A Blue Moon Evening

Recently, I invited Jenny and Darrin over for some snacks and drinks. And I thought, hmmm. What should I make? I remembered seeing a recipe for Blue Moon beer cupcakes, and I knew Jenny was a fan of Blue Moon. Then I thought, what goes with it.....what about an evening full of Blue Moon beer recipes!

Of course!

You'll see here:

Blue Moon cupcakes

From Miss Make

Beer Cheese dip

From Tidy Mom

Mangria (Blue Moon Sangria)

From 20 Something Cupcakes

I think it was a hit!

Quick kitchen tip: Freeze in measurements

I've developed a kitchen tip that I want to share. 

I am freezing foods in measurements. I have been making stock for a while, and I would freeze it all together in one large container; however, when I would need just a cup, I would have to deal with thawing the entire container. 

So now I freeze in measurements. 

For example, this ramekin is 1 cup. I know because I took a measure cup filled with water and poured it in the rameken to confirm. 

Each individual hole in this ice tray is 2 tablespoons. 

Now, when I make stock, I pour it into these different sizes and freeze the containers. When the stock is completely frozen, I pop it out and put it in a labeled bag in the freezer. It's super easy to then grab a cup or tablespoon when I need it. 

I have also used this method with tomato paste. 

Tomato paste comes in 6 ounces, but most recipes I use call for just one tablespoon or so. 

I take the remaining tomato paste and using a tablespoon scoop out individual tablespoons onto a cookie sheet. I place the cookie sheet full of tablespoons of tomato paste in the freezer. 

When everything is froze, I throw them in a labeled bag. Easy to grab a tablespoon's worth!

You could use this method with a ton of other things I'm sure. Any other ideas?

Also be sure to take my purse poll after reading this post.

Farm Food: Kansas City Steak

This is a Kansas City Steak from one of our grass-fed black angus cows. The steak is the same cut as a New York Strip, but this guy was huge and thick. 

I marinated it for about 30 minutes in a little bit of Dales marinade and a sprinkling of a Grill Seasoning on both sides. Then I handed it off to this guy:

And, it came back like this!

Yummy grill marks.

Placed on a bed a Gruyere cheese grits and alongside roasted asparagus, this was certainly a fine dining meal in!

Cookies and cream health cake

Yes, this is actually a cookies and cream cake with Heath candy bar icing. Here's the inspiration.

It's a basic cake batter, I used this one, with Oreo cookies mixed in the batter. A lot of Oreo cookies. Then, I used this icing recipe and added broken up Heath bars to part of it. That part I placed in between the cake layers. The rest of the regular icing was used on the outside of the cake. 

It was delicious. Just eat it and enjoy. 

Chicken pot pie ice cream

This is not a joke. 

I made chicken pot pie ice cream. 

Through Blogher, I entered a recipe contest using a new product from Knoll: chicken stock concentrate. It's like chicken stock jelly, in a good way. The contest was to create an original recipe with the concentrate. Now, I must have been watching too many Iron Chefs or something because I thought, "That jelly-o-chicken would melt perfectly into an ice cream custard." 

So off I went to make chicken ice cream.

I make plenty of ice cream in my KitchenAid attachment ice cream maker, so I knew the basics. I figured I'd wing the rest. 

Here are the ingredients. Half & Half, a little butter and the tub-o-chicken-jelly. 

I used four eggs. 

I heated the half & half, butter, chicken jelly and some fresh thyme from our garden in a pot. 

Then, I tempered the eggs and cooked the now-custard mixture until thick. Next, I strained it and  completely chilled it in the refrigerator. Then it could be processed through the ice cream machine. Then it stayed in the freezer overnight. 

To make this chicken ice cream, chicken pot pie ice cream, I baked off a square of puff pastry. 

And topped it with a scoop of the chicken ice cream. 

Chris and I each took a bit of this one. It definitely tasted like chicken, and you really needed the puff pastry to cut the chicken-y flavor. I'm not sure I'll ever make this again; however, it was a fun process to create something so unique. 

I'll let you know if I win the recipe contest. Who knows? Maybe they are looking for the perfect chicken pot pie ice cream recipe!

Veggie night

We have been lucky enough to attend several parties the past few days. A wedding and a surprise birthday party. They were both amazing and had delicious food. But, you know the thing with party food? Even with a fruit tray, party food usually isn't the healthiest. So, Chris and I wanted a veggie night. 

Here you'll see my finished product. 

A veggie-infused, organic pasta with pesto that I made from our fresh basil. I added asparagus, green bell peppers and onions and yellow squash from the farm. 

So delicious, and we felt revived with our veggies! 

Farm food: Rump roast

In my continued series on our farm food, the next on my list was a rump roast. 

Say hello to our grass-fed rump roast.

I made a dry spice rub of a chili con carne spice mix, red pepper and ground mustard. I combined them to make probably 2 tablespoons of rub. I could probably have used a little more. 

I rubbed the roast with the spices, and put it in our slow cooker.

I set it on low for 10 hours. Because our meat is so lean, it actually didn't need all this time. I took it out around 9 hours, and it probably only needed 7-8. Also, next time, I'll put a little beef stock in the bottom of the cooker to get the juices started. Again, since our meat is lean, it didn't produce a ton of au jus. I could always use more!

I threw together a salad with lettuce and cucumbers from the farm. I made a red wine vinegar dressing that my grandfather recommended, and it was delicious!

The meat was tender and delicious. 

Underneath the roast was a bed of red new potatoes that I boiled and smashed. They were perfect with the au jus drizzled over them. Another healthy and delicious meal from the farm!

Migas my way

I forgot to mention in my farm food post that we also got eggs from our pretty chickens!

Usually I make frittatas, but I got us a little burned out on them. Instead of frittatas, I made migas my way. Traditional migas contain scrambled eggs into which you crumble tortilla chips into. Yum. But, I wanted to kick it up a notch. 

Here, you see a bell pepper from the farm sauteing, a bag of already-cooked sausage, tortilla chips and eggs. 

Looks how pretty our eggs are. You won't see that kind of color in a store-bought, corn-fed chicken egg.

The next step is to throw it all together and cook through. Top with salsa, and you're good to go!

Homemade cocktail treats

I was inspired by Martha Stewart's pickled cocktail additions, and I decided to try one of hers and one creation of mine. I chose her pickled radishes, perfect for martinis, and then I researched homemade maraschino cherries, perfect for manhattans. 

First I pitted the fresh cherries.

Perfect little holes.

I then filled two jars with the pitted, fresh cherries. I left the stems on them so they would look fresh and pretty. 

Then I took a bottle of cherry liqueur....

and poured it over the cherries.

Hello, deep, dark mysterious cherry jars.

And, I made custom labels and tied cute bows around the jars. 

I followed Martha's recipe exactly, and put the radishes in a jar with a fun clasp.

They got custom labels too.

These made perfect gifts, especially for someone who likes martinis and manhattans! I made these for Jack for Father's Day.

The cherries were just as beautiful in a drink!