Our new home appliance

A kegerator & a freezer....but more importantly a kegerator.

We popped the cherry with a quarter barrel of Sprecher Pub Brown Ale (homebrewed summer ale in the bottles).

Yes, they do make good beer here in Milwaukee.

 Soon it will be dispensing our homebrew.

Cheers!

We are now homebrewers!

I know what you are thinking...Beer?! Homebrewed BEER?! Not wine?!
Well, as you have read, we have been enjoying some great micro-brews lately & since it has been summer, the grape has taken a back seat the grain.  Another reason is that I am extremely impatient & beer is ready in 6 weeks as opposed to 6 months.

We have brewed four batches of homebrew so far since May & all have turned out fantastic.  We are drinking a Summer Ale we brewed with orange peel, corriander & grains of paradise that is drinking great right now, before that it was a brown ale & then a bock before that.  This past weekend we brewed a holiday ale that should be ready for Thanksgiving.

If you are curious as to the goings on in our makeshift brewery (our kitchen/closet/basement) here is a quick visual guide.

 

Ingredients.

 

Grains steeping. 

 

Wort Boiling (after hops & malt extract added).

 

After wort has boiled it is cooled & placed in 6.5 gal carboy for about a week.

 

After a day or so krausen forms & fermentation becomes violent.

 

After primary fermentation stops the beer is then racked for clarity into another, smaller carboy.

 

Our (blury) brewery on racking day.

 

Once in secondary the beer ages for at least 2 more weeks.

 

After 2 weeks or so in secondary it is time to bottle.  The bottles are primed with a little bit of sugar to induce another round of fermentation that will cause carbonation. After 3 weeks the homebrew is ready to enjoy.

PROST!

                                        

What have we been up too?

Howdy.

Long time no blog. Let me fill everyone it. We are still living & loving Milwaukee.
So yeah Milwaukee. Brew City.
Been drinking lots of beer.
Some of our favorites from Wisconsin...
Anything by Furthermore. Especially their Three Feet Deep their peat smoked stou.
New Glarus has some great offerings.
Lakefront Brewery is our neighborhood brewery & they make some damn fine beer & do a helluva Friday Fish Fry.

We have also fallen in love with a couple of local wine merchants where we quickly got on a first name basis with everyone. We are a couple of lushes I tell ya.

Waterford Wine Company is our main stop for vino & is just right down the street from us on lovely Brady Street.

Also we frequent these crazy Californians chasing their wine dreams in Milwaukee, of all places, at Thief a wine bar & shop in the Milwaukee Public Market. Phil & Aimee left their wine careers in Cali to open this place & let me say their passion for the juice is infectious & we are glad they packed up & moved to the Midwest not long after we did.

There really is a ton of food & wine stuff in this city to blog about.

We have been doing great & part of the reason you haven't heard from us is we are super busy & chasing our dream of living off the grid (not conducive to blogging). We haven't had a TV in over 3 years (funny since I work in the business) & we gave Time Warner a big F.U. & canceled Road Runner. Which brings me to where I am right now....The Garage, a bar/restaurant right around the corner from Chez CoLa, where I am enjoying a litre of Summit Winter Ale from St. Paul Minnesota.

So, yeah. We are embracing this Midwestern thing.

Aside from the whole food & drink thing we been doing lots. Skiing (cross country & downhill), playing with Jack & Roxi, trying to stay warm, shoveling snow, sewing, reading lots, & well....drinking & eating....LOTS.

We will be in from time to time. So keep checking back.

Prost!

Portable wine

Collin got bota bags for backpacking. If there ever was a doubt that these are the superior vessel for porting wine, that doubt must be erased immediately. I am hooked on mine. Be forewarned though, big heavy wines suffocate and fester (I know, so dramatic) , so it's better to go the light route.

Wherein La C. takes the plunge

After over two years of pretty unhealthy eating, over indulgence and low exercise, I have received the official bill of health from my doc. At 26 years old, La C. has been diagnosed with high cholesterol.

