#Beermonth Begins with a Chocolate Stout Shake!

For those of you that have been following me for a while you will remember #Beermonth from last year. It is a month where I celebrate my love for craft beer with: recipes, articles, reviews and more from me and some of my blogging friends! This year I have my friend Lauren from Hall's Nesting, Jessica from Jessiker Bakes, Melissa from Drunk and Unemployed and Nicole from Nibbles by Nic.You can expect BIG recipe posts 4/16 and 4/30 from ALL of us and maybe some articles and general craft beer love coming your way!

The Story of Beer Month...

My love of craft beer started with The Gateway to Craft Beer, Pumpkin Spice. I think you ladies know what I am talking about. If not this is the magic that is pumpkin spice ale- It is ale brewed with pumpkin and spices and then in NY (as I understand this is not done everywhere) they rim the glass with pumpkin spice sugar. TO- DIE- FOR. I fell and I fell hard for the spice. The spice captured my heart and then I just had to know more about craft beer.

I moved on to other fruit beers. One of my first faves was Bluepoint Blueberry Ale, so delicious and perfect in the summer. Then I tried Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. Then I really started getting adventurous and ventured onto the dark side. Dark beers- dun dun dun **cue scary music**

I learned one thing- never to judge a beer by it's color. Just like with people, you should see what's happening on the inside. While I don't encourage you to lick a person to see if they're any good... I do encourage you to at least take a simple sip of a beer. At worst, you can easily spit it our if you don't like it.

Since I had my own blog I knew I had to incorporate cooking and beer together for a month of craft beer love.

Since my love of craft beer grew, it blossomed into a new direction for me. I write for 2 magazines about local craft beer and have become completely immersed with the craft beer culture here on Long Island. Beer month was born so I can share recipes with local craft beer and give you a little taste of the local scene and happenings.

Since I never drink alone- I always invite some bloggers to get in on the fun with me!
I have some surprises too! This month I will be brewing my VERY own beer with The Brewers Collective, a local group of home brewers. I strongly believe that homebrewers' creativity heavily influences the nano and craft brew market. With homebrew you can take those chances and you know I like to get creative!

Now for the reason you are all here- this drippy mess of deliciousness that I call A Chocolate Stout Milkshake...

I have been going to a local restaurant, Relish, for a while now. The food is always fresh, as local as it can be and inventive while still being incredibly comforting and inviting. No small portion or names you cannot pronounce or understand. This is down to earth, creative twists on classic comfort. A place that anyone can feel comfortable. When I heard they were serving beer, I was excited. When I saw they had a Guinness Milk Shake, I had to try it and WOAH it stopped me in my tracks, I clutched my chest to keep my heart still. It was way better than I ever expected.

Chocolate and Stouts are  not an uncommon combination at all. If you follow one of my faves, The Beeroness, You will see stout and chocolate are a "thing", basically mouth magic! The dark maltiness of a stout already had notes of chocolate present often, so to add it to a chocolate recipe further pushes the bounderies.

So I thank Relish in Kings Park, NY for this recipe! It rocks HARD!

Why is this a Foodgasm?

This is pretty easy to answer, chocolate ice cream + stout beer = MAGIC.
But to balance it out there is caramel and chocolate syrup for a little more sweet-ness as stouts sometimes have a bitter edge to them.

Holiday Baking Recap

So if you follow me on social media you may have noticed my #cookieabstinence for the week leading up until Christmas Eve. Well it was hard and I made it without any desserts AT ALL! I am so very proud of myself and I learned a lot about impulse control and determination. The whole reason I started it was because my baking marathon 2 weeks before Christmas left me feeling sick from all the cookies I "tried" and "tasted". There was also A LOT of craft beer consumed, so I gave up beer for 5 days too! Before I even stepped on the scale last week I was scared and knew I needed a break from all the holidays' consumption! So it was a win and a lose for me this holiday season. I got to try some amazing recipes, but it took it's toll on me- BUT I also made it a whole week without a single dessert. So I think it evened out... maybe. So this pic below was me totally deflecting cookies! I was literally like wonder woman!

So this post is a recap of ALL my holiday baking! Everything came out amazing! I decided to go full fat and just try other bloggers recipes. Like my husband says, you have to master something before you add any variables.  I have never been a good baker, like seriously I don't know much about it. By making other bloggers recipes I learn A LOT in the process and how I can make my own low fat version of it at some point. This is the experimentation and learning process behind the madness. I am also happy to report, I think I am really good at baking and cookie making now. I have learned a lot and I will share some tips with you! I will mark them clearly below.

This is my last post before #HolidayDetox begins! I am ready to get my healthy back on! If you are too, please stop in every Wednesday for healthy breakfasts, lunches, dinner and snacks- also lots of great tips to stay on track! 

So without further adieu here are the treats that I made. The links on the headings will lead you to the recipe.

