Homebrew

Guys, we just made beer. I got the husband a kit for Christmas and I had been harassing him to start for weeks now. We have some friends who do it and even though beer makes me sick it seemed like a good hobby for us to do together.

We traveled to the newly opened Brooklyn Homebrew a few blocks from our house and got the ingredients for a Belgian beer. The recipe is a cross between a chemistry lab and a Julia Child complicated recipe and we quickly determine that while we had the ingredients, the kit that I bought didn't have a number of important items. This led to a hilarious debate over whether some gauze, argyle stockings, old athletic socks, ugly purple pillow case, or stereo part bag would be the best choice to replace the soaking bag and the use of the packaging to replace a sampler.

Luckily we had two pros on hand and called Jon and Aaron a couple times, but of course, only to confirm that what we were doing was right. The actual brewing of beer is not hard but it is laborious, time consuming, incredibly sticky, and smells like a barn. They also make a big deal about sanitizing everything but the methods they follow are kind of hilarious to anyone who has ever stepped foot in a lab.

We'll wait a few weeks and see how it comes out. I'm in charge next and am going to see if they have any recipes for wheat free beer recipes.

Mushroom Sausage Ragu for a Cold Winter's Night

Two forces converged to create tonight's dinner: I randomly bought some Quinoa Polenta and I found a post on thekitchn.com for a hardy sausage mushroom ragu. Actually, two other things happened: It's been really cold in New York and I left work at the incredibly early hour of 5:30. This had more prep than usual but can easily be scaled back to reduce the prep time.

This is one of those recipes where if you have the right ingredients and don't burn anything too badly, you can build the recipe by taste. The recipe is an approximation of an dish I build on the fly and could easily read: brown sausage, saute mushrooms, mix all back together, roast portabellos, make polenta according to directions, etc.

Mushroom- Sausage Ragu on Polenta
Based upon Gourmet's Parmesan Crusted Polenta with Sausage- Mushroom Ragu
Serves 6

8 T olive oil
1.5 lbs spicy sausage, taken out of casing and separted into chunks*
3 clove garlic, minced
4 cups mushrooms, sliced
2T parsley, chopped
1T thyme, chopped
1 t tomato paste
1 cup red wine
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 large can crushed tomatoes


Heat up 1 T olive oil in a large saute pan on medium head, brown the chunks of sausage. Remove sausage and set aside. Add 2 T olive oil and minced garlic until it's golden brown. There was a pretty big mess of fond (the browned bits) on the bottom of the pan which is ok as long as they don't get too dark. Add the mushrooms and stir around to coat with oil. If you need more oil add another T, you just want to coat them not drown them in oil. Saute until they begin to wilt and give off their water, about 5-8 minutes. Scrape up all the brown bits with the edge of a wooden spoon and stir into mushrooms.

Add tomato paste, chopped parsley and thyme, and red wine. Simmer over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add crushed tomatoes, stir and simmer for 5-8 minutes or the tomatoes are incorporated into the sauce. Add the sausage, check salt and pepper levels, cover and set aside.

Make polenta according to the directions. I used one of the polenta and quinoa tubes and added it to instant polenta after it was done. I added lots of salt to the polenta water, pepper, and basil flakes.


Roasted Portabello Mushrooms
3 large portabello mushrooms, cleaned and destemmed
4 T olive oil
pepper to taste

Preheat the over to 300F. Coat both sides of the mushrooms with olive oil. I like to pour about a T on the side with the gills and make sure it is really coated. I also add a dash pepper. Place on cookies sheet covered with tin foil and roast until easily pierced with a fork, about 15-20 minutes. Remove and let cool.


Once you have made all the parts, place a portabello on the bottom of the shallow bowl, add one heaping ladle of polenta, and one heaping ladle of ragu.

* I used half spicy Italian sausage and half vegan Field Roast Italian sausage. They had similar flavor and slightly different textures but I would happily just use the fake sausage again.

Blogging Update

I'll be blogging about our new potential project at Brownstoner

Not Another Deathaversary

I'm aware that I'm a bad person when it comes to dealing with Adam's death. He wonderful and loving family have reached out to me, written really nice cards and letters, and even made a special trip to visit when I was in Colorado and all I've done is defriend them on facebook. I know, in theory, that I owe them better. I know, in theory, that I probably owe a few people better but, in reality, I'm just not ready to give as much of myself as I used to.

I think part of the issue is that I'm consistently enjoying my life again. I'm not back to normal but I've settled on a new normal where I can take care of myself, worry about my closest family members, and focus on some long term goals. I'm really pleased that I can consider not buying the right size coffee filters a bit of a problem. I'm pleased that I don't obsessively clean the tile grout. and I'm really pleased that instead of staring at the TV I'm going to Yoga, running and out with friends.

The reality is that I just don't want to deal with more death and when it's not right in my face I can push it aside. And for now, that will have to do.

Boo Hiss Cancer

Okay so now I need another resolution. Turns out that I didn't have that many posts about dealing with death. I labeled the ones that I found "boo hiss cancer" (because it hurts less when you're cutesy) and you can now see that link to the left. So if you've lost someone to pancreatic cancer or sudden heart attack or are just dealing with a loss, you can now read through my experiences.

Hmm, Okay 2nd Choice?

Well apparently I already do a good job "pushing back" and telling people exactly what I think (this is why my book group claims that I hate everything and do to fair I usually do hate everything).

So my new mini goal/resolution for this blog is to go through a put tags on everything. While I sure there are people who only want to read about my fabulous taste in pillows, I suspect there are more people out there who might want to read what I wrote about losing my dad to pancreatic cancer (boo hiss cancer). I'm also starting to absorb losing my friend Adam almost a year ago to a heart attack (boo hiss heart attacks) so perhaps they'll be a few more posts about death (and won't that be nice).

I don't pretend that what I wrote is great or insightful but I do know that its honest, raw, and represents an arc for someone to follow. I've shared large chunks of it with friends who have lost someone and I think just reading someone else's perspective helps to give permission to whatever is going on in your own head. I'm sure loss can be generalized by an academic or a counselor but when it happens to you it is nothing but specific to you and your relationship to the person you lost. My reaction to losing my dad and losing Adam were totally different to one another. They were radically different to losing my step-grandmother years ago. And to be fair, I'm still a bit scarred from losing Spot and Scotty. And I'm sure they are different than your loss but I'm sure having a single moment of "yes me too!" has value.

I'm a big fan of organizing content (not my house though) but I've been very good about avoiding this whole organizing task. I've made it a resolution to push myself but the truth is that I'm not ready to reread or even look at those dates on a calendar. I've come a long way but I'm no masochist so I'll take my sweet ass time on this one.

Clearing out the Plastics

Normally when I see hair on fire reports about levels of pollutants in the environments I just think to myself "not much I can do about that". For whatever reason the recent reports about the inadequacy of our legal protections against water pollution, endocrine disruptors in products, and high levels of pharmaceuticles in the environment have made me totally paranoid. Gone are my days of drinking unfiltered tap water and carelessly microwaving food in plastic containers. This Consumer Reports study just sent me over the edge.

Consumer Reports look at BPA levels in canned products

In an attempt to make a few small changes I bought a few glass containers to take their place. They're good looking, shatter resistant, freezer proof and can be microwaved without the top on.



See they're nice!

But I then realized (after I had paid $14 for it that I had the same thing already at home, in my recycling bin.