Thirsty Thursday: Winter Park, CO

Well, we’re back from Colorado; had a great trip, but glad to be home where it’s warmer…oh, wait…it’s sleeting outside.  Nevermind….ANYWAY!  We’re home, we get to sleep in our own bed, we get to hang out with our pug, we get to go back to work…err…this list just keeps taking wrong turns….

MOVING ON…one of the nice things about Colorado, aside from the great skiing, is beer.  SO many craft & micro breweries scattered across the rocky countryside, I wonder if we’ll ever get to try them all. 

And Winter Park is no slouch.  There’s Moffat Station Brewery, which we visited last year, and the new Library Sports Bar & Brewery, which we didn’t have a chance to visit this trip, but hopefully they’re a success & still around the next time we make it out that way.

There’s plenty of spots along the base of Winter Park to have a nice après ski, with Happy Hour’s running generally between 3-5pm (the ski lifts shut down around 4pm).  The most appealing (in my opinion), being the preciously named “Cheeky Monk” near the entrance to Winter Park Village.

 

So on Monday evening, the hubs & I decided to go check it out, after a rather full day of skiing (okay, “full” by my definition, was from 9:30am-2pm, when my knee decided it was tired of skiing and crashed me twice on a blue run).

During their happy hour, they offer a small variety of their beers for $3.50.  We went with the two we hadn’t tried:

(Ommegang’s Witte and Great Divide’s Samurai…PS—it was SUPER hard to not swipe one of these awesome glasses.)

 

The Ommegang is brewed in New York & is their take on a traditional Belgian witbier; the Samurai is an unfiltered rice ale.  I’d never had a rice ale, but it’s description of having a “slightly fruity, crisp, refreshing and clean taste” won me over. And the hubs got the Witte; we switched glasses halfway through (cuz we’re nice like that).

Bear in mind—while the hubs & I love beer, we are by no means sommeliers.  Where some people feel comfortable throwing around terms like “lacing” and “floral notes” or “mouthfeel”…we are not.  In fact, we’re the type of people who giggle like 15 year olds at words like “mouthfeel”.

Anyway… my husband thought the Witte was a bit too sweet for his taste; however, I really liked it, even more than I liked the Samurai.  The Witte was very light & fruity—to the point that we both felt it had a “fruit cocktail” finish.  Literally…like, the good fruit cocktail that has the cherries in it.  No lie.  Drink it & try to call me a fibber, I dare you.  Not syrupy like cocktail, just that odd mingling of cherries & peaches & pears that have been cohabitating together.

The Samurai was very pleasant.  I was concerned it would be a bit too “sake”-ish, however I can’t say I really noticed a “rice” flavor to it.  It was just a nice light ale, very refreshing & drinkable.  The hubs noticed a slight “canned peas” aroma, and once he mentioned it, I could definitely smell it as well.  Of course, I like canned peas, so this was a non-issue.

The bar itself is also a really great spot with awesome atmosphere & quick, attentive waitstaff, and there’s a little skating pond out back where you can watch other people make fools of themselves:

  (PS—our condo was in that red building back there.  Giant outdoor hot tub on the 3rd floor for up to 40 people.  Pretty Sweet.)

The next day after the hubs finished skiing (I took the day off & caught up on blogging and napping and reading the Harry Potter series) we met at Doc’s Roadhouse in the Zephyr Mountain Lodge.  Happy Hour was $3 pints, so we ordered a round of Mary Jane Ales (made exclusively for Winter Park by Coors, after the mountain of the same name).  Our server compared it to a Fat Tire…which leads me to believe that he’s a) never had Fat Tire, or b) never had the Mary Jane Ale.  We found the Mary Jane Ale to be pretty hoppy…drinkably so, but with a notably metallic finish.  If I had to drink it in a blind taste test, there’s NO WAY I’d call it an amber ale, though.  More like an American Pale Ale.

(Mary Jane Ale)

 

We also pigged out at a “Cajun” restaurant while we were in Winter Park—keep your eyes peeled for that review later on this week!

Louisiana White Beans w/Ham & Sausage

GREETINGS FROM COLORADO!

(The hubs & I, taken yesterday, at the spot where he proposed back in 2011. [Whistlestop Run at Winter Park])

We’re out here on a family vacation, and after two days of skiing my knee has proclaimed “NO MAS!” so I’m catching up on blogging while enjoying the nice view of Winter Park Village from our balcony.

---

Back around the holidays, one of the local grocers was running a really great sale on Cook’s bone-in hams…something like 69 cents a pound?  But you had to buy the big gigantor 20-pound hams to get that price.  So we had the butcher cut it in half for us, cooked one half for Christmas, and then froze the other half.

So it was finally time to do some cooking with ham (not surprisingly, 10 pounds of ham takes up quite a bit of freezer space)…and I don’t know about you, but the first thing that comes to mind when I think of ham is ham & beans.

