It's Gold in my Family

There's an exciting blog event going on co-hosted by Pixie over at You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato and Rosie at Rosie Bakes a Peace of Cake. It's called "Putting Up" and it's about preserving foods, canning, also known as "putting up".

I may be a fairly large dork because my mom and my grandmas all canned and I just followed in their footsteps. Next thing you know I'll be doing things like quilting and making soap from bacon grease. I doubt it, but if I wanted to to really go back to my roots, I guess I could. So even when I was living in apartments in Kansas City and Ann Arbor I happily made preserves and pickles and chili sauce and what my sister calls "crack beans" (they're that good).

And last year I finally moved into a house and I had a garden and I went completely bezerk at "harvest time". So which recipe should I blog about for this putting up event? My chunk pickles are really good, but I'm planning on entering them for the county fair (I'm a HUGE dork) and it's a secret recipe that my mom won third prize at the Michigan State Fair many many years ago. Honest. I'm not lying on that one. I do love my canned tomatoes and there's tons of uses for them, but really they're super simple and nothing more than canned peeled tomatoes with salt. I can't reach the recipe book that has the "crack beans" recipe or the salsa recipe in them. It's in the bookshelf on the side of the pantry and although I'm now down to one crutch around the house (Hooray!) I'm still forbidden from attempting the pantry.

So that leaves us with the very old and very delicious Chili Sauce recipe. Chili Sauce is a tomato preserve that sort of resembles a homemade chunky ketchup. It's sort of like a tomato relish I guess. It's also treated like gold in my family. For Christmas one year my mother gave us kids all a jar of Chili Sauce and the family's secret fruitcake recipe and we were a bunch of happy clams. Yeah anyone who says they hate fruitcake has never had my mom's fruitcake. Unfortunately, the recipe makes far more than my little family of the Brain and I could possibly eat in a year and it's a lot of work, so I'm mostly reduced to begging my mom to make some every year. Oooops sorry, got off track there.

So Chili Sauce (and the secret family fruitcake recipe) is guarded in my family. It's saved and stored until the perfect moment for using. Well unless you make it yourself like I do and then you can lavish it on top of hamburgers or mix it with Miracle Whip for some very tasty salad dressing. My sister Super G makes short ribs with it. My vegetarian brother once said it's tasty on a bean loaf. It's fabulous in Beef Brisket with Beer, which I'm giving you the recipe for, but no pictures because I can't go down those scary basement stairs. And I really really like it when making Sloppy Joes. See I never grew up with Manwich because there was always Chili Sauce in the house. And frankly, now I think Manwich is icky. But I have it in my pantry because I am a good wife. But if you want a sloppy joe, go with the chili sauce.

Chili Sauce

Family recipe courtesy of Caroline Fritz my great grandmother

2 red and 2 green bell peppers

1 cup celery

1 cup onions

1 peck tomatoes, peeled

pickling spice bag

1 pint vinegar

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup salt

pepper

1 Tbsp dry mustard

Grind vegetables and put all ingredients in large pot. Boil. Stir often as it scorches easily (and once it scorches the little black floaty bits are hard to get rid of.) When the chili sauce is thick (probably 3+ hours later) seal in jars and process 5 minutes in boiling water.

Pickling Spice Bag:

1 stick cinnamon

1 Tbsp celery seed

3 Tbsp pickling spice

Tie all the ingredients together in cheesecloth (or in the cut off toe end of a new and very clean pair of panty hose).

Beef Brisket in Beer

Family recipe courtesy of Dorothy Hunter my grandmother

3-4 lb brisket

1 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup chili sauce

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 12 oz can beer

garlic salt

Trim excess fat from meat. Season with salt, pepper and garlic salt. Put in roaster. Mix onion, chili sauce, and brown sugar with some beer and pour over meat with remaining beer. This cooks down to almost nothing. Cover and bake at 350° for 3 -3 1/2 hours. If not brown, bake uncovered for 10 minutes. Let stand a few minutes before carving. Add water and 2 Tbsp flour for thick gravy.

Beet and Beer Salad

So, in case you haven't noticed (like the Brain) that I've been on a teensy bit of a bender this week. This week has been all about beer. But why? Why not really. Well actually there are a couple reasons.

