“Beers that Taste Like Disappointment.”

“I just assumed you liked beers that taste like disappointment.”

This coming from Angelique. One of my best friends. A person who follows this blog and knows I’ve made something of a hobby of beer. A woman who loves beer, but has been known to ask me a question or two about beer and take my recommendation on beers.

Of course, all bets are off when it comes to pumpkin beers. As far as I can tell, there’s no more polarizing beer style. There’s a lot of love or hate for them, and a lot of opinions on what tastes good and what doesn’t.

Angelique and I both avidly try pumpkin beers and look forward to the season. This year, I have been particularly vocal on Twitter about liking “pumpkin-fruit beers1.”… Continue reading →

Beer is character building. It encourages sharing.

It’s October, which I tend to think of as “PumpkinBeerSeasonHooray!” month. Unfortunately, Pumpkin Beer “season” hit atypically early in Chicago – around August – and I was in no position to go out and sample the breadth of beers I would normally try to sample during pumpkin beer season.

Such is life, and I had hoped that come early October, there would still be a variety (albeit smaller) of pumpkin beers on the shelf. I would get to try maybe three or four new pumpkin beers. It would not be the extravaganza of pumpkin beers I saw in someone I know posted about on Facebook1, but something.

I could not have been more wrong. By the time I got to Binny’s, they had two kinds of pumpkin beer.… Continue reading →

TBWC2C Challenge: Apple-Pumpkin Brown Betty

I’m not quite sure what possessed me to volunteer to be one of the home cooks for Zach and Clay’s Super Awesome Cover to Cover Challenge over at The Bitten Word. I actually almost passed on it. When they first posted it, I could have been somewhere in the first 20 volunteers, I suspect. However, I decided not to, as Bill and I were traveling for most of the cooking time.

When they posted their request for a few more volunteers, I looked at the schedule again. I considered that our vacation rental had a kitchen. And then I said, “Why not?”

Then I got my assignment, an Apple-Pumpkin Brown Betty (APBB). I told Angelique that when I saw the recipe, I was thrilled. You know, in a food hoarder sort of way.… Continue reading →

2011 Thanksgiving photos

In poking around my photos, I finally found a few photos from Thanksgiving. Not many, and there are certain recipes (most of them) that we forgot to photograph. And it’s really a shame in the case of the apple-molasses pie, because that thing looked…

Well…

They called it the “Demon Pie”. So, yeah. Maybe it’s a good thing there’s no photographic evidence of it.

Anyway! On to the photos, with just a little bit of commentary for you as well.

I was astounded when I found my turkey’s neck had been left on. I actually wasn’t quite sure what to do at first. I didn’t want to try to roast it with the turkey, as I thought that might make it gross, but what the heck?… Continue reading →

Bill’s Myriad Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

This isn’t a recipe, as much as a general idea of how to cook something.

A couple of weeks ago we made a tasty Arizona Pumpkin Soup that said it would do well with some toasted pumpkin seeds. We bought a bag (a few cups worth) of raw pumpkin seeds thinking, how hard can it be? Well, not very, though there are a few gotchas.

The three types we made were:

* Olive oil and salt
* Cinnamon and brown sugar

* Spicy!

We used a recipe from Pumpkin Patches and More as to give an idea what temperatures to roast at and whatnot.

This is pretty loose, since it’s not a cookbook recipe, and I didn’t take very good notes (sadness!). But, nevertheless, you’ll get something to work from!… Continue reading →