May the Road Rise to Meet you…

May the road rise to meet you, may the sun always be at your back, may you always have a Milk Stout Cupcake, especially during a leprechaun attack.

Slainte’!

Which is Gaelic for “sure has been a long time since I have posted anything at all because even tho I have a plethora of back-logged goodies to share with you the burn out was pretty bad but hope you are well!” Or something to that effect.

I already explained my lack of desire and general malaise in posting as of late. And there have been a few times I thought Hell YEAH! I am ready – I am back. But every time I would start, I would stop, frustrated and pissed off at food and foodies in general. I feel no further explanation is necessary. I know that most of you are probably nodding your heads in agreement. It happens. We didn’t stop cooking, or eating, or drinking, partying, enjoying, laughing and living. Honestly, I think that was what I needed. What we needed.

I can’t come back however, without something special and sinful and crazy and full of awesome and CHOCOLATE and BOOOOOOZZE!

So an Irish blessing for you. (No I am NOT Irish, but I am a Chicago girl, and in some mystical way, that means I am Irish by association.) “May those who love us, love us; & those who don’t, may God turn their hearts; & if He can’t turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we’ll know them by their limping.”

And with out further ado:

New Holland Dragon’s Milk Milk Stout Cupcakes with Frangelico & Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting.

Milk Stout Cupcakes

Let’s start with the secret cupcake ingredients:

3/4 c of butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1 bottle milk stout
1 1/4 c 60% bitter sweet cacao chocolate chips ( I used Ghirardelli because I could…)
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
3/4 c cake flour
1 c sugar
2/3 brown sugar
1/2 t salt
2 t baking soda
1 c yogurt
2 eggs

The difficult steps to awesomeness…

Preheat oven to 350°

Melt butter over low heat, taking care not to burn. Pour in the bottle of milk stout, blend well. Add in the chocolate chips, stir till melted. Remove from heat and let cool.

In the bowl of your kitchen aid or mixing bowl, combine flours, sugars, baking soda and salt.

In another bowl combine the yogurt and eggs.

With your kitchen aid on low, add the yogurt and eggs to the flour until blended. Pour in the cooled chocolate stout syrup and mix till well incorporated.

Pour into prepared cupcake pan (cupcake papers work rather well with these, no spraying needed) and bake for 18-22 minutes. Let cool for a couple of minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

Let cupcakes cool completely before you frost with:

Super Incredible Awesome Frangelico Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting of INSANITY!

8 oz cream cheese, softened
2/3 c powdered sugar
3 T Frangelico
3 T Nutella
1/4 c heavy whipping cream

Blend everything together super well. I mean whip the shit out of it. It will get all fluffy and airy and perfect.

Refrigerate for 1 hr.

Pipe onto cupcakes.

Hide in spare bedroom and eat every last effin’ one.

Leave comments of gratitude and homage that I am BACK and rocking your taste-buds.

Cooked up by Heather ~ 12 Comments

Blue cheese violated meatballs with buffalo sauce

So where oh where did we go?  Let us just call it a place called burnoutville.  Between holidays, other obligations, beer, more obligations, general disdain for discussions about SEO over why we got into blogging which is FOOD!!!!!!  Not saying I would not like to make it rich and relax on a private island for the rest of my life but we just care more about the food we cook than if golly gee someone from Food Network sees this and wants to offer us a million dollar contact to get in front of a camera and act like idiots to show users how to properly chop an onion (I can already see people hitting the unsubscribe from blog button).

Also, I would like to point out that this recipe does not contain beer.  This is shocking because our last runs contained nothing but beer.  Fear not you hobos slamming your 40s discretely wrapped in paper bags we will be providing more beer soaked food in the coming weeks. 

Well work summons so off to do what allows us to afford web space so we can ramble about nothing and everything all at the same time.  Yeah we are that good…

For this recipe you first need to make the meatballs.  If you do not have a super secret family recipe here is a pretty idiot proof one:

  1. 2 # Ground Beef
  2. 1 # Ground Pork
  3. 1 c breadcrumbs
  4. 3 T minced parsley
  5. 2 T minced garlic
  6. 1/2 onion, minced
  7. 2 eggs
  8. Blue cheese

To make the meatballs:

  1. Combine all ingredients except blue cheese.
  2. Form into balls and shove a piece of blue in the middle because let us face it everything is better with more cheese.
  3. Put in fridge for a couple of hours to harden up.

For the rest of the recipe you will need:

  1. 2 cups of Frank’s hot sauce (used the extra hot)
  2. 1 onion diced
  3. Couple stalks of celery diced
  4. Carrot diced

Steps for glory:

  1. 8 TB of butter
  2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  3. Melt the butter over medium heat. Add in the meatballs in batches and brown all over. Remove and set aside.
  4. Add in the celery, carrot, and onion and sauté until softened.
  5. Add the meatballs back in and pour the hot sauce over top of them
  6. Put in the oven for 20 minutes or until they are done. Serve with more blue cheese

Serve and enjoy!

 

Cooked up by Jeff ~ 10 Comments

Beer mac and cheese with 100% more crab than before

While everyone was eating turkey and the normal stuffing we were enjoying this for thanksgiving.

We had planned on making this just for lunch and then dragging leftovers over to parent’s house for dinner.  However; the big problem was the parents were sick so no thanksgiving meal for us (which is ok in my book since i am ehh on turkey anyways).

We were originally hoping to throw some crawfish into the mixture but finding that proved to be a pain in the butt so crab worked better (notice that is crab with a c not a k).

I really wish I could ramble on about something cool and pointless but I am still a little freezing cold from having to scrape my freaking windows this morning and deal with every freaking moron who apparently has forgot how to drive in snow (notice how everyone who drives slower than you is a moron and those who drive faster than you are idiots?)

Anyways enough rambling more recipe and more work………

For this recipe you will need:

  • 1 onion
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 9 TB of butter (relax it is winter you have until winter to burn it off.
  • 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
  • 1 cup of beer (we used Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome Ale)
  • 1 cup of cream
  • 1.5 cups of whole milk
  • 3 cups of cheese (we used 2 cups of sharp cheddar and 1 cup of fontina)
  • 2 TB of dijon mustard
  • Salt and pepper
  • Cup or so of shredded crab (really can you have to much crab?)
  • 1 cup of breadcrumbs
  • 8 ounces (1 box) of cooked macaroni

Steps for success:

  • Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
  • In a separate skillet melt a TB of butter and add in the onion and cook until softened.  Add in the garlic and cook until fragrant.  Remove from heat and set aside.
  • In a medium sauce pan add in the remaining 8 TB of butter and when it is liquidy add in the 1/2 cup of flour.  Whisk until it is golden brown (about 3-5 minutes).
  • Add in the cup of beer and bring to a boil for a couple of minutes.
  • Lower the heat to medium and add in the cream/milk and heat until barely boiling.
  • Add in the cheese a handful at a time and stir until melted.  Do not add more cheese until the previous handful has been melted.
  • Add in the Dijon, crab, and onion/garlic mixture.
  • Taste and adjust with salt and pepper (I am betting you need about a teaspoon of pepper).  Bonus points would also be awarded if you decide you need some heat and add in a pinch of cayenne.
  • Stir in the macaroni.
  • Butter up a 9×9 dish and pour the mixture in that.
  • Top with the breadcrumbs and throw in the 450 degree for 10-12 minutes.
  • Lower the heat to 350 and loosely cover the mixture with foil.  Continue to cook until heated through (about 25-30 minutes).

Serve and enjoy!

Cooked up by Jeff ~ 11 Comments