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Kitchen Through the Lens: Chipotle Stout Beer Braised Tacos

May 29, 2013 by 1 Comment

I think this was the moment where I first felt truly like a success in the kitchen – this dish. This dish made me feel like, Whoa Sarah, you are not just a baker. YOU. CAN. COOK.

It’s silly actually because all I did was follow the directions, and the recipe wasn’t that complicated, but it tastes complicated – and impressive. I made these tacos for someone who is an amazing cook, and when he enjoyed them, I was so pleased with myself. Ridiculously pleased with myself.

Maybe a little bit too much so.

ingredients

When I was originally looking to make a list of things to cook, I got to item 40 or so on my list and got stumped. Joe from The Hungry Dudes suggested this recipe to me, the Chipotle Stout Beer Braised Beef Tacos. Immediately, I was intrigued.

And since Grand Rapids, Michigan is BEER CITY USA 2013, I surely had enough craft beers at my disposal to use for this recipe.

ingredients

Originally, I thought I’d use Founders Breakfast Stout.

Only… I waited too long and KBS was bye-bye.

CRAP.

The recipe had suggested a stout with coffee notes… and well, that would have been pretty darn perfect.

I’m fairly beer dumb. I don’t really know a stout from a porter from an IPA. So, I enlisted some of my favorite people – who happen to be VERY beer savvy to recommend a few options.

Ended up with The Poet Oatmeal Stout from New Holland Brewing Company.

ingredients

Have you cooked with chipotles in adobo sauce before? Yuuuum.

Granted, you only use TWO large peppers from this can, and so… I guess I better come up with other recipes to use ’em, rather than waste the leftovers.

ew, raw meat. tri tip.

Raw meat. That’s… not pretty.

This recipe calls for a tri tip roast — a cut of meat I have never seen in a grocery store. Now granted, I’ve only started looking in the past few months, but when I decided I was really serious about making this recipe and making it soon, I started researching where I could buy a roast in Grand Rapids. Lucked out and found a local store on the first try — while I was there I also picked up some flank steak which I used for The Princess’s birthday dinner yesterday and DANG – amazing. I can’t say I’ll buy ALL my meat there, but for those times it really counts, I surely will. It’s leaner and waaaaaay easier to cook (and eat. I get grossed out with fatty pieces of meat. YUCK).

braised beef

So, you’ve got all the ingredients and you sear that (expensive but lovely) tri tip and then you add beer and beef broth, like up there. While you’re doing that, you’ll want to chop up your onion. Your garlic (the recipe called for six cloves, so… I used nine).

chipotles in adobo

Cut those chipotles in adobo.

Yeah. Those look gross too.

meat is unattractive

Then? Basically, your work with these tacos is DONE. Simmer for about three hours, flipping your roast over each thirty minutes. After the first hour, my house smelled like I’d been cooking with red wine, though I had used stout.

A beery-er person than I could probably tell you why, but all I know is WOW. For the hours this simmered in the cast iron enamel pot on my stove, my house smelled heavenly.

pico de gallo

And then I threw together the pico. I was supposed to have red onion but I bought a white one by mistake. No matter. It was still good. Also? You can double this recipe. You should. Because you’ll probably wish you had more pico. It’s crazy easy. Except the chopping cilantro part. Chopping cilantro is a pain in the ass.

Yeah. I said it.

I need kitchen scissors, I think. Herb cutting scissors.

268 | 365

This was a total WIN all around.

I cannot think of anything I’d do differently (well, except have more flour tortillas on hand – even when I steam them, I can’t get corn tortillas to cooperate and not fall apart).

Well, scratch that. I’d have gotten it together enough to make margaritas or sangria with these tacos. NOTE: Most sangrias require overnight refrigeration. There will be no spontaneous making of sangria for you. Or anyone. Sheesh, sangria. Why so high maintenance?

Anyway – yeah, you’ll want a nice cold festive beverage to knock the edge off the heat of the tacos. Plan ahead for it. You won’t be sorry.

Make these. Make these. Make these.

(They were good, can’t you tell?)

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Kitchen Through the Lens: What it’s about

July 17, 2012 by 1 Comment

First of all: I hate naming projects. I hate naming projects because despite my marketing background and despite the fact that I’m totally hilarious and funny (it’s my blog, I can say what I want), I have a difficult time coming up with cool catchy names that make you want to pay attention.

You want to pay attention.

