Pumpkin Ravioli

It's been awhile since I made pasta from scratch!  But I've been wanting to make pumpkin ravioli and I had some time this evening (for once I wasn't too hungry to wait for dinner to cook), so I made them.

Pasta Dough

1 egg

1/4 c wheat flour

3/4 c + white flour

2 tbsp olive oil

garlic powder

ginger powder

salt

Filling

big scoop of pumpkin

big handful of shredded colby jack cheese

Pumpkin Ravioli, 

with a Pumpkin Cream Sauce*, 

on a bed of Kale, 

with some Pumpkin Chicken** on the side.

And don't forget the Pumpkin Porter!

*Pumpkin, Heavy Cream, Sage, Ginger

**Boiled in pumpkin and Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat Beer

Yes, I love pumpkin!

Stout Stroganoff

I've made Beef Stroganoff with red wine before, I've never made it with beer.  My plan this evening was to make it with Guinness, but then I discovered that I was out of Guinness.  I did have a Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout though.  So I went with that.  1 cup of the beer went into the pasta pot along with 1 jar of beef gravy, one can of mushroom soup, and 2 cups of water, the rest went into a skillet with the stew beef with some garlic powder.  In a separate skillet, I cooked 1/4 of an onion, 2 carrots, and 4 stalks of celery.  When the beef was about done, I added the veggies.  When the pasta pot started boiling, I added egg noodles and cooked them for about 10 min.  When they were almost done, I added 5 mushrooms to the beef and veggies.  When the pasta was done, I added the solid contents of the skillet.  I added a tbsp of cornstarch to the remaining liquid and cooked it til thick, then added the gravy to the pot with everything else.

It turned out to be a pretty good stroganoff.  The beer made it a little bit bitter though.  Funny how I never notice the bitterness of the beer when I drink it, but it definitely came out in the food.

On a side note, blogger doesn't recognize "stroganoff" as a word, and wants me to change it to "strongman."

Um...seriously?

Pita Bread

A few weeks ago, The Beeroness posted a recipe for pita bread.  It had never occurred to me before to make a pita bread, but I loved the idea.  I have made bread and rolls that work for sandwiches, but I haven't loved any of them for sandwiches.  Pita bread is great for sandwiches though, so I was excited to try it out.  Also, I got to try using the dough hook attachment on my mixer for the first time.  Wow was that so much easier and less messy than kneading bread by hand...

Ingredients

1 c whole wheat flour

1 1/2 c white flour

1 envelope rapid rise yeast

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp ginger powder

1 tsp salt

1 c Killian's Irish Stout

Directions

Combine the dry ingredients in the mixer.  Heat the beer in the microwave until it reaches 120 degrees.  Add it to the mixer and mix it until smooth.  It only took a few minutes in my mixer.  Cover the dough and let it rise for an hour (mine ended up rising for more like 2 hours because I was busy).  Knead the risen dough with a little bit of flour, then divide it into 8 chunks.  Flatten each chunk as thin as possible.  Heat a non-stick skillet, and cook the pitas one at a time.  Cook for a few minutes on each side.  

Rip a pita in half, and carefully slice each half open.  

Fill it with some yummy chicken salad.  

I'll be having pita sandwiches for lunch this week!

Diabolical Bacon Cookies

Somebody come save me from myself! I was left unsupervised on a rainy Sunday, and 45 of these appeared in my kitchen.  There are still 42 left...

Ingredients

1/2 stick butter

1/4 c vegetable oil

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c white sugar

1/4 c stout beer

4 slices of bacon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 c white flour

mini chocolate chips

My new favorite stout (after Guinness of course)

Magic Hat's Heart of Darkness Stout

Directions

Chop the bacon into little pieces.  Throw it in a skillet on medium heat.  When the bacon starts to look crispy, drain the excess grease.  Add the beer, cook until the liquid has evaporated off.  When done, put the bacon on a paper towel to soak up any remaining grease.

In a mixing bowl, combine the other ingredients, in the order listed.  Add the bacon and chocolate chips last.

Put tiny spoonfuls of batter onto a baking sheet.  I got 3 sheets of 15 cookies each.   

Cook at 375 for 6 minutes.  

(Longer if you make bigger cookies)

Enjoy responsibly with some beer.

Olive Oil & Beer Cake

A few months ago I made a Rosemary Olive Oil Cake.  It was yummy, but way too sweet for my tastes.  Tonight, I was itching to bake something, but couldn't decide what, so I organized my recipe box while I was thinking about it.  I came across the recipe for the Olive Oil Cake and decided it was time to try it again.  However, the original recipe called for white wine, and I don't have any right now.  But I did have a bottle of beer that I didn't particularly want to drink.  So I decided to substitute beer for wine.  I also changed the flour and sugar types/amounts from the original recipe.

ingredients listed in the order that I added them to the mixing bowl

1 c Shock-Top Raspberry Wheat Beer 

1 c olive oil

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1+ tbs crushed rosemary

1/2 c brown sugar

1 c white sugar

1/2 c wheat flour

2 c white flour

pour batter into a 9x9 pan

bake at 350 for 50 min

I had to cut the cake into 4 pieces in order to remove it from the pan

 For my taste-test...I ate the pieces that stuck to the pan

Delicious.