Beef stew: the secret ingredient

True conversation:

W: Good stew, mom.
Me: Thanks. Want to know the secret ingredient?
W: Umm...was it made with love?
Me: No, beer. Well, love too, but mostly beer.

And not just any beer. Jubelale, from Deschutes Brewery right here in Bend, works magic in stews. And it's not bad for drinking either! The brewery tasting gurus describe this winter ale as "deep garnet in color, medium bodied, with notes of chicory, earth, spice and fruit" -- and without a doubt it lends an umami quality that satisfies the soul on cold winter nights.*

Check that PLU?

Thank you to EatPlayLove.blogspot.com for the interesting bit of info on how we can (possibly) identify conventional, organic, or GMO produce while checking out at the grocery.

Here's the link.

A Gallon of Stew in Your Stocking? How to Ship Frozen Food!

This is my dad. He's a pretty easy-going guy eleven months out of the year, but when the holidays roll around, he gives me a headache. What do you give a guy who has a closet full of clothes and a strong dislike of gadgets, who prefers using the library over owning books and watching the history channel over DVDs?

My dad lives alone, and while he eats at a friend's several times each week, the inevitable occasions on which he needs to cook usually involve frozen Lean Cuisine or canned green beans. Both will keep a guy from starving, but leave warehouses of room for improvement. So I'm trying something different this year: frozen homemade beef stew. Along the way, I've learned a few things about how to ship frozen food across the country (West Coast to Midwest) and I'll share them here.

Jalapeno cornbread: a little goes a long way.

I have a hard time following the instructions on boxed mixes--brownies, muffins, cornbread--I always want to doctor them up with a little something extra. This time, I got a little carried away with the boxed cornbread mix.

Not satisfied with the usual additions of frozen corn kernels and shredded cheddar cheese (1 cup of each for a 9x13 cake pan of cornbread) I diced up a fresh jalapeno and about 3T of fresh cilantro. Sounds like a good idea, right?

Not Your Mother's Fruit Salad

Berries, melon, bananas, ho hum, another (yawn) fruit salad... until you add a few slices of my new favorite bit of produce: the starfruit.

I didn't pay a lot of attention at the grocery store as a kid, but I am quite sure there were no starfruit to be found. The starfruit, AKA carambola, has been a standard option in the markets of India for centuries, but only over the past decade

Saucy Fish Tacos

Here is the thing I've found about fish tacos: it's not about the fish. Don't get me wrong - it's the perfect taco foundation... but all the other pile-ons provide the contrasting flavors and textures that make fish tacos a really great dish.

We usually make fish tacos to use up leftover halibut, just steaming the chunks and adding a little lime.

Blackberry Bonanza

Come to the Mirror Pond parking lot near Drake Park in Bend on any Wednesday afternoon in the summer, and you will find the happiest group of people in the world. Honestly, it is happyville.

Why? It's the Farmer's Market. Booths overflowing with mounds of green beans, sweet corn, heirloom tomatoes, samples of artisan cheeses and breads, and best of all...flat after flat of BERRIES!

W and I walked away with a whole flat of the biggest, darkest, shiniest blackberries you can imagine. More than a few were gone by the time we got home - as W said, "if picking blackberries was my job, I'd have an empty bucket and a full belly."