I love sitting outside with the sun on my face, a cold beer in my hand, a balmy breeze blowing the meat scented grill smoke my way. Should be a cologne that smells like grilling meat.

Unfortunately lately it has been raining like crazy and the wind has been fierce and our dinner time has been suffered back to the oven.

Which sometimes, isn’t a bad thing. Take these Peach Lambic Pork Chops for instance. We were able to pull out some of our peach preserves from last summer. So at least dinner can TASTE like summer!

I wish I had more to say but the sun just came out and even though it is only 50° out I put on a jacket, and a glove for my beer hand and try and enjoy some sunshine before it hides behind more clouds…

Crap. Too late.

Peach Lambic Pork Chops

• 4 bone in thick-cut porkchops
• salt & pepper
• flour
• 2 T canola oil
• 2 T butter
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 2 jalapenos, finely diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1 12 oz bottle peach lambic
• 1 cup peach preserves

Preheat oven to 400°.

Salt & pepper the pork chops and dust with flour.

In a large pan over medium/high heat mix butter and oil till butter is melted. Brown the pork chops on both sides. Remove and set aside.

Add in the onions & jalapenos and saute till translucent and golden. Add the garlic and cook an additional 5 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the peach lambic and cook till reduced by ⅓.

Add in 1 cup of peach preserves. Mix well.

Add pork chops back into pan and place in oven. Bake till done, about 20 minutes or until internal temperature of the chops has reached 160 degrees

Plate the chops and bring the sauce to a boil stove top. Boil for 5 minutes till thickened, and pour over chops.

p.s. Not pictured, but I just LOVE this with brown rice. The sauce with that nutty goodness is serious manna.

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This is simple, but word of warning. Patience is a must. Just like the bacon, you need to forget this Bock Beer Brined Corned Beef is in the fridge turning into a slab of McAwesomeness and just go about your days till enough time has passed. (7-10 days*.)

Go get yourself an 8-10 pound Beef Brisket. (Just feed your friends or eat it ALL WEEK LONG OMG!)

Brine:
2 quarts of water
2 bock beers
1 cup salt
1 Tablespoon pink salt**
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 head garlic, smashed
4 cups of ice.

Pickling spice:
1 Tablespoon peppercorns
1 Tablespoon all spice berries
1/2 Tablespoon juniper berries
1/2 Tablespoon mustard seed
1/2 Tablespoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
4 bay leaves
1 Tablespoon red pepper flakes (Reduce by half if you would like it less spicy, but really, why???)

*Not a necessity, but imparts flavor and helps create that pink hue corned beef has. With out it the corned beef will be greyish in color and have a different texture. So really, yeah it IS kinda a necessity.)

In a heavy bottomed pot, bring the water to a boil.

Add the salts and sugar and stir till dissolved. Remove from heat.

Add the beer and stir well.

Let cool completely.

Mix all of the pickling spices together.

In a large 2 gallon bag add the brisket, the smashed garlic, 3 tablespoons of the pickling spice mix (reserve the rest for cooking), and cover with the brine.

Add 4 cups of ice and seal the bag, pressing out as much air as possible. Place in a large flat container and make sure the brisket is completely covered with the brine.

Over the next week flip the brisket daily and always make sure the brisket is covered completely by the brine. **So unfortunately you really need to think about the brisket every single damn day for proper corning. But after you flip it and make sure it is still fully submerged, forget about it again.

On day of cooking, remove the brisket from the bag and rinse off all of the spices and brine.

Place in a heavy bottomed pot and cover with water by at least an inch. Add the remaining pickling spices to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer and cook for 3-5 hours (check hourly) till the corned beef is fork tender.

We made this for a party we had and before I had the chance to even snap the photo IT WAS GONE! We had to make it again. Which is how we learned that it isn’t just a St. Patrick’s Day thing, but a thing of tasty whenever the mood hits. Well 7-10 days after the mood hits.

By the way if you are looking for a super McYummy dessert to serve for St. Patrick’s day check out our Milk Stout Cupcakes. Serious skivvy droppers. Yes I just said that…

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This idea was kinda based on another recipe we recently created for The Great American Spice Company. A how-to on curing and smoking your own bacon.  However, when I bought the pork belly for curing, I ended up buying a little to much (I know there no such thing as too much pork belly but you try and cram 5# of belly into a curing container designed to only fit 3#).

After much debate we decided to just do two separate batches.  One was supposed to be sweet and one more peppery. So we opened up a beer (or 3), relaxed and debated just what did we want the sweeter bacon of the two to taste like? It hit us like a stray bottlecap. There has to be a way to get beer into the bacon! Honestly, is there a better thought than having bacon and beer at the same time?

