Before the holiday weekend gets underway I am stopping in with a few naptime chef ideas for your Fourth of July drink spread, along with a fun new cocktail recipe. It is essential that you have a few great frosty drink recipes on hand if you are entertaining this coming weekend!
I made my first attempt at homemade strawberry vodka last week after our strawberry picking expedition. Rarely, if ever, do I buy flavored vodkas because I think they taste artificial and overly sweet. With the hope of finding a way to make an enjoyable, natural fruity liquor, I wanted to try making my own at home. I’d read that people have had great success with it and the whole process seemed completely simple and naptime chef-friendly. I’ll get into a post about the details of making fruit vodkas later in July (hint, hint, I made more flavors than just strawberry…), but suffice it to say, it worked out well. The vodka was infused with the delicious berry flavor and had just the right amount of sweetness from the sugar. If you don’t have the time or interest to make homemade strawberry vodka the store-bought version will work for with this recipe!
Naptime Goals: Make ice-cream base to all the herbs to steep!
This kid is killing me with the 5:30am wake-ups. I swear, I am this close to lining her windows with black electrical tape and turning her bedroom into a cave. The reason she keeps waking me up, she says, is because the sun is already up. (I don’t miss winter weather one bit, but I do miss the 7:15am sunrises!) One of our favorite early summer activities in strawberry picking. Being this tired means that it feels like 1pm, not 10am, when we go to the fields. Naptime feels like dinner hour, and I usually loose track of time completely by late afternoon. Since it felt like dinnertime when I was working on the strawberries last week it should come as no surprise that I was craving ice cream. My body was sure I’d already eaten dinner (it was, in fact, lunch) and was in the mood for something cool and sweet.
One of the best parts about Belgian beer is that is can be sipped, stirred and baked. In the virtual picnic Wendy and I dreamt up while we were discussing Belgian Beer Week we decided on a beer marinated pork roast as the main course. This easy dish can be served hot or cold and even taken on picnics or boat rides. Marinating it in beer tenderizes the meat and adds all sorts of spicy flavors. I like it, of course, because preparing is so incredibly naptime chef-friendly.
Two years ago I wrote about summer 1997 and my first internship ever working at Vanberg & DeWulf, the Belgian beer importing business in Cooperstown, NY. During that summer I worked closely with Wendy Littlefield and Don Feinberg learning about all aspects of the beverage business. Amidst the flurry of office activity I also learned a lot about their beers. I was barely legal to drink at that point, and had not yet developed any sort of palate for beer or wine, but was intrigued by this new world that extended far beyond the dorm mainstay: Natty Light. In Belgium brewing beer is an art form; the Belgian take their beer as seriously as the French do their wine. To drink a Belgian beer is to enjoy it sip by sip with delicious rustic farmstead foods — it is not the kind of beer that is used for boat races or beer pong.
This week I am working with Wendy, who has since become a friend and mentor to me, on a special Belgian Beer-themed week on The Naptime Chef. Belgian beer can be paired with foods just like wine, and it is also wonderful to cook with. I don’t think it is a stretch to assume most home cooks drink wine or beer with dinner which is why I thought you all might enjoy learning about the beauty of Belgian ales. While Wendy and I were on the phone last week we dreamt up a gorgeous virtual Belgian picnic full of classic flemish flavors. The food is perfect for a picnic on the lake, at the beach, or at your own family table. I’ll share the menu, and recipes, with you tomorrow.
To kick things off Wendy and I compiled a recommend list of Belgian beers that are perfect for summer sipping. These are known at Biere de Tables in Belgium, this translates to Table Beers, and are typically enjoyed during family meals. They have a low-alcohol content, come in a variety of flavors and have a fine bubbly mouth feel akin to champagne. Younger children are often allowed to have small sips of Table Beers with their meals. It is the way Belgians teach their children to appreciate fine beers and food. Others are Saisons (beers brewed on the farm in the winter to quench the thirsts of farm hands in the growing season); lemony light “Abbey Ales” (great accompaniment to mussels): or “Wheat Beers” great with spicy foods: or Strong Golden Ales” so suited to grilled chops or burgers. There is even a “Wild” beer in the mix as a surprise.
The beers we are highlighting today are all on the lighter side and pair well with flavorful summer meals. Stay tuned for our next installment tomorrow when we start cooking with beer and indulging in our virtual picnic!
1) Lambrucha:This unique beer, the marriage of two fermented drinks, Kombucha and Lambic, was developed by Wendy and Don. Tasting Table Chicago recently stated, “Move over, Miller High Life: We’re declaring Lambrucha the new Champagne of Beers.” Strong words for such a new beverage! This tart bubbly drink is rose-colored with light, refreshing citrus notes which make it ideal for summer sipping, especially with summer vegetables and seafood. It is the mimosa of the beer world. Ultimate picnic brunch beer.
I LOVE S’Mores, as if you didn’t know that already, and I am excited to announce that this summer, the Hershey Company is encouraging families to create their own S’mores memories with the Say S’mores campaign. Starting June 15, families are invited to capture and share their favorite S’mores moments on the Hershey’s brand Facebook page for a chance to win S’mores-themed prizes. The grand-prize is a Canon Rebel Camera, slate marble outdoor firebowl, $250 SnapFish gift card, roasting skewers set and all of the ingredients needed to make S’mores, including Hershey’sMilk Chocolate bars. Families who visit the Hershey’s brand Facebook page on or after June 15 can download the Say S’mores application to participate in monthly photo contests and receive a $1 coupon good toward the purchase of any two Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar 6-packs.
