It wasn’t a resolution as such but since the New Year I have been trying to empty out from the basement at least one black bin bag of rubbish each weekend. I managed two bin bags today and four or five weeks after first starting I am still coming across empty plastic cups left over from one or other of the kids parties that have been had down. If there are any surprises it has been perhaps the lack of empty vodka bottles.
What I did come across was a grand bottle of Collector’s Edition 2011 Big Chouffe. Having found it I was expecting it to be a few years past its use by date but I was in luck – consume by the end of 2014. Well if it has been in the bottle for four years a couple of months extra is not going to make too much difference.
It seemed like a good excuse to make it a beer themed day.
There has been a book on Belgium cooking lurking round the house for a year or so now and I have still not cooked anything from it. Here was a good opportunity to make a beef stew with beer.
Two pounds of stewing steak cut up into bite sized chunks dredged through some flour and then fried in plenty of butter.
Once the beef was browned it was put to one side and I fried off some chopped onions in the same pan scraping away the brown residue of flour on the bottom of the pan so it didn’t burn.
For beer I had been hoping to pick up some Leffe Brune but all they had was the Blonde so that was pressed into service. As the onions started to brown the beer was poured in and beef returned the pan. Once it was bubbling nicely I turned it down to a simmer and there it has been for the last hour so. Shortly before eating it I will stir in a table spoon of red wine vinegar and some red currant jelly.
We should have it with chips but it will be roast potatoes instead.
Whilst the stew was bubbling away I made up another forty pints of beer and that it now sat in the basement and should be ready in three weeks time.
We have been listening to Pylon – nervy dancey early 1980’s New Wave from Athens, Georgia. Nothing to do with beer.