A quick trip to the back room to stare at what bottles we had readily available proved to be successful.  Which is a good thing because Indiana does not allow liquor sales on Sunday and nothing sucks more than to have to wait a day to start experimenting and delay curing.

After even more beer debate we decided on the tripel (should have just looked in our hands at the damn beer we were drinking instead of reading damn labels and debating because we went with the same damn beer. Damn.) For those who are unaware, Tripels are awesome. They are a Belgian strong ale style of beer that has a lot of good spice and fruitiness to it, which plays very well with pork, along with many other types of meat.

Disclaimer: This recipe requires the use of curing salt #1 or pink salt which is salt and a 6.25% solution of sodium nitrate.  There are some people who will tell you sodium nitrate is evil and the devil. The evil evil devil. (Heather is laughing and making devil horns at me right now…) I have no problem with sodium nitrate in fact I strongly believe bacon is not bacon without it. If you do not believe me buy uncured or nitrate free bacon. While you attempt to choke it down you will quickly realize it lacks that awesome bacon taste and more importantly that sexy pink look.  That is what sodium nitrate brings to the table.  Anyways back on track to the disclaimer… curing salt #1 should only be used for curing NOT for eating, and in fact we do not keep it (or any curing supplies) in the kitchen but rather stashed away in the backroom so none of the curing salts accidentally end up sprinkled over fries. (For more facts and debunked myths about Sodium Nitrate check out this link, this link and this link.)

As far as buying it any reputable spice store will carry it along with curing salt #2.  Curing salt #1 and #2 are not interchangeable so make sure to get curing salt #1 (remember look at the label and you should only see salt and 6.25% sodium nitrate).  If you ask the helpful person behind the counter for pink salt and they hand you Himalayan pink salt stare at them blankly and tell them you want the good pink salt, because you are making bacon! Beer cured bacon!

For this recipe you will need:

• Up to 5 lb of pork belly
• 750ml of a good Tripel beer (we used Boulevard Long Strange Tripel)
• 1 quart of water
• 1/2 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 tablespoons pink salt

Steps to success:

• Bring the water to a boil.
• Add in the kosher salt and brown sugar and stir until dissolved.
• One dissolved remove from heat and let it cool back to room temperature (if you want to cheat shove it in the refrigerator for a couple hours).
• Once cool add in the rest of the ingredients with the exception of the pork butt and stir to combine.
• Take a 1-2 gallon Ziploc bag, put the pork butt in that, and pour the liquid mixture over top.
• Make sure the pork butt stays submerged and shove in the fridge for a week. Check every couple of days to make sure it stays submerged.
• After a week remove, rinse the pork butt off under cool water, toss, the curing liquid, and pat dry.

Now comes the fun part of deciding how you want to cook the bacon and there are three options on the table (oven, hot smoke, or cold smoke).

For those of you who are not blessed with a smoker all you have to do is shove in a 200 degree suspended off the bottom of the pan until 155 internal.  A roasting pan works perfectly or just put it on a cooling rack suspended over a pan/baking sheet.  It will take about 1.5 hours per lb.

Got a smoker?  Even better!  Run your smoker about 200-215 until 155 internal.  Expect 1.5 hours per lb.

Personally my favorite method is cold smoking because nothing freaks people out more than meat sitting on a smoker and the smoker is not above 100 degrees.  Oh crap the lawyers wanted this disclaimer added in too. If you are planning on cold smoking you MUST MUST MUST use curing salt #1/pink salt.  Besides giving bacon that awesome bacon taste, pink salt inhibits botulism that could form when meat is relaxing in the danger zone (40-140 degrees).  Cold smoking spends its life in the danger zone so unless you want to serve your guests botulism infested bacon either hot smoke or make sure you use pink salt for the cure.

One of the best reasons I love cold smoking is because most smokers are not designed to run that low or else the smoker will go out.  This means you really have to either MacGyver it up and put your meat in another grill and run dryer vent from the smoke stack into that grill or cheat (some awesome and easy setups can be found here) or buy a cold smoke injector.  I really like the Amaz-e-n tube or pellet tray for the price.  If you find yourself doing a lot of cold smoking there are more expensive models that I have never used but people swear by such as the Smoke Daddy.

I prefer to hot or cold smoke bacon with fruit wood like apple or cherry but hickory works great.  If I am using fruit wood I normally cold smoke for seven hours and hickory I will cold smoke for six hours.  After the time I will slice off a piece and fry it up.  If I feel it needs more smoke then throw it back on for another hour and test it again by frying up a slice.

Sit back and make yourself a BBLT and enjoy life with the biggest smile on your face.

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Oh how I wish I had the metabolism of 9 year old Heather. Actually I might still have it if I ran around in circles the way I used to back then.

