Dick's Cream Stout

Dick's Brewing Company, Cream Stout
Centralia, WA
5.5% Alcohol
Rating: 4/5

It's an excellent stout with a rich flavor that could even be described, dare I say it, as creamy.

Beet Cobbler

Beets in a pan

Here's the idea: take some of the most standard accompaniments to beets--hazelnuts, goat cheese--and put biscuits on top. The biscuits are taken from a peach cobbler recipe of my mother's, minus some sugar. I put in a leek, but an onion would work fine too. This is at least four or five portions.

• 4 beets, peeled and sliced
• 1 tbs. malt vinegar
• 1/2 cup hazelnuts
• a few ounces soft goat cheese
• 1 large leek, chopped
• olive oil, salt, pepper
• butter for greasing

For the topping:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2-3 tbs. melted butter
• 1/2 cup buttermilk, or 1/2 cup yogurt plus a bit of water

Grease an 8-inch square pan (or something of a similar size) and put in the sliced beets mixed up with the malt vinegar and some salt. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and cook for 25 minutes at 400 degrees.

Meanwhile, cook the leeks in a skillet over medium-low heat in olive oil with some salt and pepper until they're soft. Make the biscuit dough by mixing up the dry ingredients and then adding the liquid ingredients and stirring with a spoon or spatula. The dough should be like a very sticky bread dough, not a batter.

When the beets have cooked for 25 minutes, uncover the pan. Give the beets a stir, and put the leeks and hazelnuts on top. Drop handfuls of the dough on top of this, and scatter some blobs of goat cheese around. (When I did this I buried the cheese under biscuits because I was worried it would burn, but I don't think it was necessary.) Put back into the oven until the biscuits are done, 25-30 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes and serve.

Iron Horse Cozy Sweater

Iron Horse Brewery, Cozy Sweater
Vanilla Milk Stout
Ellensburg, WA
4.5% Alcohol
Rating: 3/5

This is the kind of beer that I wouldn't buy if I didn't trust Iron Horse. I really didn't like it at first: the vanilla flavor was jarring, and it all seemed too sweet. By the end I appreciated the rich malty flavor and found it more tolerable, if not my favorite.

More Apartment Improvement

Since we got back from Minnesota, Lindsay and I have made two big improvements to the apartment. Here are our new bedroom curtains:

These took a few months to make. We bought fabric and curtain rods back in August or September, but then we had to wait for December so that Lindsay could use her mother's sewing machine. Off to the side, you can see Lindsay sewing a different set of curtains, which we'll put up when we get bored of these bright pink ones. I should also mention that even though I keep saying that "we" did various things, Lindsay did all the work, from hemming the curtains to putting up the rod. Really the only thing I did was choose the pattern.

The other new thing is this wire rack:

We moved our bag of rice and jug of peanut oil off the floor and onto the first rack. We emptied out a cabinet onto the second rack. The third rack got our bucket of granola and a few other containers of food, most of which had been crowded on top of our refrigerator.

Three Skulls Pilsner

Three Skulls Ales, Yellow Beard Pilsner
Seattle, WA
~5% Alcohol (just a guess)
Rating: 2/5

It tastes like grape soda. It is possibly the first domestic beer I've had that tastes like this. Is beer supposed to taste this way? I don't like it.

Some internet investigating has taught me that Three Skulls Ales is basically just Baron Brewery.

Minnesota Before and After

South Seattle Sunrise

Our trip began a few weeks ago with an early morning ride on the light rail to the airport. And look what a nice job our new camera did in the dim light! Thanks, parents.

I took this next picture on the way back from the airport 11 days later. Look for the walruses.

The Arctic Building

You can find some more recent photos on this post and this post of Lindsay's. Also, check out my new slippers, a Christmas present from Lindsay's mother:

My new slippers and Lindsay's old slippers.

Cookies

Here are some of the cookies of Christmas.

In order, they're chocolate espresso cookies, mint meringues, krumkake, sugar cookies, sugary chocolate cookies, and benne wafers. Lindsay and I made the sugar cookies, the sugary chocolate cookies, and the benne wafers, and along with her brother Zach we made the meringues. Lindsay's mother Kim made the espresso cookies, and her grandmother Viv made the krumkake. All were delicious. We made some more benne wafers for New Year's, but they're getting soggy, either because of the Seattle dampness or because we used dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar. They're still pretty good, even if they melt instead of crunch in your mouth.