My mom, who grew up in the rural farmland of Missouri, has been cooking ham & beans for as long as I can recall.  She has a big cast iron pot, and I always know when I come home to visit if that pot’s on the stove, good stuff is sure to be in it…any of her favorites are possible: vegetable beef soup, chicken & egg noodles, chili, ham & beans… I learned from her, as a mom with a full time job aside from mom-ing, that sometimes it’s best to just make a big batch of something delicious & then enjoy it all week long.

We won’t be using her recipe though—since I don’t already have it in my possession.  Rather, we’re cracking open the big Chef John Folse cooking bible again.  Chef Folse has never steered me wrong, so I figure it’s time to get started.

Ingredients:

1 pound dried white great northern beans
1 smoked ham hocks
½ cup bacon drippings
1 cup diced onions
1 cup diced celery
½ cup diced bell peppers
¼ cup minced garlic
2 cups sliced green onions
2 cups diced ham steak
3 (6-inch) links spicy smoked turkey sausage
½ cup chopped parsley
salt, cajun seasoning, and Louisiana hot sauce to taste

 

Directions:

First off, I need to point out—this is a stove top recipe, not a slow cooker recipe.  I HAVE slow cooker versions, however, they take 3-6 hours to cook, whereas this method takes a little under two hours from start to finish.  We still have plenty of ham left, so maybe I’ll do a Crockpot version soon.

1. Soak beans overnight in cold water, then drain & rinse in cold water.

 

2. Dice ham & sausage & set aside.

3. In a large stockpot, melt bacon drippings over medium-high heat. Sauté onions, celery, bell peppers, garlic, 1 cup green onions and ham for 5-10 minutes or until vegetables are wilted.  Then add the sausage & beans, and cook an additional 2 minutes.

 

4. Add enough water to cover the beans by two inches.  Bring to a rolling boil and allow to cook 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid burning or sticking.  Then lower the temp to a simmer, add the ham hock, and allow to cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Then stir in the remaining green onions & parsley, and season to taste.

Louisianans might likely serve this with rice, however, I prefer it with cornbread.

Or, well…. ON cornbread, to be exact.

(My lunch, for about a week after we made this dish.  YUM.)

If you follow this recipe, you’ll get about 12-16 servings (depending on how much you eat in a sitting), so we actually made a half-batch & got about 8 servings.

 

NutriFacts:

Calories 212.5

  Total Fat 9.3 g

  Saturated Fat 3.6 g

  Polyunsaturated Fat 0.8 g

  Monounsaturated Fat 2.6 g

  Cholesterol 32.9 mg

  Sodium 775.3 mg

  Potassium 337.5 mg

  Total Carbohydrate 18.1 g

  Dietary Fiber 5.0 g

  Sugars 1.5 g

  Protein 14.5 g

Shared on 33 Shades of Green's Tasty Tuesday

Cranberry Pineapple Gooey Butter Cake

 

Had a craving for something sweet the other night (I say that like it’s a rare occurrence…really, when am I NOT willing to pound down some sweets?)… particularly, some St. Louis style cherry gooey butter cake.  However, we had neither cherries nor powdered sugar in the house…both of which are pretty big ingredients in said confection.

So, I improvised.  And it was DELICIOUS.

A gooey butter cake is pretty simple in essence… oh sure, some recipes call for making it from scratch, but that’s just unnecessary.  Unless you feel like it, of course…but I rarely do.  This recipe involves three different sections.

Bottom layer:

1 box yellow cake mix

2 eggs

1/4 cup applesauce

1/4 cup butter, melted

Middle layer:

4oz fat free cream cheese or Neufchatel

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

Top layer:

1 cup cranberries

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup fresh chopped pineapple

Directions:

Since it takes the longest, you’ll want to make the top layer first.  This is loosely based off the cranberry sauce recipe I posted back around Thanksgiving.  In a medium saucepan, combine the ingredients and cook over medium-high heat until the cranberries pop.  Let cool a bit while you’re working on the other layers.

Preheat the oven to 350. Then mix together all the ingredients for your bottom layer.  It will be somewhat thick.  Spread into a greased & floured glass 9x13 pan.  (it will likely also be sticky, so lightly spritz your spatula with cooking spray---it will help you spread the dough more easily/evenly.

Next: whip together the ingredients for the middle layer, & drizzle over the top of the dough.

Then: drizzle the cranberry-pineapple topping across the top, and then use a knife to create a swirled pattern in the top.

Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the edges are brown. 

Let cool for a bit before serving.

(Um…you’ve got a bit of drool on your chin there.)

NutriFacts (makes 16 servings):

Calories 252.8

  Total Fat 7.4 g

  Saturated Fat 3.6 g

  Polyunsaturated Fat 0.6 g

  Monounsaturated Fat 2.7 g

  Cholesterol 47.8 mg

  Sodium 240.0 mg

  Potassium 90.6 mg

  Total Carbohydrate 43.9 g

  Dietary Fiber 0.9 g

  Sugars 15.3 g

  Protein 3.6 g

Shared on The Sweet Spot and 33 Shades of Green