butter
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 leeks, whites sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
1 cup apple cider (NOT hard cider)
1 1/2 cups beer
3-4 small russet potatoes,cubed or quartered
2-3 red potatoes, cubed or quartered
1 small sweet potato, cubed
2-3 small turnips, cubed or qaurter4ed 
2-3 carrots, cut into 1 inch coins
2-3 parsnips, cut into 1 inch coins
1-2 radishes, quartered
1 tsp fresh thyme, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

The Process:
In a large, heavy bottomed saucepan, melt the butter over medium high heat.  Add the garlic and leeks until the garlic is fragrant  the leeks are tender, 5-7 minutes.  Pour in the  cider and beer, deglazing the bottom of the pan.

Add the vegetables and seasonings.  Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover Simmer for 35-40 minutes or until the vegetables are tender and the liquid reduced by about  one third.

Serve hot with cheddar and ale biscuits.

Sweet Potato Blondies

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Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.  The smell of fall.  The perfume of the holidays.  These days it seems as though all one need to do to quantify any thing as a holiday treat is to add these spices in one combination or another.

You know what?  It works.

Something about that combination conjures up all the cozy, warm memories of autumns gone by.  The warmth of ginger and cinnamon certainly help me mentally prep for that first snow fall!  (We did see our first flakes already, as the East Coast braced for Sandy and Hawaii headed inland for the tsunami warning.  I'll glad take a little snow over those events any day.)

The earthy sweetness of pumpkins and sweet potatoes meld so well with these spices;  try as you might I doubt we'll ever pull away from the combination.

This bar recipe conjurse up memories of the sweet potatoes my family always made for the holidays.  I was well into college before I learned you could eat sweet potatoes other ways besides slathered in brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkled with marshmellows, pecons and the occasional raisins.  It was truly dessert parading as a vegetable.  But it was the holidays.  These bars make no attempt to be something they are not.  Sweet, cinnamon-y and chewy.  Here sweet potatoes are allowed to be the full fledged dessert they always dreamed of being.

adapted from Susan at OurTableEats

yeilds 18-20 bars

The Ingredients:
2 large sweet potatoes
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla

Maple drizzle:
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1/3 powdered sugar 

The Process:
Wrap the sweet potatoes in foil and bake in a 350 oven for 60-75 minutes or until soft.  Or, pierce the potatoes all over and microwave on high at 3 minute intervals until soft.  Set aside until cool enough to handle.

Preheat the oven to 350.  Oil one 9x13 baking dish for thicker bars, or two 9x9 pans for thinner bars.

In a large bowl combine the flour, baking powder, bkaing soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.  Mix unitl combined.

In a second bowl, whisk together butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla.  Remove about 2 cups of flesh from the cooked sweet potatoes and add to the egg mixture.  Whisk until smooth.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring until just incorporated.  

 Spread the batter evenly into the prepared baking pans.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edged are lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  ALoow to cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes.  Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile prepare the glaze by adding the syrup and powdered sugar to a zip top bag and massaging until well combined.  Once the blondies are cool, cut into bars.  Snip the corner off of the glaze bag and drizzle the glaze over the tops of the bars.

Best-Ever Buttermilk Biscuits (Tips & Tricks Too) from Noble Pig

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To make amazing buttermilk biscuits, you don't have to make them by hand. Using a stand mixer is the way to go when changing up a few ingredients that yield tender, flaky biscuits everytime.This recipe also calls for cake flour which is not the norm for biscuits. However, cake flour has a lower protein content, allowingthe doughto withstand more mixing without overworking it and developing gluten, which will ultimately toughen the biscuits.By pulsing (quickly turning on and off)the shortening and butter into the cake flour with the stand mixer, you prevent the heat from your hands from melting the fats during the typical "cutting in" stage. This also helps keep the flakes large for flakier biscuits.To read more and view this tasty recipe visit Noble Pig by clicking on link: www.noblepig.com

Corn and Potato Chowder for the Crock Pot Slow Cooker from Mama Loves to Cook!

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I just couldn't resist sharing, yet another, fabulous creamy soup recipe from Mama Loves to Cook! Corn and potato chowder is perhaps one of  favorite soups next to cream of potato and clam chowder.  There is just something about a thick and creamy soup when it is cold outside that I cannot resist. Pair this with some fresh bread and you have the perfect meal for anytime.  To view this and other tasty recipes visit their page by clicking on link: www.mamalovesfood.com