pumpkin mustard bbq turkey

May 28, 2013lynley 1 Comment

while organizing my beer drawer, yes i have a beer drawer in the fridge, i discovered the last 2 bottles of some pumpkin ale. its spring time, time for shandies not nutty ales. so what to do with these beers so they don’t go to waste? lets do some bbq!! first i slow cooked turkey tenderloins in the pumpkin ale with cinnamon and nutmeg. then i shredded the meat added mustard bbq sauce to the juices and slow cooked it once again. this was a saturday night dinner to die for. the sauce turned out spicy with the cinnamon and nutmeg and the potato salad i made to go with it i’ll say was one of the best i’ve done. my secret….honey mustard 😉

Long Overdue Pumpkin Beer Tasting- Round Two

December 16, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

Ok, here’s the deal- round 2 of my pumpkin beer tasting did not go as planned. 75th street brewery, which has been my gold standard for pumpkin beer for years, wouldn’t fill my beer growler this year. Suddenly they aren’t selling their seasonal beers in growlers any more (you can only drink it at the bar of restaurant). Dang. The whole reason I bought their growler was to drink lots of their pumpkin beer at home. Sigh…

We carried on like all beer drinkers should and did a “Last Beer Standing” match between O’Fallen and Schlafly. Here’s how it went down.

John chose to eat dinner while we tasted.

After much drinking and sniffing, we gave Schlafly…

Autumn Color: 3 out of 4
Pumpkin Flavor: 1
Seasonal Taste: 1 (we were much harder on it the second time)
Overall Rating: 2

For O’Fallen…

Autumn Color: 1.5
Pumpkin Flavor: 2 (noted a subtle nutmeg)
Seasonal Taste: 3
Overall Rating: 3

So- O’Fallen Pumpkin was our top winner this year, but next year we are going to get serious about this! More pumpkin beers and perhaps a gathering…that could be fun!

Pumpkin Beer Taste-off: Round One

October 16, 2012sfarrisyoung 1 Comment

I love pumpkin beer.

So why not have a pumpkin beer taste-off. Inspired by a pint a couple of weekends ago, I decided I needed to know which pumpkin beer is my favorite. We hit a beer snag right away when the beer I wanted to test the most was sold out (and reportedly selling for $8 a glass in the KC metro area).

So I made due and decided to have a second round of tastings ASAP.

Josh and I were the tasters. John the pourer and photographer.

We judged using some of my beer tasting learnings from my Sam Addams Tour a few years ago: clarity of the beer (is it cloudy and it shouldn’t be), scent, and how does it taste when you swish it all around your mouth.

We added some specific pumpkin tasting qualifications (which we made our finally judgements on) pumpkin flavor, autumn color, seasonal flavors, and overall rating.

Let the pumpkin awesomeness begin.

The contestants:

The official opener:

Beer number one:

Scores for contestant 1:

Pumpkin flavor: 0
Autumn Color: 3
Seasonal taste: Mostly tastes like a sweet wheat
Overall rating: 1

Second contestant:

Scores for contestant 2:

Pumpkin flavor: 2
Autumn Color: 1
Season flavors: All Spice, not so much a pumpkin flavor
Overall rating: 2

Contestant Number 3:

Scores for contestant 3:

Pumpkin flavor: 2 1/2
Autumn Color: By the third tasting we forgot to rate color- a sign of a good tasting.
Season flavors: Cinnamon, Nutmeg and a hint of pumpkin in the after taste.
Overall rating: 2

The O’Fallen was our overall favorite for this round of beer tasting. Stay tuned fir more pumpkin beer events!
If you have suggestions for round two let me know!

pumpkin-rosemary turkey

October 3, 2012lynley Leave a comment

hello fall! hello crock pot you ol’friend! fall is upon us and i have decided saturdays are going to be my crock pot day. to kick off the crock pot season i roasted a turkey breast on saturday. aided by pumpkin beer and some rosemary i made a very yummy turkey breast.

the bird

along with it was of course mashed potatoes, carrots that were in the crock pot, and cornbread stuffing.

mmmmmmmmmmm

to help me eat this feast were the parental units. dad brought wine and mom brought dessert.

hosting the parents

mom brought the last summer batch of homemade ice cream for dessert. topping choices including Hershey’s chocolate syrup and strawberries and of course we had to eat them out of sundae dishes.

goodbye summer, hello fall

RECIPE: PUMPKIN-ROSEMARY TURKEY

3-4 lb turkey breast

2 bottles of pumpkin beer (i reccommend o’fallon pumpkin ale)

2 TBSP honey

1/4 cup mustard bbq sauce

3 TBSP rosemary

1 apple sliced

1 onion quartered

4 cloves of garlic

1 1/2 cup baby carrots

*spray the crock pot with non-stick spray. wash off turkey breast in cool water and place in crock pot. add onion, apples, garlic, and carrots to crock pot. in a bowl mix together beer, honey, and bbq sauce, pour over turkey and vegetables. sprinkle rosemary on top of items in crock pot. slow cook for 5-6 hours on low.

sunday night dinner: october 30, 2011— chicken and stuffing, pumpkin beer, and arsenic

November 4, 2011lynley Leave a comment

halloween is my favorite holiday so i got super excited about making a fall meal. on sunday the whether was wonderful and fallish and i got to do one my favorite things….cook all day. i once again busted out my crockpot, which i swear i’m on the verge of writing a love haiku poem too. this meal is an excellent fall dish. in the crock you got chicken, cream of mushroom soup, and a box of cornbread stuffing, topped with peas. its sort of creates a meal that starts off feeling like leftovers, how everything begins all mushed up together.

oh how i love you so

to go along with it i made up some rosemary biscuits. biscuits are one of the easiest things to bake and you can transform them into such a variety of flavors by just adding a teaspoon of your favorite herbs. i like rosemary but oregano, parsley, thyme, and many others work just as well too.

give me them biscuits!

when making a batch of leftovers in a pot you got to have mashed potatoes. do you know the difference between dirty tators and mashed potatoes? there is a big one and i personal prefer dirty tators. dirty tators are when you leave the skins on the potatoes, leaving them extra chunky and colorful when they get mashed. and since it is october i celebrated with an o’fallon pumpkin beer in a frosted mug.

i got so excited for a real fall meal, i ate WAY too much

to make this even more perfect i watched my favorite halloween movie of all time, arsenic and old lace. cary grant discovers that his 2 elderly aunts have been poisoning old lonely men they lure into their home with a room for rent advertisement, they think they are providing charity by putting them out of their misery. the family is all batty including a serial killer brother and another brother that thinks he is teddy roosevelt. minus the killing of elderly men i could see steph and i becoming just like the brewster sisters.

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