Category Archives: Food

Philly Beer Week: Founders Tap Takeover

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Last night I went to Isaac Newton’s in Newtown, PA for the Founders Brewing Company tap takeover. They had 5 or 6 Founders beers on tap. Unfortunately the kicked the keg of Kentucky Breakfast Stout within the first 30 minutes of the tap take over which was disappointing yet also quite impressive. I tried three beers at this event.

The first was the Double Trouble IPA, This Imperial IPA was very similar to the Dogfish Head 120 but with a much nicer finish. This is a great sipping beer and went well with the pork chop I ordered.

The second beer I tried was the Curmudgeon Old Ale. I was very surprised by this beer. It was very smooth and finished like a mellow scotch. This oak aged ale is a great easy drinking beer but be warned it has a 9.8% Abv.

The last beer I had was Founders All Day IPA this beer has become my recent go to anytime I see it on tap. It is a very easy drinking IPA and is not overly hoppy. A great beer to drink during the summer when you are just hanging with some friends.

Pork Chops with Bacon Gravy

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I decided to take a stab at some southern country style cooking earlier this week. We had breaded pork chops on Sunday and I decided to make a bacon gravy for them. In the end the gravy turned out pretty well. However while I was making it I was disappointed with how bland and plain it tasted. The slat and pepper helped but it just needed something else. I took a few spoonfuls out of the pan and experimented with a few additions. Mustard didn’t work well with the flavor of the gravy, Horseradish was too harsh, Finally I settled on chipotles in adobo sauce. The chipotles gave the gravy the subtle zing it needed. If you want you can use the gravy recipe as a base and substitute out the chipotles for whatever direction you want to take the gravy. I am also thinking about substituting the bacon with sausage the next time I make this to see how that works.

Bacon Gravy

Bacon Wrapped Scallops with Ginger BBQ Sauce

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This is a very easy to make appetizer that is sure to impress. If the scallops you use are very large be sure to cut them in half so they all cook evenly. When picking scallops try to find dry packed, they cook better than wet packed scallops. Make sure to precook the bacon. by precooking the bacon you solve the problem of having either overcooked scallops and crispy bacon or perfectly cooked scallops and undercooked bacon. You can pair the bacon wrapped scallops with ginger BBQ sauce or a nice cocktail sauce. You will find the recipe’s for the scallops and the BBQ sauce below. Enjoy!

Scallops Wrapped in Bacon

Ginger BBQ Sauce

Philly Beer Week: Dogfish Head Tap Takeover

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On Friday night I went over to the Dogfish Head tap takeover at Uno’s Chicago Grill in Bensalem, PA. I ordered one flight and one 120 minute IPA. The flight contained four beers. Sixty-one, Black and Blue, Burton Baton, and Palo Santo Marron. The Sixty one is twist from the 60 minute ipa and uses the same ingredients plus the addition of Syrah grape must. I enjoyed this beer, it was very easy to drink and had great flavor throughout. The second beer in the flight was the Black and Blue. The Black and Blue is a Belgian-style golden ale fermented with black raspberries and blueberries. This beer was a little too sweet for my tastes. The third beer was the Burton Baton, an oak aged English old ale Imperial IPA hybrid. This was my favorite beer of the flight. It had a great hoppy taste and nice accents from the oak barrel. The final beer of the flight was the Palo Santo Marron brown ale. This beer is a great winter beer so the fact that it was 90+ degrees when I was drinking this took away a bit of the enjoyment but overall it was a good ale with hints of vanilla and caramel.

Along with the flights I also ordered a 120 minute IPA

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I’m probably going to get torn apart for this but I was not the biggest fan of the 120. The first sip is good with a great IPA flavor but I feel the aftertaste kills the beer. I find it tastes like someone dropped a shot into the beer. I know this is a high alcohol content beer but I’m just not a fan of the after taste. Overall I enjoyed the my first event of Philly Beer Week and look forward to the next one.

