food: chicken & fennel stew
07 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in food & cooking, paleo, wheat free Tags: beer, chicken, coconut, gluten free, paleo, recipes, whats for dinner, wheat free
i’m getting great mileage out of the primal blueprint cookbook.
i must say, their recipes are really good.
when i initially bought it and flipped through, this chicken & fennel stew jumped out at me.
it’s not that different from dishes we usually make… chicken thigh in some sort of vegetable heavy sauce is a pretty normal meal for my husband & me, so this was definitely nothing out of our comfort zone…
nope, it was just pure comfort food. (see what i did there? i know, mad writing skills)
anyways, as usual… this recipe met all my criteria for making it.
ingredients i liked, pretty healthy… and stuff that i had on hand. mostly.
it was also filled with green loveliness.
so here’s the ingredients:
- 8 chicken thighs
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 1 small fennel bulb, chopped (i used 1/2 a large)
- 1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed (called for 2, but i like garlic)
- 1 tsp fennel seed, crushed
- 1/2 tsp saffron
- 2 cups beer or chicken broth (i used beer – harp)
- 1/2 cup coconut milk or heavy cream (i used coconut milk)
- 2 cups kale, chopped
- 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley chopped
additions – i added some chili flake and a pinch of salt, since i used beer instead of chicken stock. and black pepper. also i had a leek end, so i threw that in too with the vegetables.
first off, brown the chicken thighs on both sides and remove from pan.
then saute the fennel, onion & mushrooms in the chicken fat. add a little oil if needed (i use coconut oil).
when they’re getting soft, add beer to pan and bring to a boil.
add saffron and spices.
add the chicken thighs back into the pan, put the lid on and left cook for 25 minutes or so.
when the chicken is cooked through, remove from pan.
at this point, i put mine on a rack in the oven for a few minutes to crisp the skin back up.
this totally optional but lets face it, no one likes soggy skin.
remove the pan from the heat.
stir in kale, parsley and coconut milk or cream.
and serve…
once again, can i mention how much i love my ipad for cooking?
the cover that doubles as a stand is the best idea ever.
beer: winter ale (love letters to granville island)
04 Nov 2011 2 Comments
in booze & other drinkables, vancouver Tags: beer, vancouver
truth be told, i’m not much of a winter girl.
i’m a sun lover and i hate being cold… and in a lot of places winter = sun, but not in vancouver… it usually means grey weather. now, grey weather i can dig when it’s not freezing, but combine the two and i’m fucking out.
which is why i’m spending 15 nights in hawaii in december. i like to call it “the great winter escape!”
one of the things that i really do love about winter is the seasonal return of winter ales.
in particular, this one:
granville island’s lions winter ale is the first one i had ever tried and still remains my absolute favourite.
now, if i may back up… i have a long and healthy relationship with granville island beers. i have been drinking them faithfully and at times exclusively for about 10 years now. they have never done me wrong.
and my personal palate leans me towards full flavoured beers on the darker scale, and GI definitely had my back there.
i first fell in love with their pale ale. it was rich and not hoppy like a lot of pale ales and oh-so easy to drink. believe me, i tried to stop (no i didn’t) but it’s just too tasty to resist. and it was local & independent (at the time), so wins all around.
then they wowed me further when they introduced their kitsalano maple cream ale. oh the maple cream… i honestly do not have the capacity to count the number of bottles of this beer that i drank over a solid 5 year period. this was my absolute go-to beer. rain or shine, this one went with everything. and i know, because i tried to pair it with everything. and it all worked.
i would say that this beer was a signature item in my fridge. i always, and i mean ALWAYS had at least a 6 pack on hand… usually more. one time i had a keg of it on my balcony, lol.
now, around this time, the robson hefeweizen came out for the summer. and it was a delight. i remember when my work teamed up with GI to promote it and i spent an entire summer drinking this for free at various bars with rock stars… ah, good times.
and my beer soaked memory fails me, but i believe it was the same year that the hef was introduced, the winter came out in the fall. and wow. if i thought i had swooned before, it was nothing to my mad lust for this beer.
and at first, it was hard to find… certain liquor stores would carry it and when i’d see it, i’d buy all of it. no jokes, like 6 or more 6-packs at a time. i was obsessed. when i found out it was to be a seasonal release, i started hording.
