BEER: Colorado Native

My mom and I were in the mood for a Mexican Lager and I was hoping to find a Del Norte Lager.  So I am pittering about the liquor store when I stumble on Colorado Native.  Sounds promising huh?!  I've never seen it before (and I live by Argonaut Liquors which is Mecca for alcoholics).  I read the little tag hanging off the shelf and it is a 100% local beer, hops and all!  Woah!  I pick it up to see what brewery it is from, "A.C. Golden Brewing Co." is what it says and the first thought I have is "Coors".

bum.
bum.
bum.

But I get it anyway cause hell, what other beer is gonna have Colorado hops in it?  Turns out it is pretty darn drinkable!  An amber ale a little hopped up but really, kinda just right. 

As it turns out it is brewed by Coors.  Don't ya just hate it when the Man is doing just what you want them to?!  Dang.  Even the packaging makes me happy to live here and drink Colorado beer...

Anyway, I guess they are billing it as a craft brew.  they only brew in a 30 barrel brewery.  I haven't been on the Coors tour but I have been wanting to go.  More out of mass producing interest than beer lust.  Maybe I will get the opportunity to check out where they do Colorado Native too.  In the meantime, here is the Beernews.org article about it.

ON AN UNRELATED NOTE:
TOMORROW! 11 September, Denver Botanic Gardens is hosting the Local Food Festival at Chatfield.  Be there or be a jerk.  Also while you are there you can do the corn maze! YAY! Fall!! Check it!!

No Knead Bread, Pesto and what I had for dinner

Sara gave me pretty much the most simple recipe in the world for No Knead Bread

3 cups flour

1 1/3 cup H20

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon yeast

Mix everything in bowl, cover and let rise for several hours.  Dough should be more than double in size. Shape into a round loaf and place on a floured baking sheet.  Bake at 450 for 45 min. to an hour.  It's done when it sounds hollow when you knock on it.

Yep. That easy.  I used Colorado whole wheat flour and whey (left over from cheese making, don't worry, I promise to post about that soon) instead of water.  I shaped mine into more of an oblong for sandwich friendly slices.  I will admit that mine was a little dense but I am sure that was somehow my fault and not one of the recipe. 

I also made pesto yesterday.  All of the basil is about to flower so it was time to harvest it.  I'll be honest, I've never made pesto before and it seems simple enough so I just sort of winged it which, I am sure, is how everyone does it.

I didn't really take measurement because I wasn't expecting to talk about it but basically I threw all of the basil I harvested in the food processor, an amount of garlic appropriate to my taste (three cloves), some rosemary and lemon mint because they were left over in the bowl the basil was in and then I squeezed a hole lemon in there.  I turned on the processor for about 45 seconds, when I turned it off I pushed everything back to the bottom and added a little olive oil (olive oil, not local but on my "okay" list) I turned the processor back on and added just a little olive oil at a time so that it wouldn't get too runny.  Done and Done!  I ended up with about 3oz. of pesto that used about 1/2 of a medium potted basil plant.  I do want to research the proper way to can pesto so that maybe I can continue to enjoy it in the winter (or just hope that my window sill basil plant doesn't die, which it's trying really hard to do).

DINNER TIME!
I picked a tomato and a summer squash from my buildings garden.
Sauteed the squash in olive oil and a little salt.
Two slices of no knead bread, one slice with home made mozzarella the other slice with pesto.  Tomato and squash in the middle.  Pan toasted in a little olive oil.
Served with a side of Colorado peaches.

It didn't occur to me until after I had woofed it down that maybe I should have taken a picture.
Night!

Standards

First off, sorry for the hiatus.  I have good excuses, I just don't feel like telling them.

So I realize in my last post about beer I skirted around the importance of the locality of the beer I was drinking so I figure now is a good time to talk about standards.

First off this isn't a "eat local or go hungry" situation.  I'm a busy person, I have a life and I wanted this to be a reasonable diet not a war with food. 