In scope of a lot of stuff going on in my world, I decided I needed a project. I needed a fun project, but something… productive. I needed to incorporate something I love, but I also needed to incorporate room for growth. I think this project does both.

I have picked (with some help!), 50 recipes. They’re not all main dishes – some are desserts, some are beverages, some are appetizers, some are sauces. I don’t love cooking (you know this, right?) but there’s no reason for that. I love baking, so, uh… why not cooking? Each week, I’ll prepare one of these new things (not necessarily in order of the list!), and – here’s the fun part – document the process with my camera. Food photography? It’s freakin’ hard, y’all BUT this gives me the opportunity and reason to work on those skills also.

(Win, win)

Without further adieu, here’s the list of 50. I don’t anticipate changing any of these items out – but it could happen. And if and when it does, you won’t roll your eyes at me too much, will you? You’ll be super understanding and supportive and say, “That’s okay, Sarah, you really didn’t want to make that other thing anyway.”

  1. salsa
  2. tortilla soup
  3. pesto
  4. tomato sauce/marinara
  5. caipirnha
  6. croissants
  7. sourdough bread
  8. patatas bravas
  9. potstickers
  10. roast chicken
  11. char siu bao
  12. vinaigrette
  13. strawberry shortcake
  14. fortune cookies
  15. tequila bars
  16. a savory biscotti
  17. cream puffs
  18. Emperor’s pancakes
  19. beer bread
  20. mashed potatoes
  21. homemade pasta
  22. chicken enchiladas
  23. salted caramel ice cream cake
  24. hamburgers
  25. margaritas
  26. prosciutto wrapped melon
  27. tamales
  28. infused vodka (okay, I’m not making the vodka part)
  29. caramel corn
  30. fruit smoothies
  31. Grandma’s molasses cookies
  32. spaghetti tacos (you have kids that watch iCarly, don’t you?)
  33. a homemade treat for the dog
  34. blueberry muffins
  35. fresh juice
  36. cinnamon bread
  37. lemon pasta
  38. Greek salad
  39. Hasselback potatoes
  40. chicken tacos
  41. hummus
  42. risotto
  43. feta stuffed gyro burgers
  44. chipotle stout braised beef tacos
  45. key lime cheesecake
  46. taco pasta shells
  47. empanadas
  48. Narsai mudslide cookies
  49. Wendell’s cookies
  50. Thanksgiving dinner (turkey & stuffing)

The last several are recipes given to me by others  – so pretty specific versus the mostly vague first half of the list. Wendell is my grandfather who died in the late 80s – the recipe I’ll be making, Wendell’s cookies – those were his favorite. I received the Narsai mudslide cookie recipe from my dad – who has brought them up in conversation several times. Joe from The Hungry Dudes gave me links to recipes for items 43 – 46 and when a foodie gives you recipes, you take note.

The kids wanted to make some kind of biscuit for the dog – granted, I won’t be taste testing that one, but… why not? Tequila bars are a Guy Fieri recipe (yeah, I know) that I pulled from a magazine because…tequila. I’m more inclined to pay attention to his recipes if I don’t have to listen to him. Or watch him. Or want to rip the sunglasses from the back of his head and want to beat him with them. Anyway, worth a shot right? I pull a LOT of recipes from magazines…and never make them. This project will help me face down some of that list – maybe discover some new favorites.

Alright. Are you with me? Here we go.

I’m starting tonight. Got my lemon zester ready for some lemon pasta. Let’s do this.

 

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Thursday Ten, Not a 9/11 Post Edition

September 11, 2008 by 1 Comment

1. First of all, I think I’ve written about 9/11 on the anniversary as long as I’ve been blogging (fact checkers, go take a nap, I am too lazy to look and I’m not gonna and you can’t make me. So there.), so today’s not about 9/11 – but it’s not to say I don’t recognize the significance of the day – just that there’s not much I can say that hasn’t been said better by hundreds of other people already today.

2. Guitar lesson… I learned two chords! E minor and G. I suck pretty equally at both. Actually E minor isn’t that difficult – G is a pain in the butt because my fingers aren’t used to moving that way yet.

3. Music of the week. Caught up and downloaded some stuff from the new Michael Franti & Spearhead album – including “All I Want is You”, “I Got Love For You” and “A Little Bit of Riddem”. All good.

4. My dad is now on a plane heading back towards California. It was a weird visit but with several good talks and that was a good thing. A lot of stuff that had been accumulating for a long time – good to somewhat clear the air and get that out of the way.

