Reminder-Food Blogger Bake Sale for Share Our Strength.

Don't forget tomorrow is the Food Blogger Bake Sale for Share Our Strength!

Twin Cities food bloggers have been cooking all week so they can tempt you with treats this Saturday, May 14th at Midtown Global Market, 920 East Lake St. Mpls, MN 55407 from 11am to 4pm. I'll be baking up some of my All The Good Stuff Cookies and some homemade Fig Jam.

Don't live in the Twin Cities area? Visit Share Our Strength to find a bake sale near you.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Sam Adams Pairing Dinner

Last night Matt and I went to a Sam Adams Pairing dinner at The Local here in Minneapolis. I know some of you local, micro-brew purists are turning your noses up at Sam Adams. We have a lot of respect for them as brewery that build up from being super small to being the biggest craft brewer there is plus, they are the biggest domestic brewer since everyone else has been sold to a foreign company. We have also heard that they have mentored other small brewer just getting started and how great is that. To top it off we were served some really interesting beers last night. Let's go through the meals, shall we?
The first course was a Green Ox charcuterie platter served with the original Sam Adams. I didn't get a photo of this course but, if you've ever had Mike Phillips cured meat you know it was good and the beer stood up to it well.

The second course had us really intrigued, Shrimp Salami with Grilled Ramps. The shrimp salami was so interesting. It has such a light flavor and a soft texture. It took me two bites to decide that I liked the texture. The beer we were served with this was the Summer Ale. I didn't find it very different than the original Sam Adams & it was perhaps a little strong for the light food.

Course three was an arugula salad with mushrooms, blackberries and cheddar cheese. It was supposed to be morel mushrooms but Minnesota weather has not cooperated. To me this was the weakest course as I felt like something about the salad ingredients didn't blend well. Also it was served with the Cherry Wheat Beer which was the least favorite beer of the evening, the consensus seemed to be cough syrup.

But that is ok because course four was a huge winner, both the food and the beer. The dish was perfectly white halibut served over a fava bean pureé with micro-greens and a lemon reduction. Fantastic! The halibut was cooked perfectly but, the true star was that fava bean pureé especially with a little of the lemon. This course was served with the Imperial White Ale which might have been both Matt and my favorite of the evening. It had that slight sour flavor we so love in beer. As an imperial it packs quite a kick though. It really worked with the dish as well.

Yes, that is an empty spoon. We were given a little palate cleanser of a granita made from Rustic Saison. That little scoop was eaten before I could get my camera out. I'm not a fan of saisons and their slight grassy flavor but Matt enjoyed it.

Course five was another success, lamb chops wrapped in Green Ox coppa served with a celeriac mash and spring peas. That lamb wrapped with the salty coppa was so tasty (and oddly smelled of popcorn, not a bad thing). Matt is not a fan of lamb yet, he cleaned these to the bone. This dish was served with the Imperial Double Bock, yummy. It's a big dark beer with lots of coffee flavor and went well with the big flavors of the dish.

Then on to dessert, a dark chocolate cake (that I can't remember the exact name of) with a 2 Gingers Whiskey sauce. The boys at the table absolutely loved that whiskey sauce (I prefer that whiskey mixed with a little ginger ale over ice). This was served with the Imperial Stout, a wonderful strong cream stout that is almost dessert on its own.


Then came the real treat of the evening, we got to try some of the Infinium, a champagne style beer that you can't get anywhere in the states anymore (apparently it came out around Christmas and sold out right away). What a lovely beer again it had the slight sour taste we love. It's almost a tease to get to taste it and not be able to buy anymore!

This was the third event we've gone to at The Local and they really do a great job with it. Their chef always creates interesting meals and we appreciate his efforts to use more local and seasonal products (so unexpected for an Irish pub). Plus everyone there is always welcoming and works hard to make for a fun evening. To top it off you can't beat the price, I'll just say this dinner was a steal! I understand their Summer beer dinner is going to be something really special so keep an eye out for it!

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Reviewing the Recipes - Quick Salmon Tikka

We cook a lot of recipes from around the internet and various cookbooks that I don't write about because we don't change the recipe much or at all. I decided to start a series reviewing some of those recipes...