I picked 75% local cause it seemed like a good goal.  Some days it's 100% some days it's 50%.  Maybe once I get 75% everyday I will up my goal to 80%.  I'm sure you get my jist.

The first thing I did when I decided to do this was make a list...

Once I started writing I realized there are a lot more things I can live without than not.  The first few things I wrote down without a second thought.  It was sort of a natural progression from there.  The next morning I went to make a pot of coffee and went, "OH SHIT! Did I put coffee on that list?!?".  The list became a sort of "cross that bridge when I come to" it situation.  Guacamole?  I love it but outside of that I'm not really a huge fan of avocados (I know, I know, heresy)  so, thanks for the offer but unless we are in Southern California or Mexico then I'm gonna have to pass. 

I feel like the things that are on the list are my own personal business and everyone will have a different list, some longer and some shorter.  Some things I am thinking of removing, (I've heard it's not so hard to grow a mini lemon bush inside, so I'm gonna try) and very rarely I add a new thing to the list (I thought I wouldn't miss bananas but it turns out I do, a lot).  It's not like I consume these things in grotesque excess or anything like that.  Also, for the most part - I can still find this stuff from places that finish the production locally and consciously.  There are tons of great coffee roasters in Denver and Justin's peanut butter out of Boulder is the best.  Let's not forget about breweries, wineries and distilleries - quite of few of them do have 100% local options as well but we all know when, it comes to drinking I don't really like to limit myself.  

Some things aren't on my list because it didn't occur to me that I would miss it until I stumbled on a local option first.  I'm not a really big soda drinker and usually when I get the craving it's cause someone close to me is enjoying one.  This is usually at work.  A few weeks ago all I could think about was soda so I went to pour myself one without second thought and as I was doing it I remembered we get our soda from Oogavé.  It's soda so I am sure that not many of their ingredients are local but it is a delicious, natural soda made right in Denver.  

Some days I sacrifice and some days I compromise.  And I rarely get even a glimmer of a feeling of defeat or frustration or that I want to give up.  I'm living my life the same way as always just a little more consideration.

BREWERY: Upslope

Oh boy, Oh boy

So Curley and I had this awesome idea to throw our bikes on the bus and head up to Boulder to visit Upslope Brewery.  Bless Curley's sweet little heart, he had it all planned out.  Figured out what bus we needed to take up there, what time it leaves, where the brewery is, all that jazz.  So we get off the bus near CU and look up the brewery and realize that we didn't get off the bus at quite the right time.

So I'll tell you this right now, "Upslope" is Boulder speak for "Uphill, five miles, in the rain, with the wind against you, what the hell were you thinking bringing your bike you dumb ass Denverite?!"

I will give Curley credit, he was fine.  I haven't owned a bike since I left Savannah a year ago so I haven't been riding at a mile high, nor going on long uphill rides.  I was admittedly pooped when we got there and wasn't even able to form a tangible thought until after my first beer was down my gullet.  The good news it that when we left and I was all frosty toed I mostly coasted downhill back to Boulder proper.

Biking aside, Upslope was pretty friggin' awesome!  It isn't the first brewery and tap room I have visited but it is by far the smallest, which I think makes it the perfect first brewery blog.

Now I am going to have to admit that between the bike ride brain smash and the beer brain smash I might have scrimped on the real locallyness of the whole adventure, aside from the fact that it was brewed locally.  Here is an example of my great reporting skills, notes dictated by me and translated to paper by Curley.

Maybe I should explain what some of these things mean:

barley  ready for the cows.

• "Wheat/Barley in mouth"= Alex ("brew guy") let us try some of the spent barley.  It was actually pretty tasty.  They said it makes great dog treats but they donate theirs to a local farm.  It sure does make for some happy cows!!
• "Sweet Couple - You go home, you drink it, you finish it"= The regulars we talked to who were describing how the smaller sized growlers are just right.  You can also get kegs AND if you ask real nice they will hand mix a six pack for you, three I.P.A. and three Pale Ales!
• "Canning Process"= a pretty rad raddness that happened... 

