Apricot Sweet Chili Sauce : Dry Dock Brewing Collaboration

My lovely friends over at Dry Dock Brewing are preparing for the Super Bowl and they wanted to cook with beer. Luckily for me, they make so many amazing brews so it was easy to find one to incorporate into food: I went with the gold medal winning Apricot Blonde. To come up with a recipe, I figured out what a Dry Dock brewer craves for football munchies and this is what Doug Hyndman had to say:

“I certainly am a football watching fool. Wings and pizza are always a good fit with football. I’m also a big fan of bacon-wrapped jalapeños, and fried cheese curds would be sweet. Bison chile with habaneros…”

Doug, I’m sorry I won’t be cooking everything you want, but you will see some Doug-inspired recipes in the future. For now, I hope this recipe for Apricot Sweet Chili Sauce will suffice.

As for the Super Bowl, I don’t care who wins as long as its not the Patriots.

Birthday Macarons

Today the blog is one year old and as a (somewhat) gift to myself, I made macarons. This was a great gift because I love these amazing little French cookies but this gift was also a terror. After a year of cooking with beer, I’ve gained quite a bit of confidence in the kitchen although at times, it may be better labeled as hubris. For example, I told myself that I would be able to execute making macarons successfully on my first try. Ohhh no no no. I should’ve known these tiny devils were going to give me a hard time and totally mess up my kitchen. Nevertheless, I refused to give up and finally made perfect macarons on the third attempt (let’s not talk about what happened on the fourth). The end result was a chocolate filled dream.

Clearly there is a moral here and the moral is don’t give up. I want to say thank you to all my followers for not giving up on me during this year with Drink and Spoon. Like the first rounds of macarons, my first blog posts were messy and weird. The pictures were not good and half the time the recipes didn’t even include beer. Now, I can’t even belief some of the stuff I have been able to create. While there are still quite a few screw ups in the kitchen, Drink and Spoon has become something really great. Cheers to that.

One Year Old!

Today is Drink and Spoon’s BIRTHDAY! YAY. Thank you all for following the blog during this crazy year of cooking with beer. It couldn’t have made it this far without you. Hopefully you have enjoyed the recipes you tried out or at least liked looking at my pictures. I also need to give a big thanks to the breweries that shared my posts and especially those who gave me some yummy brews to cook with. Cheers to you all and cheers to one year!

– Chelsea

Dragon’s Chili

Dragon’s Milk is a beer named after dragons. Dragons breathe fire. Fire is hot. Hot is another word for spicy. This pork green chili is spicy, therefore it must be Dragon’s Chili.

Also, the Super Bowl is coming up and it is time to get your chili game strong.

Beeracha (beer infused sriracha) Hummus

This recipe is a tagalong to my Beeracha post found here. It’s a healthy way to put this spicy condiment to use and I consider this hummus a staple item in my refrigerator. 

Ingredients: 

3 cans garbanzo beans, drained

2 lemons

2-4 cloves of garlic (depending on size)

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup grapeseed oil

1/4 cup water

2- 5 tbsp Beeracha 

Directions: 

You only have to do one thing. Blend it all together! I started with 2 tbsp of Beeracha and it gave a nice background heat to the hummus. If you’re looking for more of a kick, you can drizzle some on top when it is finished or add a few more tablespoons into the blender. I suggest blending for 3 minutes to get a perfect creamy texture.

 

Brown Ale Marinara + Zucchini Lasagna

When one of your beautiful little angel friends comes back from abroad with a bottle of Danish beer….you cook with it. This is what I did when my good friend Meghan returned the to US with Bøgebryg Brown Ale. This beer is chock full of caramel malt flavors with a kick of smokiness, making it perfect for a marinara sauce. Since this recipe was so easy, I decided to turn it into two: Brown Ale Marinara and a zucchini lasagna that uses said marinara. Enjoy the meatiness below.

The Fast Fix: Beer Mac and Cheese Pie

This is the least homemade recipe I’ve every thrown together and I’m not ashamed. Sometimes I just don’t want to put in a ton of work, deal with it. At first, I was worried about sharing the recipe with you all but the more I thought about it, I realized that many of my followers would appreciate this easily made hunger fix. For those nights when you get home from work and just want to pig out on some comfort food, I present to you…drum roll, please….Beer Mac and Cheese Pie.