In addition to all this great prizes I am participating in a secret campaign and will be posting about a secret S’More theme later this summer. Stay tuned!! 🙂
Every so often I like to take a break from recipes to share some of the things I’ve been enjoying on the web recently. These are sites and products, both food related and otherwise, that have been catching my eye and I think you might enjoy as well. Have a great weekend, I’ll be back next week with some great recipes and a fun food theme!
Gilt Taste, the newest addition to Gilt Group, features fabulous food related articles and is being edited by Ruth Reichl. It is also home to a beautifully cultivated fine foods market. Wagyu Beef shipped straight to my door for Father’s Day? Yes, please!
Being a devoted naptime canner, I love Aimee’s article on Simple Bites about preparing for canning season. She has assembled the perfect checklist for canners this year. It is a must-read for anyone — experienced or not — ready to preserve summers gorgeous produce.
I’ve often dreamed of living like India Hicks, barefoot in the sand, letting my daughter run free on the beach after school each day. India’s blog is pure escape at it’s best. She documents her island life and globetrotting adventures with fun pictures and hilarious stories to boot. I am very much looking forward to the launch of her jewelry line.
By the end of the first day at the King Arthur Flour Blog & Bake I was exhausted. After madly taking notes on everything from how to make bread rise perfectly and the difference between flours, to Sara Moulton’s herbed spaetzle and how to properly debone a chicken breast, I had absorbed just about all I could. Following our elegant dinner at The Norwich Inn I turned in for the night and slept soundly until my alarm the next morning. Pizza dough was the first order of business on day two. We had begun making the dough starter the day before and set out to finish it in time for lunch. I was so glad to go through this exercise because I’ve always loved making pizza at home. I usually make it on a baking sheet in my oven and it works well, but I was eager to try the gigantor King Arthur Flour in-house wood burning pizza oven:
Two days following the devastating earthquakes in Japan I received an email from my dear friend Stacie Billis of One Hungry Mama. She had joined forces with our friends Rachael Hutchings of La Fuji Mamaand Marc Matsumoto of No Recipes to write and photograph a charitable cookbook of family friendly Japanese recipes to support Japanese relief efforts. I was honored to be asked to contribute a recipe along with nearly 60 other talented food bloggers.
Last week Peko Peko: Family Friendly Japanese Recipes went on sale on the publishers website, Blurb. It contains 120 full-color pages packed with gorgeous photography and nearly 60 family-friendly Japanese and Japanese-inspired recipes contributed by 56 of today’s best and brightest food writers, bloggers and photographers. Peko Peko also includes an indispensable glossary of over 50 Japanese ingredients, including suitable substitutions for the American home cook, plus an essay on bringing Japanese food and other global cuisines to the family table. ALL of the proceeds ($11.45 of every purchase) will be donated directly to GlobalGiving Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. Stacie, Rachael and Marc are NOT taking any proceeds for their considerable efforts and Blurb has chosen to forgo making any money off the sale of the book as well. This speaks to the true charitable nature of this volume and I hope you will all consider buying at least one or two copies. You will get a fabulously edited collection of Japanese recipes while Japan will get much needed help.
Phoebe and Cara’s website, Big Girls, Small Kitchen, was one of the first blogs I ever read. We started blogging around the same time and I remember being immediately taken in by their cool concept of quarter-life cooking. To be honest, I felt a little bit like I was reading a flashback to my own twenties in New York. For five years I lived in a one room studio with a kitchen that had been converted out a closet. Those were the days when the cutting board was always spread over my sink and the two mixing bowls I had were in constant rotation. I even had to hang the dish rack over my sink to drain after I hand washed it dish. Good times.
Apparently I am not the only one who was reading Phoebe and Cara’s blog — I am not surprised by this — and fast forward to today when they are officially published authors. Hooray! I was so excited when I got their book, In the Small Kitchen: 100 Recipes from our Year of Cooking in the Real World in the mail I could hardly contain myself. Despite the fact that I am, ah-hem, not in my twenties anymore, their style of recipes appeal to me and I love their just hangin’ out with friends style.
I had the sincere pleasure of attending Blog & Bake at the King Arthur Flour headquarters in Norwich VT earlier this week. And when I say it was a pleasure, I really, truly mean that. You all know how I love to bake. Being invited to spend two days learning tips from the pros was an unbelievable opportunity. Some people may wonder why I would take basic baking classes when I just wrote a book with a whole baking chapter in it, but that is one of the best parts about cooking. It is impossible to know how to do everything perfectly. There is always more to learn about the craft, more techniques to know. The teachers at King Arthur were, in my opinion, unparalleled. Our two days of classes covered the basics: white bread, pizza dough, pate brisee (butter crusts), pate sucree (sweet butter crusts), and flour. Even though I’ve made all of these many times I learned all sorts of useful tips from the best way to make a make a flakey pie crust, to how to knead pizza dough so that is produces a perfectly crispy crust every time. We even got to take home everything we baked, including our gorgeous tomato pies.
In addition to the baking classes I learned a lot more about King Arthur Flour as a company. I’ve always used their flour because it works so well and I strongly believe in using unbleached flours. (Bleaching is an unnecessary process which adds carcinogenic chemicals to flour.) Since my experience I have redoubled my affection for their products. King Arthur is committed to maintaining very strict criteria about the flour they sell. All of their wheat is purchased from farmers committed meeting their high standards, and they really make an effort to get to know their growers (just check out these cool videos!) They are also very particular about protein levels in their products. Protein levels in other commercial flours can vary greatly which means you can bake the same recipe with the same brand of flour, but from two different bags, and get completely different results. This won’t happen with King Arthur, their flours behave the same way every single time you bake with them. I thought it was neat that the company is 100% employee owned. Everyone I met had a smile on their face and demonstrated a tremendous amount of pride in their work.
It is impossible to cover all of the great tips in one post so I’m going to break out my experience into two parts. One this week, one next week. So, let’s get started.