So Upslope is a pretty small operation.  They only distribute as far south as Denver and as far north as... just a little ways outside of Boulder.  They can two of their beers, the Pale Ale and the India Pale Ale.  Because I have never seen any of their beers on tap I kinda thought that was all they had.  Unfact.  They have six taps in their tap room, two are reserved for their Pale Ale and the I.P.A. but the other four rotate with a few of their other beers.  When we were there they also had a Mexican Lager, a Dunkel Weiss, a Belgium Wheat and a Stout.

All of them really were so good!  Right when we got there we had the Mexican lager which is the perfect, bright, summery beer.  It is called Tightrope and is by far one of the best Mexican Lagers I have ever had. The wheat was my favorite though.  I was hot and the coriander (which is organic by the way) was just what I wanted.  They also use a trappist yeast or "Monk Thing" according to the notes.  My notes for the Dunkel Weiss simply say, "Fun to say, Also very delicious".  That is all true.  The Stout was also very good although I only had a little sip of it.  As a little extra treat while we were there Chad, the tap room manager, cracked open one of his home brews.  It had nothing to do with Upslope but what an awesome little taster of his bourbon stout!  Chad, by the way was awesomely knowledgeable and friendly.

So onto the "canning process" note.  II never seen this done before and Upslope made it even better by letting us can our own beer!  WOAH!  Luke A.K.A. Our Dawg as Curley's notes refer to him, gave us a super casual and super awesome tour of their facility and when he asked if we wanted to can a beer I just about peed my pants. This might have been one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Curley at the can filling machine.

This is the spiny machine that seals the lids on (I learned no technical words apparently)

 

 

 

 

Every one at Upslope was so nice and so hospitable.  I wish it were a little closer to home.  Curley and I had a pretty awesome time, we had a really unique brewery experience, we talked to a lot of the regulars and boy howdy did we drink some good beer!  I'd like to thank everyone at Upslope for being so welcoming and for producing such quality brews!

Chad, Curley, Luke, Me and Alex

RESTAURANT: Bones

So I feel a big part of being a locavore is supporting local business, especially ones that try to be as locally conscience as possible.  Anyway, I am way to lazy to cook for my self ALL the time. 

I had never been to Bones.  It is very near my house on 7th and Grant.  Everyone says it is Oh Soh Good and I blindly assumed that it would be mostly local fare (although I did know that there is a lot of seafood on the menu, which obviously isn't from Colorado).  I told our waiter what that I was trying to eat local and asked him if anything on the menu was farmed in Colorado.  He wasn't entirely sure but did tell me that all of the pork was from Salmon Creek Farms, which is in a state that is not mine.  I was a little disappointed but he did mention that some of the greens were from Colorado, he thought...

Then he came back with our drinks and some GREAT NEWS!  They recently changed to a local farm, Torpedo Farms in Pueblo (which, by the way, is just within the 100 mile radius), for all of their pork.  Their greens are from Verde Farms - which seems to be a popular choice for Denver restaurants.  The distributor they use for other produce, tries to source as much as they can locally.  YAY!  Our service was really great.  We had a super nice waiter who was so helpful and went out of his way to help answer my questions.

it was a cloudy day so it was nice to sit outside on their adorable patio.

Onto the food!

So let's call Bones an Asian Bistro.  With lots of unique flavor combos and noodle dishes. 

Their appetizers are a pretty good price and the things we ordered were good proportions.  I would say that this would be a great place for snacks and drinks because of their starters but I could have been a little more impressed with their booze selection.  We started with the Jicama Salad which was really awesome.  For $3.50 we each got a small salad and it was a delight.  It had jicama, oranges, poblano and mushrooms.  It was so refreshing and really great for a summer day.  Then we had the Pork Belly Steamed Buns.  Everything was just right.  The belly was tender and juicy and the steamed buns were SO good!  Sweet and a little sticky I could maybe just eat them alone all day long.  

