Beer Mushrooms

You know what's awesome? Beer. You know what else is awesome? Mushrooms. But guess what wasn't double-awesome? These beer mushrooms. They were okay.

Beer + mushrooms = beer mushrooms

That's them, on the right, with beer brats and potatoes.

Ingredients

8 oz mushrooms

2 Tbsp butter

1/2 cup beer

salt and pepper

Equipment

skillet, stove

Instructions

Melt butter in a skillet. Add mushrooms. Add beer. Cook for about 30 minutes, letting the mushrooms absorb all the beer. Salt and pepper to taste.

Yields

3-4 servings

Total Time
about 30 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/5
The thing about making something with a lot of butter and leaving it in the pan while you eat dinner is that it gets that fatty stuff all over the pan. I think it's kind of gross, but it's easy to clean up.

Difficulty rating 2/10
Patience factors into difficulty, which is the only reason this isn't a 1/10.

Flavor rating 3/10
Meh. I like mushrooms. I like beer. (At least, I like the beer I used for this.) I didn't really like this.

Adjustability: low
Use a different beer (the original recipe recommended a stout, maybe that was part of my problem) or use different mushrooms, maybe add some other herbs/seasonings, but that's about all you can do.

Make it with...
I made this to go along with French onion soup, sauteed beer brats with garlic, and potatoes (they were sliced this time to make them cook a little faster). You could make them with just about anything... chicken, pork, beef, vegetarian meals, whatever.

Game of Thrones Dinner: Honeyed Chicken and Spiced Squash

I know, I disappeared from this blog for a while... Sorry! But I haven't been cooking as much because I've been doing... everything else.

Last Saturday, Beth and Chris and I entered a cosplay contest at Tidewater Comicon... and we won best group! In celebration of our cosplay (Melisandre, Margaery, and Oberyn) I wanted to make an easy dinner for everyone from the Inn at the Crossroads. I wanted to make olive bread but the timing didn't work out very well, so this is what we wound up with:

I made a pressed-for-time (some might call it "lazy") version of Honeyed Chicken. I cheated and used pre-made rotisserie chickens, but I made the sauce. I also made Spiced Squash with it (I used the modern recipe, but used butternut squash that was growing in the yard so I wouldn't have to buy acorn squash). And to pull it all together, I threw together a green salad out of what the in-laws had growing outside: a couple different types of lettuce, spinach, tomato, and some red onion Birk chopped up while I was out picking everything else.

Sauce for Honeyed Chicken

from Inn at the Crossroads

Ingredients

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup honey

dash of mint (I had to use dried)

handful of raisins

1 Tbsp butter

Equipment

saucepan, spoon, measuring cup, stove

Instructions

Combine everything in a pan and cook until the raisins start to plump. Pour it over the chicken when it's done. (Yes, it's that simple!)

Yields

I actually doubled the recipe since, as you can see in the photo, I had two chickens. (I was channeling the Hound, I guess.) But the recipe makes plenty for one full chicken.

Total time

For the sauce, maybe 10 minutes total. I was reheating the chickens so that took about 30 minutes.

Cleanup rating 2/5

I expected something with this much honey to be a huge mess, but it wasn't bad. I recommend cleaning out your pan pretty quickly though, because it does that thing where the fat floats on the top if you don't use all the sauce, and I think that's kinda gross. And rinse out your measuring cup with really hot water right after you measure the honey, and that'll be less of an issue later.

Difficulty rating 2/10

It's a really simple recipe. Even if you had to roast a chicken from scratch, I wouldn't put this over a 5/10. The timing is easy, the cooking is easy... you do need to be able to keep an eye on it, but I had Birk around for that.

Flavor rating 6/10

I thought it was a little heavy on the apple cider vinegar, but everyone else said it was good. I think it went really well with the already-seasoned rotisserie chicken, so the flavor plays well with others. And I'm pretty sure some of the vinegariness went away as the sauce cooled.

Adjustability: low

Other than adding herbs, I don't know how I could change this, but I also don't know why I would. It's basic and yummy.

Make it with...

Obviously, chicken. I don't see any reason you couldn't make it with turkey instead. I wouldn't use it with other meats, or with anything other than poultry.

Spiced Squash

from Inn at the Crossroads

Ingredients
a squash (I used butternut)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice (I skipped this because we didn't have any)

Equipment
sauce pan, stove, baking sheet, oven

Instructions
Cut up the squash into approximately 1" pieces. Preheat the oven to 375F. Heat the maple syrup in a pan with the spices for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly (do not let it boil). Remove it from the heat. Arrange your squash pieces on a baking sheet (I highly recommend lining it with foil first). Pour the sauce over the squash, coating the pieces as evenly as possible. Bake until tender, about 20 minutes. If you managed to reserve any sauce, heat it in the last few minutes and pour it over the squash when you take it out of the oven.