5. I went to the optometrist today for my yearly eye exam. First of all – I really hate getting my eyes dilated. Second of all, my eyesight is improving. Huh. Not that it’s all that horribly rotten, but, yeah. Getting better. With age. Just Like Me.

6. In college when I was trying to get out of the engineering program, UM put me in a holding pattern they call IOE – which really stands for Industrial Operations Engineering – but was more commonly known as In and Out of Engineering. My one IOE class had a lot to do with logisitics – planning deliveries and shipments for a trucking company. Today I proved why even IOE was too much for me – I suck at logistics sometimes. I have overscheduled the past two days to a hideous degree and while I’m vegging now, I still have to make dinner for our neighbors (they just had a baby a few weeks ago).

7. Last night’s Project Runway? How is it when Blayne gets auf’d, it’s the first time I can tolerate him? And Terri, eh. She made me glad for the double auf’ing. Buh bye. (I wonder if she’s really that bitchy. She was pretty bitchy).

8. Is it wrong that my neighbors are going to get chicken parmesan and pasta and garlic bread and all that, and I just want to order pizza for my family?

9. The Princess takes the bus to school. It’s consistently late on Tuesday and Thursdays. The days that I take Pumpkin to daycare and I have “off”. Only Tuesday and Thursdays. Conspiracy? Yeah. I’m thinking so.

10. I am still undecided what I think of the iTunes Genius playlist thus far. I only tried to make one, and I don’t entirely see the correlation between songs. My list was based on “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz… but included “Faith” by George Michael and “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band. Huuuuuuuh?

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Thursday Ten, Is Summer Over YET?

August 21, 2008 by Leave a Comment

1. I took my girls to story time at a nearby teacher’s house. Weekly, she has story time on her front porch which is this huge veranda-type deal. Today, Pumpkin took a book with her (“Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?”). The teacher let her come sit in the guest-reader chair and held the microphone so that Pumpkin could “read” to everyone. She got shy and only said some of the words but it was still so adorable. I took lots of pictures. If it was anyone else’s kid, though, it might not have been as adorable.

2. The Princess’s elementary school is undergoing construction and won’t be cleared for public inhabitance (?) until the 29th. They are having meet-the-teacher day on the 28th. Outside. I am more than a little annoyed that they couldn’t have postponed the teacher meet event until the afternoon of the 29th so that not only could the kids MEET their teacher, but find their classroom as well. The Princess will ultimately be fine, but she’s mentioned more than once that she’s a little nervous because she doesn’t know where her new room will be. These are kindergartners and first graders at this school – they really should have thought this one through a little bit more. My kid can’t be the only nervous one.

3. Since I’m on a school rant – we received her teacher assignment the yesterday. I requested this particular teacher at Hubby’s request as it was his teacher when he was in first grade. I’ve heard lovely things about her, and The Princess will rock no matter who teaches her — but, this would not have been my first teacher choice. The PLUS side is that her friends are in different classes – and it will be cool to see her branch out and make more friends.

4. But I really hope that none of her classmates are sons or daughters of any of my former high school boyfriends. It’s possible, and I dread that.

5. I’ve been a slacker on the music downloading front this week – I’ve got nothing new. (Recommendations, please?)

6. Last week, someone was telling me about the country group Sugarland. I rarely listen to country but when I checked them out on iTunes, I saw that they did a cover of Matt Nathanson’s “Come On Get Higher”. I prefer Matt’s version, but there’s is still good.

7. Project Runway last night… Glad to see Daniel go – but peeved Jerrell is still in. Once I saw the final two though, I chilled because I figured no matter how it went, it would be alright with me. On a fun note, I loved the Drag Queen challenge.

8. Starbucks cup wisdom: “The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will’. Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.” – David Copperfield

9. Since last night’s dinner sucked (according to the peanut gallery), tonight I am making honey chicken which is one of the girls’ favorites. You mix 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and about 1/3 cup of honey. Dunk boneless chicken breasts in it and then cover lightly with breadcrumbs. Bake until the salmonella is gone. I serve it with couscous and a vegetable – the couscous is the part the kids like best, but I refuse to just serve a plate of carbs.

10. The next few weeks are going to be interesting ones for me – lots of fun stuff on my plate, which is awesome. Supposed to go skating on Sunday (Hi M!), plans with another girlfriend on Wednesday, Counting Crows next Friday, and a trip to Ikea that Sunday – and then (it’s about freakin’ time) school starts on September 2. Whoooooo.

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