For dinner we shared a bowl of the Udon Noodles and The Soba noodles.  Both were very nice.  I preferred the Udon.  The broth was out of this world good and the pork shoulder was cooked just right!  The Soba was very good as well, it is served at room temperature which I think distracted me a little bit from the flavor.  There was also an overwhelming amount of prosciutto in the soba.  Leslie loved it though so it worked out for all of us.

Leslie really enjoying the udon.

The other nice thing about Bones it that even though $14 seems like a lot for a noodle dish you get A LOT of noodles.  Enough to fill you up and then some. 

I don't know that bones is a restaurant that I am going to go to all the time but it nice to keep in mind, especially because it is so close to home!

Jam Session

Jam session... get it??!!

Anyway...

My momma came over today so I forced her to help me make jam out of all those berries I picked before it was too late to do anything at all.  I did put some of the black raspberries aside for yogurt and things (I haven't made any yet but I hear it is easy) and I saved some of the red currants to dehydrate, scones maybe.

I found a recipe for red currant jam online and made a few changes to it for the black raspberries.  From what I can tell this recipe can be used to make pretty much any type of berry jam.

Here goes,
8 cups currants
1/2 cup H2O
4 1/2 cups sugar

Other helpful things
Jars
Jar tongs
Jar funnel

(I was able to get all three of those things at the ace hardware by my house although you don't need the funnel if you can pour well and and tongs are super helpful but regular tongs do, technically, get the job done)

Because the black raspberries aren't quite as tart as currants nor as juicy I cut down on the sugar by 1/2 a cup and did 3/4 a cup water.  In retrospect though I maybe could have cut down on the sugar a little bit more, it turned out fairly sweet.

So first rinse your berries (duh, right?) then throw them in a pot with the water and bring to a boil.

thems berries got the jazz boil!

Now that they are boiling and your berries are soft you are going to reduce the heat and mash those berries up.  A potato masher works right good but I used my non-electric hand mixer (an electric mixer would probably work, I only wish I had one).

I also hear a food processor works quite well if you want a super smooooth jam, I prefer the chunkier kind myself.  Now leave it on the stove to simmer, stirring frequently.  The recipe I had said to let it simmer for 20 minutes although I found I had to go a little more than that for the currants and quite a bit longer for the raspberries.

While your jam is simmering it makes for a good opportunity to sanitize your jars.  You can either hand wash and rinse well, put them through the dish washer or boil them.

After about 20 minutes you can start checking the viscosity of your concoction.  Now there are two ways to do this.  The method I have been using is the spoon test.  You dip your spoon in and when you pull it out you want it to really stick to the spoon.

Those droplets on the spoon were really slow moving and as they started to cool they stopped dripping entirely and just stuck there.  The other method you can use is a plate test.  Put a spoon full on a plate and stick it in the freezer just long enough to get to room temperature.  When you hold the plate sideways it should stick to the plate like, well, jelly would. 

So now you want to pour your super hot liquid jam into it's new jar homes.  Just a heads up, for the full recipe with the black raspberries I was able to fill 48oz worth of jars and the 1/2 recipe with the currants I got 24oz (side note, if you puree the berries you may get a little less than this).  Once your jars are full make sure you wipe the rims down really well then put the lids on, hand tightening them.  Now they go in a boiling water bath.  What this does is kill all of the bacteria and micro-organisms that may exist in there.  They only need to be submerged in the boiling water for about ten minutes but for you Denverites reading this you may want to do it for 20 or so seeing as how water boils at a lower temperature up here.  Use those jar tongs to get them out of the hot water and set them on the counter.  You are going to want to test the seals now, you can just push down on the lid if it clicky-clackies it didn't seal all the way, that's okay though just make sure you refrigerate them and use within two months.

YAY!  We did it!