Beer. It makes you want to sit, sip and enjoy. And it has become my (our) favorite sport.

But I digress, today is Fat Tuesday and I love everything about it. Even tho I do not give up anything for lent, a day when you are encouraged to over indulge is definitely a day for me.

Last year Jeff took me to NOLA and in between the ghost tours, cemetery trips, live music, swamp boat rides and walking 25 miles a day we ate and ate and drank and ate and drank some more. And for breakfast my favorite delight was the (few hundred or so odd) beignet and café au lait from Cafe Du Monde.

Every culture has their version of the pre-lent treat. My favorite will always be the Paczki, but the beignet now holds a special place in my heart. Mostly because I left some of my heart in NOLA.

This is an easy but time consuming recipe for my favorite NOLA treat. This time I went and Kicked it up a notch (small nod to one of our favs Emeril Lagassee) with a farmhouse ale, which thanks to the overnight stint in the fridge, really shines through these farmhouse ale beer beignets.

Farmhouse Ale Beer Beignets
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm farm house beer (we used Tank 7 by Boulevard)
1 Tablespoon + 1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 to 3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
2 Tablespoons coconut oil

oil for deep frying
confectioners’ (powdered) sugar for dusting

Instructions:

In a large bowl or the bowl of your mixer, add the yeast, 1 T white sugar and the warm beer and stir until thoroughly dissolved.Let sit for 10-15 minutes to proof.

Add the hook attachment to your mixer (if you have one. I hope you have one. If not get those hands working!) Now add the rest of the sugar, salt, the egg and the buttermilk. (Evaporated milk would work here too. I just got finished making butter so I wanted to use up the left over buttermilk.)

Add the nutmeg to the flour and slowly add half the flour mixture and mix till smooth and thoroughly blended.

Kick up the mixer to medium and add in the coconut oil. Once the coconut oil is beat in, add the rest of the flour slowly till you have an elastic warm dough.

Add to a well greased bowl, toss around to make sure the dough is oiled as well, cover with plastic wrap and let sit in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day remove the dough from the refrigerator and let come to room temperature.

Roll out the dough out onto a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 1/4 inch, then cut it into squares, rectangles, trapezoids, whatever your heart desires. Oooh hearts too!!

Heat the oil in a deep fryer or deep pot to 360 degrees F.

Fry in small batches so that they do not over-crowd each other until they are puffy and golden brown on both sides. Maybe 2 or 3 minutes. Flip them once or twice while frying to make sure they are evenly golden.

Drain on a rack lined with paper towels.

Keep warm till ready to serve in a 200° oven.

Sprinkle (or drown) in powdered sugar and serve warm.

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Wait I am getting ahead of myself so let us back up… One day Heather and I were trying to figure out what in the freak we want to make.  Part of that process involves how many different projects can we incorporate in one dish because we are freaking lazy.  Well in the haste of throwing out ideas such as beef stew, chicken marinade, etc. etc. etc. I just blurted out how about some sort of freaking side dish.  At that moment we both realized holy crap we have all these awesome meat centric main dishes involving beer but the poor side dishes have been neglected. So there you have it. Feel free to thank me for these awesome beer battered onion rings.

As far as new and exciting in our life that is a big flat nothing. It is Indiana winter which means we are holed up in a house finding ourselves watching reruns of TV shows we have already seen at least five times. We have been going bananas on the smoker though since it is a pellet and dial a knob for heat is awesome.

Back to the onions. The beer for dish can be damn near any beer you like. The flavor is definitely going to come through so please make sure it is actually a beer you enjoy. We grabbed an Irish Red because there was a lonely bottle sitting in the back room. But a strong ale, especially this time of year, is an awesome idea.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

You will need:

• 1-2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 12 ounce beer
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• Couple onions sliced in 1/2 inch sections and separated.

Steps to success:

• Start with a cup of flour and combine the beer, paprika, garlic powder, and cayenne.
• Mix together and keep adding flour in 1/4 cup increments until you get the consistency of pancake batter.
• Dust the onion slices with flour and shake off the excess.
• Bring your favorite frying oil up to 375 degrees.  Little trick that never ceases to amaze Heather is if you lack a thermometer throw an unpopped popcorn kernel in the cold oil.  When it pops the oil is about 360 and you have a tiny snack.
• When the oil is up to temperature dip the onion slices in the batter and add to the oil.  Do a couple at a time so you are not crowding the pot.
• It should take 1-2 minutes a side until they are nice and golden brown.
• Remove from oil  and put on a plate lined with paper towels, hit them with a little salt, and pat dry.  If you have a lot to do then after they have been patted dry shove them in a 190 degree oven until you are done.  Personally we just devoured them as they came out of the oil.

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