Underhill-Lounge

Since we were off to some friends’ house for Cocktails & Canapes last evening, I made a pretty simple Saturday night dinner.

Salad with little tomatoes and a Sherry Vinegar Vinaigrette.

Fish Pie is one of those odd English comfort foods that really doesn’t sound all that appealing, but is in fact quite delicious. Make mashed [...]

This week’s beer comes from Port Brewing in San Marcos, CA.
I’m just going to to say it is a delicious beer and quote their label, as it seemed particularly meaningful to me this week:
From the French word “Garde” meaning something worth keeping, this Farmhouse Style Ale is most delicious companion to a loaf of freshly [...]

When I first lived on my own in college, I soon discovered I had almost no cooking skills.
At home or in the dorms, I had never so much as lifted a finger beyond making myself a sandwich from cold meat or baking some cookies. Fried potatoes with onions, eggs, and cheddar cheese were pretty [...]

Pumpkin Risotto, Chicken Apple Sausages, and greens tossed with figs, blue cheese, and a raspberry-sherry vinegar vinaigrette.
Boy, the salad really turned out well!
Just mashed a bunch of raspberries in sherry vinegar and then strained through cheesecloth. Added a little sugar, a small minced clove of garlic, and a teaspoon or so of dijon mustard. [...]

The Rogue Dead Guy Ale is a good Halloween beer of the week for obvious reasons. According to the Rogue website it was originally created to celebrate the Day of the Dead and is a German-style Maibock. In practice it is a fairly sweet, malt forward strong ale. Very drinkable, though, I have [...]

Mrs. Underhill came back from her trip to New York with a nasty cold.
The best thing it seemed I could do would be to make her a nice Chicken Stew.

Boiled the chicken.

Various root vegetables.

Cooked chicken removed from bones.

Mmmm… Chicken parts boiling.

Mirepoix.

I really should save that schmaltz…

Roux.

Properly cooked roux.

Diced root vegetables.

Stock goes into the roux.

Boiling [...]

For some reason, since trying the cocktails at the bartender’s competition, I’ve had an idea to try a cocktail which combined strawberries and the St. Germain Elderflower liqueur.
After a couple tries, we thought this one pretty good. It’s basically a riff on a classic cocktail called the “Bloodhound”. Haven’t thought of a name [...]