First, it's the week leading up to St. Patrick's Day, and while that may seem like a good enough reason, Emeline over at Sugar Plum is hosting a fabulous Pub Crawl blog event.

Second, I'm Catholic so drinking is definitely not forbidden. It's what we do. Heck it's almost encouraged. Come to Church and have some wine with us. (As a side note, this is not technically the case, Catholic doctrine says that the wine through a miracle becomes the blood of Christ so it's not actually wine anymore.) One could extrapolate that if wine is OK then beer must also be OK.

Third, beer tastes really good. And when I was searching for something for Emeline's blog event I found a whole bunch of delicious recipes I wanted to try.

So why am I submitting tonight's recipe for the Pub Crawl? Well, it's damass good. I mean really surprisingly beerily delicious. Beer and beets. Who would have thought. And it's also really original. Although it's not very original of me to submit it being that I took inspiration from a recipe on Bon Appetit. Really, although I really really liked all of the beer recipes so far, I think this one is so unexpected and almost healthy (really- go to epicurious.com and check out the nutrition info) that I like it the best. Maybe it's been a while since I've had a fresh vegetable and I was craving them. Even the Brain, who doesn't care for beets, ate his whole salad up. That says something.

Of course you could probably slather a brick in beer, bacon, and feta and I'd eat it all up.

Warm Beet and Beer Salad

Inspired by Bon Appetit

3 beets, peeled and cut into thick wedges

3 thick cut bacon slices

1/2 large onion sliced thinly

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp packed brown sugar

1 tsp anise seed

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

3 cups spring mix salad blend

Cook beets in boiling salted water until tender, approximately 12 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile saute bacon in a large skillet over medium high heat until crisp. Transfer bacon to a paper towel lined plate to drain and cool. Once cool, crumble the bacon. Drain off all but 1 tablespoon bacon fat from the skillet and add onions and saute for about 3 minutes or until they start to caramelize. Add the beer, vinegar, sugar, and anise seed and cook for 5 minutes. Add the beets and cook for 5 more minutes until the dressing is reduced and thick.

Spread the salad blend over two plates. Heap the warm beet and onion mixture on top of the salad mix. Sprinkle the crumbled bacon and feta on top and serve immediately.

Rye Beer Bread

Emboldened by my success with the Julia Child French Bread, I decided to give another yeast bread a try. I wanted to try one from the beautiful King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook that my wonderful mother-in-law gave me, but first I have to find some instant yeast. So I played around on the Internet and found this recipe for Beer Rye Bread from Sunset.

It's really good. The taste of the beer is subtle, but it's there. I used Bass Ale because it was the closest thing to a Belgium style ale as we've got. I think if I had a good Belgian ale, this bread would be just that more delicious. As always quality ingredients make quality products. But please, it's not like I used the Michelob Ultra in the beer fridge. That would make an interesting beer bread for sure.

The texture of this bread is dramatically different than the Julia Child French Bread. Where Julia's bread was sticky as dough and air bubbles consistently popped up on the surface. This dough was stiff. I had a hard time telling for sure when it was rising even. Julia's bread has such lovely holes and a light and chewy texture. This bread is dense and has a thick and hearty texture. Please don't misunderstand me though. This bread would be ideal slathered with butter accompanying these beans, or with no butter and a hearty soup. It would also be excellent with a slab of onion and some liverwurst.

Call me nutty, but I think I just got hit over the head with my German heritage. I don't mind, I'm munching away on my bread.

Beer Rye Bread

from Sunset

1 package active dry yeast

1 (12oz) bottle Belgian style ale

2 Tbsp light brown sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds

1/4 cup molasses (not blackstrap)

1 Tbsp coarse Kosher salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups rye flour

Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 Tbsp. water)

In a mixing bowl, combine yeast with 1/2 cup warm water. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in beer, brown sugar,butter, caraway seeds, molasses, 2 tsp salt, and 1 cup of each flour. Beat well, then gradually add remaining flours until dough is stiff and no longer sticky.