This Jamie Oliver recipe caught may attention when Jamie twittered that people were really liking it. As I'm always looking for new ways for us to eat fish this went on the weekly menu.

We were both a little skeptical but, it was absolutely fabulous! The recipe called for a particular brand of tandoori curry paste, we had some Fortnum & Mason korma sauce in the fridge so, that is what we used instead. Its flavor was perfect with the salmon (seriously, I'm going to want my salmon in korma sauce from now on). Other than that, the only change we made was to leave the fresh chili out of the yogurt sauce because I wanted the sauce to be cooling not spicy. It didn't look like a ton of yogurt sauce but the recipe ended up making twice what we needed.

I ended up calling this dish Indian Salmon Wraps because you eat the salmon, yogurt sauce and some cilantro wrapped up in naan. We found naan in the deli of our grocery store. It was quite good just heated for a few minutes in the oven. If you can't find naan another thick flat bread should do the trick, even something like Boboli. With the store-bought naan, quick yogurt sauce and small pieces of salmon that cooked up in no time this dish came together in less than half an hour, perfect for lunch or a fast dinner.

For a super easy side dish I made Cumin Roasted Cauliflower. The cauliflower is broken into florets then placed on a baking sheets where is it tossed with olive oil, kosher salt and dried cumin. Roast at 400 F until brown, about 15 - 20 minutes. I could eat cauliflower cooked this way for a snack instead of popcorn or potato chips.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Weekly Menu 5/9 - 5/14/11

Does anyone else feel like May is just a blur of activity? For us it starts with both our birthdays and this year it'll end with us leaving for Sweden. In between, the calendar just seems backed with dinners out, gardening, big home repairs (re-stuccoing the whole front of the house) baseball games, a garage sale and concert tickets. It seems like planning and experimenting with new dishes is falling a little to the wayside. "Hey honey, why don't we eat out," is heard a lot more around the house these days. We have been creative with some of those leftovers from eating out though. Here's what we did with the leftover steak from Matt's birthday dinner last Sunday.

First we made a warm lentil salad with the beef sliced thin and topped the whole thing with an egg. Inspired by the corn beef hash at Blackbird last week we added some pickled cauliflower to the salad, nice bite of brine there!

Then we had an easy beef and cheese sandwich for lunch. Just the beef sliced thin again with onion and cheddar cheese all on a take and bake bun. That was a treat for lunch. Not too shabby a use of that leftover steak if I do say so myself.

On to Menu Planning Monday...

Salmon Tikka - based on Jamie Oliver's. I meant to make this last week but it never happened.

Sam Adams Pairing Dinner at The Local

Sausage and Red Pepper Pizza

Moroccan Chicken

Dinner out after working at a garage sale all day.

Hamburgers

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Sausage and Olive Bites

Here's a perfect little snack to have with those Friday night cocktails...

Whenever we eat at Broder's Pasta Bar these days, we start our meal with an order of olive ripiene, olives stuffed with fennel sausage then breaded and deep fried. Oh, they are a crunchy, salty treat. I had some leftover Italian sausage in the fridge so, I thought I'd try to make my own version.

Instead of stuffing the olives with the sausage, I wrapped mine in it, almost like a Scotch egg with an olive in place of the egg. Then I rolled them in a little panko and baked them. The panko toasted up in the fat of the pork makes for a crisp little bite without the hassle of frying. The flavor of the fennel and pork sausage mixes with briny olive to create a bite goes so wonderfully with your favorite libation.

Sausage and Olive Bites

1 lb bulk Italian sausage
48 green olives with the pimento
1/2 c or so panko

Dry off the olives with a paper towel. Make a little patty with a small bit of the sausage, about 2 inches wide. Put an olive in the middle and wrap the sausage around it. Roll in your hands to make a meatball about 1 inch in size. Roll in panko. Continue until all the sausage and olives are used up. Chill for at least an hour. (My mom thinks you could freeze them & then pull them out when guests stop by though, I have not tested this.)

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Put the bites on a baking sheet with sides. Bake for 20 minutes until the panko is turning golden brown and the sausage is cooked through. Serve hot or warm.

I'm not exactly sure of the yield here. I had a little less than 1/4 pound of sausage and got 10 bites out of it so, I think a whole pound will get about 4 dozen.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski