Weekend Links, Feb. 24

Bottling Nut Brown Ale

First, I’m very excited to share the news that Bowen Appétit was awarded silver in Best Local Food Blog in the Best of Madison survey! There are so many great winners in all the categories, and I’m honored to be among them. I love my new food community here in Madison and am excited to keep connecting and growing my efforts. Thanks to everyone who voted!

Second – as a follow-up from last week’s links, I made the super-easy Water Lily cocktail on Friday night, to rave reviews. Even if you don’t have violet liqueur, the gin-lemon-orange combination was wonderful, and I’m wondering why I don’t see it more often.

When I realized years ago how different slow-scrambled eggs are, it was a revelation. (No exaggeration there – eggs have since become my absolute favorite food, in a variety of preparations.)

God, salt is amazing. I love talking to people about salt.

A new week, a new piece about olive oil. Here, an expert tries all the olive oils at Trader Joe’s and tells you his recommendations. (His site has similar pieces about other stores, too.)

What do armies eat around the world?

Some Italian prisoners are receiving training in winemaking, and their product now sells for $95/bottle in the US. Huh.

Really enjoying these beautiful still-lifes of musicians’ required backstage food. (I can’t stop thinking about in what combination/order/routine Axl Rose consumes the Wonder Bread and Dom Perignon. It’s bad.) The photographer has a variety of awesome food-related projects, like photos of prisoners’ last meals and another series of images of high-calorie foods on fire. (Burning calories. Heh heh.)

Living through a Wisconsin winter is putting me on a bit of a health kick, for the first time ever. (Literally, the first time ever.) We’ll see if I actually implement things, and if I do this salad will be an awesome place to start.

Meal plan this week (just a few dinners since I’m teaching tonight and we’re headed to Chicago for the weekend):

• Pasta with roasted sweet potatoes, chorizo, roasted red onions, cilantro, and chipotle cream sauce (inspired by an excellent pizza I had from Ian’s Pizza a few weeks ago)
• Roasted cauliflower with salsa verde (variation on this), plus goat cheese toasts and salad
• Pork and napa cabbage Chinese steamed dumplings
• More homemade bread with spent grains (last week’s was amazing, so we’re trying a new recipe)
• Breakfasts: Homemade bread with butter and honey, more steel cut oats in jars (last week I posted the wrong link – I do the type where you boil for 3 minutes before putting in the jar, not the no-cook variety)
• Lunches: Turkey sandwiches and a variation of that green salad I linked to above (I’m not a huge fan of raw kale, so we’ll see how that goes …)
• Desserts: leftover crêpes from recipe testing this weekend, Girl Scout cookies

Weekend Links, Feb. 17

Sunday morning coffee. 

Before I forget, I have two tickets to MadTown Shakedown to give away! If you’re in Madison and available Monday, February 24, and you like cocktails, it should be a really fun event. More info about it here and here. If you’re interested, leave a comment here or on the Bowen Appétit Facebook page with a cocktail you’ve been enjoying recently, and I’ll pick a winner on Wednesday!

Not sure why I’ve never tried this when I make oats, and I’ll be doing it today when I make overnight oats for the week. (Never done that before either – so many oat-related firsts!)

I care approximately not at all that Valentine’s Day is past us; this list of floral cocktails will be good any time. Hoping to try the Water Lily this week.

More on the crazy world of olive oil production and marketing, which makes me trust California oil more than ever. (Thanks, Val!)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes: Rachel Cole’s “5 essentials for a passionate, well-fed life.” I’m not generally one to subscribe to life coach/mentor-type email services, but she has some great things to say about the relationships women have with food, cooking, home life, and health.

If you’re in the mood to catch up on what’s happening with the Farm Bill (who isn’t?) or have been looking for an understandable summary, go here and here.

The Full-Fat Paradox. I’m still a little scared of using exclusively full-fat yogurt and whole milk, but we’ve been inching our way there for years. (Yeah Wisconsin.)

Meal plan – Brett has an exam this week, so we’re trying to keep things relatively quick and easy.

• Turnip-bacon gratin (vestiges of our winter CSA) with pork sirloin chop
• Macaroni and cheese with kale and bacon
• Leek and pork Chinese dumplings (Valentine’s Day present)
• Testing coq au vin for a class I’m teaching next week
• Whole wheat sandwich bread with spent grains from brewing beer (Peter Reinhart recipe)
• Breakfasts: Leftover buckwheat waffles (recipe coming soon), overnight steel cut oats
• Desserts: Leftover almost-flourless chocolate cake from Valentine’s Day, Girl Scout cookies

Weekend Links, Feb. 10

Winter plants, where the sun is.

We love you like XO Valentine’s Day menu. (You know how much I love a good hip-hop food pun.)

I will always prefer a real paper card, but if you’re in the market for some excellent food-related electronic Valentine’s Day cards, you’re welcome.

All right, no more about Valentine’s Day. Big news: Walmart has signed onto the Fair Food Program, initiated by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Molly Wizenberg’s second book is coming out in three months. 75% of my excitement is to read it, the other 25% is thinking about what the weather will be like by then. (Okay, more like 50%.)

A handy guide to German beer, which unfortunately came to me a day after I struggled to explain to someone how German beer is more than just pilsners.

I am looking forward to making this sometime this week, even though the writers of that post seemed a little skeptical. Perhaps this grenadine will make the difference.

A short and interesting piece about the evolution of coffee roasters in the United States.

Purple Kale always has a lot of great writing about … strategic cooking, let’s say, and this post on the “wastefulness of meal planning” reminded me that I should point out that even though I’m now starting to post a meal plan for the week, this isn’t anything particularly new for us. And more importantly, we see it as much more of a general plan that helps us go grocery shopping and make sure we do any night-before tasks like salting chicken or soaking beans, not as a written-in-stone schedule. We always leave a blank day or two to leave room for dealing with leftovers and scraps (the point made in Purple Kale’s post) or to leave space for impromptu dinners out or plans with friends.

That said, here’s this week’s meal plan:

• Roasted acorn squash stuffed with lentils and mushrooms
• Pollo alla Veracruzana (Rick Bayless recipe) in the slow cooker
• Recipe testing french onion soup for a class I’m teaching later this month
• Valentine’s Day: homemade sushi, chocolate souffles
• Breakfasts: leek-bacon frittata, granola
• Lunches: leftovers, eating out, and salads with chicken, greens, kale, dried fruit, and a spicy creamy dressing
• Dessert: ricotta-orange cake (said this one last week, but didn’t have a chance to make it), cinnamon-pear pie

I am Pasta Fierce? Seriously.