The Session: The Hard Stuff

I was invited by the amazing Tasha (or, as you may know her on Twitter: @metacookbook) to join in on a monthly Friday beer blogging event called The Session. I love the idea; every month someone in the online beer community is the host and chooses the discussion topic. Tasha is this month's host and her questions are:

1. What do you want people in beer culture to be talking about that we’re not?
2. What do you have to say on the topic(s)?

These topics may seem a little outside of my realm of food recipes, but it's really not. The online beer community is near & dear to my heart and I want to be more involved in it. I also cook with beer quite a bit and hope to do more recipes and pairings with beer in the future (in fact, if you have a suggestion, please send it my way!). With all of that said, let's dive in.

Garlic Basil Beer Bread

I have a little basil plant sitting in my kitchen, begging me to use its leaves every time I walk in the room (so expect a lot of basil posts in the next couple weeks). If you don't know this about me already, I love cooking (especially baking) with beer, because you don't have to add additional yeast and you can just put it right in the oven with no wait time. This recipe makes one loaf of bread and is perfect for a filling snack.

Cheddar & Roasted Garlic Beer Muffins

I love beer, cheese, and garlic. I love muffins. Must I go on? This recipe is based off of a recipe from the amazing Beeroness (I love her blog so much) and makes about ten muffins.

Rosemary, Gruyere & Swiss Beer Muffins

I found this amazing recipe from The Beeroness for cheddar beer bread muffins. I am a huge fan of cheddar, but for these muffins, I decided to change course a bit. I bought the beer first, actually, and decided to choose the herbs and cheese around that. I started with Long Trail Brewing Co.'s Ramble. It's a Kolsch "with a hint of lemon and pepper." This sounded amazing and refreshing to me - especially as I am wishing the winter to go away - and I decided to make a lighter savory muffin, thus settling on rosemary, gruyere, and swiss. This recipe makes 10 muffins.

Me vs Myself: A Mac & Cheese Competition

My awesome friend hosted a get-together at her house this weekend, where she hosted a rib competition and a mac & cheese competition. It was going to be my partner & me competing against each other for the mac & cheese competition, but I ended up making both of our recipes for the competition, so it was literally a win-win for me. I made two delectable recipes: a truffle cheddar mac and a beer & gruyere mac (yes, I did choose the ingredients based on the fact that they rhymed). The beer & gruyere won the competition, but I'll let you choose what you think is the tastiest! I hope you enjoy.

Leftovers Club: Chocolate Stout Brownies

Beer & brownies are two of my favorite things, but I know I probably shouldn't eat an entire batch of brownies (which is what will inevitably happen). Thank goodness for The Leftovers Club! This month, I'm paired with Ruthy of Omeletta (seriously, go look at her blog; everything looks delicious!). I hope she enjoys the rest of these fluffy, chocolatey hint-of-beer treats. This recipe is loosely based off of an amazing one from the Craft Beer blog and makes one pan on brownies.

St. Paddy's Day: Cheddar Ale Potato Soup

To follow up the delicious Irish soda bread recipe I posted earlier today, here is an amazing cheddar ale potato soup to pair along with it (and trust me, I did). I hope that you all had a happy St. Paddy's Day & enjoy the soup! This recipe is an altered version of this one and makes about six servings.

Beer Mac & Cheese

Some days, all I want to do is eat mac & cheese. And by that, I mean, every single day. I'm always looking for new mac & cheese recipes, so if you have a good one, send it through. Today, I am presenting my two favorite things in one recipe: beer and mac & cheese. I found the recipe on Pinterest and it linked back to this website. Enjoy.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes

Pair with: beer, of course! I used New Belgium's Fat Tire for the recipe, so it seemed fitting to drink that.








Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of Trotolle noodles -- You can use any noodles that you prefer, these ones just looked so fun to me! 
Two (2) tablespoons of butter
Two (2) tablespoons of flour
Eight (8) ounces milk -- I used almond milk, because it is what I had on hand. It worked well, but for those of you who are weary about it, I recommend regular cow's milk
Eight (8) ounces of beer -- Like I said, I used Fat Tire amber ale
Eight (8) ounces of cheddar cheese, shredded
Four (4) ounces of smoked gouda cheese, shredded
1/4 teaspoon of smoked paprika
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
Seven (7) basil leaves, chopped for garnish
Black pepper, for seasoning

Directions
Preheat oven to 375F degrees.
Cook pasta as directed on the box, leaving it al dente, as it will cook more in the oven later.

While pasta is cooking, melt butter in pan on medium heat.
Once the butter is melted, whisk in flour and cook until it is a golden color (about 2 minutes).
Add beer and milk into the pan, continuously stirring. Then, add the cheese.
Continue to stir on a lower heat setting for about five minutes.
Add the paprika and pepper to the sauce.
Once the noodles are done, add the noodles and sauce to a casserole dish.
Top with panko bread crumbs and cook for 30 minutes.
When it is done, top with fresh basil and let cool.
Enjoy!

Tip
To chop fresh basil in the most efficient way, stack the leaves, roll them up and slice the roll. When you unfurl it, the basil will be in neat strips.

Honey-Beer Bread

Honey. Beer. Bread. Enough said, right?

Ingredients
Three (3) cups of all-purpose flour
Two (2) tablespoons of sugar
One (1) tablespoon of baking powder
One (1) teaspoon of salt
Two (2) tablespoons of honey -- I warmed the honey so it would mix easier
One (1) bottle (12 oz.) beer -- I used Heavy Seas Classic Lager
Four (4) tablespoons of melted butter -- I used vegan butter

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F degrees.
Whisk together all dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder & salt).
Slowly pour in honey and beer & continue mixing -- You may want to use a spoon for this, as the dough will start getting thicker.
Pour half of the melted butter into the bottom of your greased loaf pan.
Spoon your dough into the pan & cover with rest of the butter -- You can use a pastry brush for this if you so desire.
Bake for 50-60 minutes.
Let cool & serve.