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie Baklava by Half Baked Harvest

This was definitely some over the top deliciousness! Its basically chocolate chip cookie dough with LOTS of nuts layered in buttered filo dough, then soaked in vanilla syrup and drizzled with chocolate ganache and sea salt. Yeah this is NOT for the faint of heart. It is totally opposite of what I usually make, my recipes are always reduced fat and think and sometimes reduced sugar, so this was a treat ONLY for the holiday season! I ate 1 piece and left it at my parents. It was beautiful and delicious but an indulgence. So that is why I left it behind, LOL. I love Half Baked Harvest's recipes, LOVE them. This one, to me, was a bit too over the top. More sugar! More butter! More Fat! I used 1 less stick of butter for assembly, that is something right?! I HAD to try it though! It was in my MUST Make Board on Pinterest, since I am half Greek and I love me some baklava and chocolate!

Pub Cookies by the Beeroness

These cookies are a craft beer lover's dream! There is beer extract in them: basically it's a beer you reduce down to a tablespoon or two. They also have chocolate chips, honey roasted peanuts and pretzels. I didn't have peanuts so I omitted them. Overall these wee great! Very chewy in texture. Had a but if beer flavor and the salty of the pretzel with sweet chocolate chips were great!

Peppermint Macarons with Dark Chocolate Ganache- Adapted from Martha Stewart

I took this basic recipe for macarons from Martha Stewart. The directions were good. To my surprise they came out great! As I am sure you heard macarons are difficult to make. But now I have gotten the hang of them. Made 2 kinds this season! I have great step by step pics with the gingerbread macarons I made. There are detailed directions in the link. Most important thing I learned is just take your time with it. All I did differently is I added a teaspoon of Peppermint Extract and some red food coloring. Then I made her dark chocolate ganache for the center. These were AMAZING! So light, so fluffy and just PERFECT!

Gingerbread Macarons with Dark Chocolate Ganache- Adapted from Martha Stewart

Same recipe from Martha with the same chocolate ganche, BUT I added 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice and 1/2 teaspoon ginger. These were GREAT! All that great spice flavor, without being overly spiced, add some chocolate and you go MAGIC! I also let these set in the freezer for 5 minutes to get the ganache to firm up.

Gingerbread Blondies by The Baker Chick

Just look at that texture, yeah I would say fudgey- but it's not chocolate. But these totally blew my mind. Confession: I added some beer extract that I made for the Pub Cookies, just 1 tablespoon and man these are the BEST blondies I ever ate! Sooooo good, I broke my cookie abstinence with one of these puppies! Yeah they are THAT good! Seriously you MUST try 'em! I think I can make these low fat though. I will experiment with pumpkin in these! I think I can make that work!

Nutella Oatmeal Lace Cookies by Half Baked Harvest

Made these exactly as directed and they are not as Lacey as a Lacey cookie usually is, but there were AMAZING none the less. Buttery, not too sweet with nutella in the middle, pure magic! Would totally make them again!

Beer Molasses Spice Cookies- Adapted from Katrina's Kitchen

So I made some changes to this one too! I added a tablespoon of that beer extract and also rolled these in cinnamon sugar. I also did not dip them into white chocolate as the recipe calls for. These were sweet and had this great soft texture! Another big success!

Thanks to all the bloggers that made these incredible recipes and thanks to my friend Jenn, a real live pastry chef, that helped me experiment and ummm drink beer for ummmmm research!! LOL! Another BIG thanks to my neighbor Christine, that let me bake with her is her very large in beautiful kitchen!! She also helped me with beer research and brainstorm of ideas of what to do, if we have no bread flour as needed for the Pub cookies. LOVE my foodie friends and my ladies! Thanks so much! XOXO!

Six Point Diesel Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

Why is this a Foodgasm?

So I knew I had to make fresh brussels sprouts, it came to me on a visit to a Brewery in the Financial District of NYC. They served brussels sprouts with bacon. Well duh...bacon makes everything better! Aside from that I thought this is just an excellent side you got your guilt free veggie so you know what...it's totally okay to add a little bacon for favor. A little bacon goes a loooong way!


But how do I give this my own signature Foodgasm flair? ADD BEER! Not just any beer, but Sixpoint Diesel. I heart Sixpoint mostly because they know good design, but also because they have a nice selection of brews. I used their Diesel an interesting combo of a black IPA and American Stout. Not usually a dark beer lover, this one is great since there is no real bitter aftertaste.

It is amazing how the beer really infused the sprouts, then when it reduced it added a sweetness. Then you got some salty awesomely yummy bacon and YES you just landed smack on top of a Foodgasm!

Great South Bay Blood Orange Pale Ale Chicken with Lemon Roasted Potatoes

 

Why is this a Foodgasm?

I took a different approach with this recipe...I let the beer decide what it wanted to be. I started with a local fave Great South Bay's Blood Orange Pale Ale. With this beer it has been love at first sip- crisp, light, just the right amount of orange flavor and so easy to drink! I wanted to make sure to get in some of my awesome local long island beer. I love the local craft beer scene. Immediately I thought orange chicken, kinda like the one you get from a Chinese place, but healthier and with local craft beer twist (seriously is there anything better??). 

I knew this recipe needed to happen, but how did I execute it. So I kinda went the route of Chicken Fracaise, but made a beer reduction syrup with this. The results were AMAZING! Sweet, but not syrupy sweet and it was light. It paired perfectly with these easy lemon roasted potatoes! You must try this recipe and please do try and get your hands on this beer- you will not be disappointed!