Now I knew I was out of shape, and I knew I was eating too much fat but I didn't figure it had gotten this bad. So I've been reflecting on some things. I'm out of balance, mentally and physically. I have been in balance before, and it's nice, real nice. And I miss it. So I am going to get it back. How you ask? Don't laugh. Macrobiotics. Now I'm no nut. I'm also not really good at handling rigidity, it brings out my phobia of commitment that connects directly to my phobia of failure, but you don't need to know all of this about me.

Anyway, I have been doing some reading up on macrobiotics, the philosophy of balance and how to make the food tasty tasty tasty, so expect to see some of that popping up around here. As well, you might get to see some of my struggles as I rid myself of the demons that are sugar, dairy and *gasp* caffiene. Wish me luck.

Veggies to eat before you die: Zucchini Au Gratin

Yes yes yes, veggies to eat before you die is back with a vengeance. This one is a fabulous spin off from a Julia Child recipe. Why a spin off you say? Because as much as I love Julia, I can't take the dairy. Well, I can't take all the dairy. I wish I could.

What you'll need

2 Zucchini no more than 1.5 inches in diameter
1-1.5 cups of onion, sliced
4 tbsp butter
3 tbsp of flour
1/3-1/2 cup of almond milk (you can totally use real milk)
1/2 cup grated cheese. We used three cheeses, Julia suggests swiss.
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper
1/2-1 cup fresh bread crumbs

Preheat your oven to 425ºF.

First grate the Zucchini (food processor or hand grater will work). Then place the zucchini, in batches, in a hand towel and squeeze any excess juice off. Save the juice por favor.

Saute the onions in 2 tbsp of butter. I like to brown my onions slightly, I like the richness it give the dish. Add the zucchini to this mixture and continue to sautee.

In the meantime, melt the remaining two tbsp of butter in a small sauce pan. Stir in flour to make a roux. The darker the roux, the less it will thicken the final sauce, so keep that in mind. I have a hard time telling you how dark to make your roux because it is a total personal preference thing. I let mine get golden. Then stir in the almond milk and let thicken. Salt and pepper to taste (keeping in mind that you will be adding cheese, grate some nutmeg in and ...) Voilá, béchamel.

After this, take your béchamel and stir it in with you zucchini/onion mixture. Thin out to desired consistency with reserved zucchini juice. (If you forget to reserve the juice, which I did, you can thin with water, cream, milk, stock, or almond milk.) Stir in the cheese!

Transfer the entire mixture to a buttered baking dish and top with fresh breadcrumbs. Bake for 20-25 or until it is bubbling up the sides.

This dish is heaven, very rich even without all the called for dairy. Personally I think almond milk is the most fabulous real dairy sub, transferring well from everything to cereal to mashed potatoes to béchamel, so all you non-dairy folks out there give it a try. I actually think this whole dish could be done vegan with a olive oil and flour roux and vegan cheese but, seriously, that's pushing it.

Review: Folk Machine Central Coast Pinot

So I've been reading up on Folk Machine in order to give it an educated write up. I've read that its back story isn't that exotic, that there's no fancy pedigree behind it. Blah Blah Blah. The story of this wine is cool as shit. The winemaker is 31 year old Kenny Likitprakong, owner of Hobo Wine Co., part time skateboarder and snowboarder, with a history of wine making and distillation in his blood. He's got a wine making philosophy, who doesn't? Affordable wines that are crafted for taste, not to match the popular current rating system. The path he took to get to wine making is a little "Billy of Family Circus-esque" which is a definite turn on for me. I need a little "make your own way" inspiration these days. And the wine has a cool label.

But on to the wine. Oh. My. God. Collin said it best when he said "Taste this, you'll be back in Cali sucking on a beef rib in three seconds." Or something like that. Beautiful Central Coast Pinot. Super bright, full of berries. Chewy tannins (I love saying chewy tannins). A very drinkable wine. I do have one slight complaint. On its own, fabulous; With food it turned into a cherry pie. It was a little too much for the food, and the food was a little too much for it. For the money it's definitely worth a try. I wouldn't mind having a few bottles on hand.