Philly Beer Week 2013

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Philly Beer Week starts today and runs through June 9th. During this time you will be able to sample all types of beers at different venues throughout the city and surrounding suburbs. You can find the full schedule for Philly Beer Week Here. I have only lightly glanced over the calender of events but there are a few that I am trying to make. On June 6th at Issac Newton’s in Newtown, PA the is a Founders tap takeover. Founders makes some great brews, two of my favorite are their all day IPA and their Kentucky breakfast stout. As I attend Philly Beer Week events I will write posts about the beers and the breweries. This should be a fun week and I can’t wait to try some new beers.

Sichuan Style Chicken Stir Fry

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I haven’t cooked with Szechuan peppercorns in a while and decided to throw together a Szechuan style stir fry the other night. I marinated the chicken in a mixture of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, corn starch, water, and salt. I then put oil in a wok and heated it until it just started to smoke. I added the chicken in batches and cooked it until it was done. I then added the Szechuan peppercorns and dried chili peppers and sauteed them for 30 seconds to a minute. I then added a bit of chicken stock, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. I reduced this mixture to thicken it a little. If I had uncooked veggies like snow peas or peppers I would have added them here to cook them. Since I was using steamed broccoli I added the cooked chicken and broccoli to the wok to coat it in the sauce. I then served the stir fry over brown rice.

The stir fry turned out good and the Szechuan peppercorns gave the dish a unique sensation when eating it. If you have never had them before they cause a tingling or slight numbing sensation in your mouth. They can be hard to find, I had to go on Amazon to find them.

Review: A Dinner With Robert Irvine

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I just finished up the Dinner with Robert Irvine event and I must say it went pretty well. While there were a few technical difficulties in the show overall it was a great experience. During the program we cooked two dishes with Chef Irvine, sauteed shrimp with strawberry salsa and spinach polenta and pork tenderloin with a mustard pan sauce and a potato peach hash. Both dishes were delicious but the shrimp and polenta was the stand out dish of the evening. I had never thought to use strawberries over shrimp, the flavor combination worked so well.

 

 

 

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The pork tenderloin and hash was also delicious. The use of peaches in the hash was a surprise but again, much like the strawberries, just worked. This whole experience has changed the way I think of fruit. Now I do not view fruit as dessert or something that stands on its own and I will be experimenting with new uses of fruit in main dishes and appetizers.

The only critiques of the event I had were he could have slowed down a bit, at times Irvine went into full chef mode and was pushing out parts of the dish quite quickly. Also it would have been helpful if we received a full ingredient list with some directions for prep, ie chopped, diced, etc. Also a heads up about preheating the oven would have been a big help too However overall for the first time doing a show like this I thought it went very well and I learned a few new techniques and will definitely be making the shrimp dish again in the near future.

Dinner With Rober Irvine: A Live Online Event

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Tonight I will be participating in the live online cooking event put on by Chef Robert Irvine. The show will be broadcasted on stageit.com. There are two shows scheduled for 6:30 EDT and 9:30 EDT. The tickets cost $10 and the show is supposed to last around an hour. I will post pictures of the dinner and my thoughts on how this event goes. To find out more about the event click the link below. I look forward to seeing what we are making!

LEARN MORE

Memorial Day Snow Crab Feast

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Firstly I want to thank all of the service men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I would also like to thank those currently serving and hope they come home safe.

This past Memorial Day we had a snow crab feast. We started out with a few appetizers and playing some back yard games with the family. We steamed the crab in the oven in foil pan for ~40 minutes.

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This allowed us to cook a lot of the crab at once instead of smaller batches in a pot. We served the crab with Summer spaghetti and corn with a lime chipotle butter.

Summer Spaghetti

Chipotle Lime Butter

English Scones

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I lived in England for two years and unfortunately never had too many scones while I was there. When I returned to the US I was at The Dandelion Pub in Philadelphia for brunch and saw scones on their menu. After my first bite I was hooked and had to learn how to make them. Most scone recipes call for either cherries or some other fruit to be baked into the scones but I am not a big fan of this. In the recipe I have cherries or raisins listed as an optional ingredient. It is best to serve these scones as soon as they come out of the oven with your favorite flavor of jam and clotted cream. You can find a great mock clotted cream recipe over on Pork Chop Tuesday’s blog. You will find my scone recipe below. Enjoy!

English Scones