Turn dough out on a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Put dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to grease the top and bottom. Cover, put in a warm draft-free place, and let rise until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Punch dough down, divide in half, and shape halves into balls. Put balls on a large baking sheet, cover, and let rise until almost doubled, 45 to 60 minutes. Brush loaves with egg wash and sprinkle each with 1/2 tsp salt. Cut a cross in the top of each loaf with a very sharp knife.

Bake at 375° for 35 to 40 minutes, spraying occasionally with a water mister, until crusts are well browned and loaves make a hollow sound when tapped. Transfer loaves to rack and let cool.

Makes 2 loaves, 12 slices per loaf.

Per slice: Calories 144 (17% from fat); Fat 2.7g (sat 1.3g); Protein 4.1g; Cholesterol 14mg; Sodium 271mg; Fiber 3.2g; Carbohydrate 27g

Booze Soup!

The night before the Brain and I left on our honeymoon, a week after the wedding so we could relax and sleep and get all those thank you notes out, his parents took us to a restaurant by the Cleveland airport for dinner. There we were, grateful the wedding was over, ready to start our lives together, fairly exhausted from the wedding planning and execution, excited to go on our honeymoon, and ready for some quiet time. The weather was beautiful and sunny, a dramatic change from the snow on our wedding night (in APRIL). Yes, winter never ends here. Anyway, poised on the beginning of adventure, there we were at this really good restaurant, and I had the beer soup.

I'd never had beer soup before. I think on some level I mourned the 35 years of my life that went by without me having tasted it. Kind of like how I feel about sauerkraut balls and fennel and other such delicious things I grew up not knowing about. It was delicious and cheesy and tasted definitely of beer. And up until now I've simply lived with the memory. The Brain doesn't do so well with dairy.

But then a couple weeks ago, my sister in law handed me a cookbook with this recipe marked. It is the Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread cookbook. The recipe was the Tomato and Potato Cheddar Soup with Beer. She had thought it looked like a good recipe, but her terrific kids happen to be mighty picky eaters and the cookbook just had more elegant tastes than the kids would eat. I happily took the cookbook off her hands and decided that I would make the soup (or my version of it) and eat it for lunches while the Brain was off with the older men on Thursday afternoons, and during Rotary and times like that.

Well now, the Brain looks at my soup and I keep telling him, "no no no, you can't have this soup". It's mean of me. I know. But this soup is REALLY good. And it would make his tummy REALLY hurt. And I did, after all, make him Manwiches *shudder* for lunch today, so it's not like I don't cook what he likes to eat. In fact we've had so much pizza and Chinese and spaghetti and more pizza this week, that I really have to apologize that I didn't try anyone else's recipes this week. I barely made enough to blog about. Sorry, it's been a lazy lazy week.

Tomato Potato Beer Cheddar Soup

adapted from the Daisy Hollow Soup & Bread Cookbook

1 bottle Ale

6 large potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1/4 inch slices

4 cups chicken stock

3 bay leaves

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp dried oregano

4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1 large onion chopped

1 rib celery chopped

1 carrot peeled and sliced

5 cloves of garlic crushed in a garlic press

1 15oz can petite diced tomatoes, undrained

1 Tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp flour

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce

1/2 tsp dry mustard

12 oz. extra sharp cheddar, shredded

salt and pepper to taste

fresh flat leaf parsley for garnish

1. Pour the beer into a heavy dutch oven. Add the potatoes and stock. If the potatoes aren't covered add enough water to cover them. Add the basil, oregano and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to medium low and simmer for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile in a large skillet, melt the butter and saute the onions until they begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the celery, garlic and carrot and saute about 5 minutes more. Add the tomatoes, Worcestershire, and soy sauce, and cook, stirring frequently, for 10 to 20 minutes until the liquid evaporates. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and cook, stirring constantly for 1 to 2 minutes. Gradually add the cream and stir while cooking until the mixture thickens. Add the dry mustard and Tabasco. Transfer the entire mixture to a food processor or blender and process until smooth.

3. Stir the cream mixture into the dutch oven.Turn down the heat so that the liquid barely simmers. Add the cheese and cook, stirring frequently until the cheese melted and the potatoes are falling apart, about 20 minutes more. Once the potatoes are falling apart, blend the soup with an immersion blender until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Let sit for about an hour to let the flavors develop and then bring back up to temperature and serve garnished with parsley.