January 2nd

January 2nd

I survived day number two of no stove. Both my wife and I were feeling like we’re catching colds, so I opted for entrée salads, which are really easy. I cooked some shrimp on the electric griddle and then tossed them with olive oil and garlic. Threw together some mixed greens, sliced red onion, pine nuts, and four mandarin oranges, with a ginger vinaigrette. Plated it and then put the shrimp on top and gave it a quick grating of parmesan (OK, actually grana padano). My wife had picked up a ciabatta at Trader Joes. It was OK, but nothing special, but was really just a vehicle for more of the Irish butter. The whole thing was quick however and that was a plus.

I had made a spiced Belgian Triple (which I opted to call a Triple de Noel for Christmas) several weeks ago and have been drinking some of it although it still hasn’t cleared completely. It’s the same combination of the La Chouffe and Duvel yeast, but this batch has some orange peel and ginger in it and we used Centennial and Summit hops in it which adds to the fruitiness of the aroma. It’s also a bigger beer than the last one and clocks in a little more than 8% alcohol. Despite this, it’s actually a good beer with a salad (assuming the vinaigrette isn’t too acidic at which point it would seem too big and overly alcoholic). I was a little surprised and had feared that it was too big, but it worked out. Why do we worry that a beer at 8% may be too big when we would serve a 10-11% “light” white wine and think it was fine? I was thinking about doing a bottle of lambic instead, but opted for the triple because the vinaigrette wasn’t too sharp and I was hoping the orange notes on the beer would work with the oranges in the salad. In retrospect, I wonder why I didn’t add black olives to the salad since I love the combination of oranges and black olives. Perhaps next time.

I also started some black bean soup in the crock pot. Added carrots, onions, celery, black beans, a little cumin, a dried chipotle, bay leaf, and chicken stock and let it sit over night. I can doctor it all later and will make for another quick meal.