Yields
Two fairly big butternut squashes fed me and five friends, and the sauce was just the right amount.

Total time
This only took about half an hour, with Birk cutting up the squash while I worked on the sauce for the chicken.

Cleanup rating 2/5
Not bad, but you are heating maple syrup in a pan. I'd recommend using all the sauce on the squash to begin with, and cleaning the pan immediately, while the squash is in the oven. And if you follow my advice about lining the baking sheet with foil, it'll make it 10x better.

Difficulty rating 3/10
I learned that butternut squash is pretty tough to cut; it's kind of like a sweet potato. Beyond that, this is a very simple recipe... it's like a sweet version of my potatoes!

Flavor rating 7/10
I don't eat a lot of squash, but maybe I should start. This was really good. It's excellent for fall weather! I think I might mount an effort to get squash everywhere instead of pumpkin. (Nothing against pumpkin, I'm just not a big fan of it in everything... just pie, really.)

Adjustability: low
There are only so many spices that would go well on a squash, and there are only so many types of squash, and that's all you could really change, because that's all you're using.

Make it with...
Of course, I made it with the honeyed chicken, which was an amazing combination. But I think you could make it with anything that you consider a fall or winter meal. It's a side dish that plays well with others. And it's an excellent and easy vegan dish if you have guests with dietary considerations at the holidays. (It's also gluten-free unless you have a really weird maple syrup.)

Gluten-Free Chocolate Cookies

These are the cookies I made for my stepmom! She's gluten-free, and she loves chocolate, so I jumped on this recipe when I found it.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter (softened)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

Equipment

oven, baking sheets, parchment paper, cooling racks, mixer

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Add egg and vanilla; mix thoroughly. Combine baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder, and mix into wet batter (be careful not to make chocolate clouds that choke you). Stir in the chocolate and butterscotch chips. They will expand while baking, so give them some room on the parchment-lined baking sheet (about 1-1.5" should do). Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Yields

I got about 15 cookies out of it, but they were pretty big cookies.

Total time

A little under 30 minutes.

Cleanup rating 3/5

Chocolate everywhere. Delicious batter that I know I shouldn't lick off the spoon and beaters and bowl because it has raw egg, but yummy anyway. Definitely an instance of "clean immediately or regret it."

Difficulty rating 5/10

Not hard, but there is skill and patience required when baking cookies. Mixing, measuring carefully, fully incorporating ingredients... it might help to know that I use a hand mixer, so it's a tiny bit trickier than using a stand mixer.

Flavor rating 3/10

Disappointment. I hope my stepmom liked them more than I did. They are INCREDIBLY sweet. And I have an insane sweet tooth... but this is ridiculous. I washed down a bite with some Coke and it made the Coke taste bland like water. Still, though... chocolate. So it's not like a 1 or 2.

Additional note: The original recipe called for white chocolate chips instead of butterscotch ones, and mentioned that you can also add 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (which I had, leftover from Mom's walnut butter balls, but I was fairly certain that my stepmom and I agree that nuts are great but they don't belong in our baked goods).

White Wine Sauce

Congratulations, reader! You're reading my first post with a total flop!

Well, it was still edible. But it wasn't very good. I didn't even bother taking a picture of it.

I made this sauce to put on chicken that I lightly breaded in Parmesan, garlic powder, and paprika, and sauteed in a pan with some olive oil.

White Wine Sauce

Ingredients
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp flour
1.5 cups white wine (I used pinot grigio)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Equipment
saucepan, stove

Instructions
Melt butter on low in saucepan. Add flour and salt; stir constantly for about 2 minutes. Add wine; stir and cook for about 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat and add Parmesan, stirring until it's all melted.

Yields
about 1.5 cups of sauce

Total time
about 10 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/5
I actually haven't cleaned it yet but it won't be hard. Just don't let it sit. That would get pretty gross.

Difficulty rating 3/10
It isn't particularly hard, but you need to babysit it because of all the stirring. You can't do much else for those 10 minutes.

Flavor rating 3/10
The real problem, I think, is that the cheese didn't really melt. I know, I know; I should have used fresh Parmesan. Or at least shaved, not that crumbly stuff. But it didn't really melt, so it didn't really incorporate, so the sauce didn't really get thick. Birk suggested more flour or some cornstarch or something, which would probably help. (The problem is, my timing was otherwise perfect, so I didn't have the patience to wait to fix the sauce and let everything else get cold.)

So, it isn't impossible... my suggestions for fixing it would be:
- Use better Parmesan, or perhaps even a different cheese that melts more easily.
- Give yourself a few minutes to fix it with cornstarch if you need to (you can leave it on very low heat if you need to keep it warm while everything else finishes up).
- Maybe less wine in the ratio of wine to cheese, too. It was very... winy.