then bars started to carry it. the first place i recall was the cambie… and they served up super cheap ($8 was it?) pitchers of it on mondays. -as a sidebar, drinking draft at the cambie is a terrible idea, but that’s a whole other blog-
there was something about the vanilla symphony in my mouth hole that made my taste buds sing. it was like they had taken my favourite beer -the maple cream- and turned up the volume on it. it was darker, heavier, more flavourful, but still had the qualities that made me fall in love with the maple in the first place.
now this beer… well, to me, it pairs perfectly with winter nights… hockey games, fireplaces, couch forts, movies… you know… all those things that you want to do with your winter. stay indoors.
but i’ve also roadtrip’d this beer and found that it also pairs well with playing in the snow and outdoor ice rinks. and hot tubs in whistler. in short, it’s the booze soundtrack to cold weather.
winter beers are pretty common nowadays… most of the indie breweries make one, and even some of the larger breweries… and i’ve tried a number that i’ve enjoyed, but none that i love like the granville island lions winter ale.
it’s like it’s set the gold standard for my tastebuds and everything else is just a weak imposter in my mouth.
the winter showed up a few weeks ago in liquor stores and my fridge is fully stocked. in fact, i’ve already gone through 4 6-packs of it. *note – they now sell it in cans – don’t do it. it’s best out of the bottle, no glass required*
and last weekend we had a guest over in the form of captain charles and i gave him his very first GI winter ale.
he opened it, smelled it, looked up at me with amazement and said “WOW, this smells incredible” and took his first sip and just smiled. and that’s how you know a beer is good.
…and now i’m going to drink one, because it’s my day off dammit and it’s all i can think of…
pumpkin beer tasting
05 Oct 2011 1 Comment
in adventures with moonbeam bouvier, booze & other drinkables Tags: beer, booze, seasonal beer, vancouver
hey. do you know what’s *awesome*?
PUMPKIN BEER!
when done correctly.
a disappointing pumpkin beer can be a downright disgusting experience.
so, in order to save you from the aches & pains of sub-par beers, moonbeam and i took one for the team and tried all the pumpkin beers that we could get our hands on. (and by *we*, i mean her. because i’m more of an ideas drinking girl)
so, here was our final collection on friday night…
beautiful, isn’t it?
now, it came to our attention later that those whores at phillips also make a pumpkin beer, but we could not find it. and since pretty much everything phillips brews is like unicorn cum in your mouth (that’s good, i think), i can only imagine it’s a pretty magical experience.
sorry. back to business.
we decided to start with the st ambroise – the great pumpkin ale. it was… pretty freaking great. nice amount of spice to it and a decently strong pumpkin flavour. this beer doesn’t fare so well on beer advocate, but we quite liked it. and just to be sure, we drank 2 bottles. i enjoyed that it was a little more cinnamon & ginger and a little less clove. the clove thing is so hit or miss with pumpkin beers. too much and it’s just gross, but you have to have it in there.
next up was the granville island – pumpkin beer. no clever witty names, just a straight up beer. now, i am a huge fan of GI, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. the pumpkin flavours were weak at best to me, in fact, if you gave me this beer blindfolded and asked me to describe it, i definitely would not use the word pumpkin. but it was a tasty little beer and i enjoyed it overall… but not pumpkiny. i got earthy, a little spice… and… GI beer. not so much on the pumpkin.
number 3 was fernie brewery – pumpkin head brown ale. tasty, definitely… and i love a brown ale, so i was excited about this. it was a delight, but again, not heavy on the pumpkin taste. it did have a nice mouth feel and went down really quickly. i would buy it again.
last but not least was the howe sound – pumpkineater. the thing i like most about this beer? the size. and the swing top bottle. because sometimes you don’t drink it all at once. or so i’ve heard… weird, i know. anyways, this beer was also on the darker side, which again, works for me. it’s also billed as a “strong beer” so it’s around the 8% alcohol mark. we found this one to have a nice spice & pumpkin flavour and for a strong beer, it was nice and smooth.
at this point the “notes” kind of start to slide… it’s hard to remember what the first beer tasted like… but we’re pretty sure we liked it best. so we had to drink the last 2 bottles of it to be sure.
and we were. the st ambroise won for us.