"Wait Judy", you may be saying "I see the black raspberry on the right and the red currant on the left, but do tell WHAT is that in the middle?"

Well on Sara's suggestion I made a syrup with the pie cherries.  It was so easy, I did equal parts honey and water (a cup of each) and about two cups cherries.  I boiled everything for about ten minutes and then processed them in the same hot-water bath as the jams.  At my moms (Gwen) suggestion we did a few.  One has sage in it, one has rosemary (she was thinking pork chops) and one has mint.

The next time we make jam - jalapeno peach and strawberry!

Now go be free sweet things!

Berry Patch Farms

Good Morning!

Yesterday Sara and I took a little adventure to Berry Patch Farms in Brighton.  Now this is a pretty hoppin' joint seein as how it is only about 30 minutes outside of Denver.  They have it all, a small shop where you can get fresh picked veggies and "Pick your own" of berries.   A group of us went last week and picked pie cherries and red currants and while we were there they told us black raspberries would be ripe in a week.  Hence our visit.

As we approached the bushes they seem a little picked over, and as it turns out a little thorny (we didn't know).  We realized that if you looked into the bushes there were still plenty of raspberries left.  So, with blind and foolish determination we plunged into the spiney, evil branches that seem to have sprung up from hell. 

Black Gold

Tragedy only struck once...

Don't worry we picked them all up, we weren't about to give anybody any freebies.

 All in all, a little worse for the wear,

trying to figure out what is blood and what is raspberry juice

Okay, a lot worse for the wear, it was well worth it

Black raspberry and red currant jam here we come!!

And here is a checklist for future raspberry pickers

• long sleeve shirt and pants
• gloves
• stubborn determination

Also for anyone interested in visiting Berry Patch Farms visit their site to find out what is in season.  The staff is super friendly and chatty.  Their shop has other fresh picked veggies from their farm available and well as guest appearances by other farms.  A near by ranch sells beef there and when we went there were apricots from another farm too.  With pic-nic tables and roosters running amok it is a great place to take kids to see all sorts of farmy things!

Thanks for the tip NPR

While listening to NPR yesterday they featured a story on a shop that opened in the Highlands.  Even though it isn't in my neighborhood I am for sure gonna go give it a look.  Not today though, It's my birthday!

Here is a link to NPR's series called "Backyard Farmers".  Oh NPR, I love you.
And here is the link for In Season Market.  Let's all support this local business and local farmers!

On the birthday note...

YAY!!  Look at all that cold, delicious Colorado beer!! Great Divide, Breckenridge Brewery, Odell and Boulder Beer!  I love birthdays!  Now come on over and help me drink it!

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for joining me in my journey to become a locavore!

I have had a long standing awareness of what I consume and where it comes from but I very rarely act upon it.  About two months ago the events in my life made me rethink my behavior in regards to what I put on and in my body.  I made the decision to consume locally for a number of reasons.  Environmentally, I am attracted to the idea of my food traveling a much shorter distance (or none at all) to get into my mouth.  Economically, buying things close to home is sometimes cheaper and the times that it is not I know that my Denver dollar is going to a Denver citizen and will be put back into my community.  A local diet makes me more physically conscience of what is going in my body, no more chemicals, no preservatives and additives.  I will become responsible for knowing where my food comes from and what else is in it before I enjoy it.

I decided on a goal of 75% Colorado food with the intention for most of it to be within 100 miles of where I live in Denver.

It was a little slow moving gettin' on the ball with all this but now that I have maintained some sort of homeostasis in my life I am ready to tackle all of the extra work and thought that goes into a diet like this.   Considering the restaurants I eat at before I hand them my dollars, finding local businesses with the same mindset, drinking Colorado beer.  You also better be ready cause we're gonna do all sorts of crap we never thought we would learn how to do.  Making cheese, canning, pickling, making yogurt and ice cream - just consider this a novice's guide to urban homesteading and local grubbing!