Spaghetti Sauce

So I make a lot of different tomato sauces, but as many as I make they all start off the exact same way, Tomato Sauce or Paste, Onion, Garlic, Salt & Pepper. From there the sauces can change with the simplest of ingredients. This is a picture that I took of the sauce after I added the ingredients. This one I only added Basil, Oregano, a Thyme Leaf and a diced up Red Pepper. The Red Pepper Is really what makes the sauce though for this specific one. There are plenty of others that instead of a Red Pepper you can add Carrot and let it simmer for a good amount of time, to let the flavor of the vegetable spread throughout the sauce.

Guinness Tasting

Yeah, I conducted my own guinness tasting. After visiting the brewery and learning about what makes Guinness Guinness, I decided to try all three beers and see which one I like best. So the following are my tasting notes:

Guinness Draught (The one you find in bars all over the U.S.) In the picture this is the can all the way to the right:

This one is obviously what started it for me and was the one that got me hooked on the beer in the first place. However When I drink this one I taste notes of Creamy Chocolate. Very smooth as it goes down, definitely does have a bite to it, but rather makes you want to bite it back because it is so thick. The taste of roasted barley is what is noted the most i think. However if you have never tasted roasted barley you wouldn't know what to call it, the best you could really say is that it has a dark taste. That dark taste is the roasted barley, in my opinion. It affects the back two sides of my tongue when I take a drink, that is the point that it tends to linger on once it hits my tongue. Overall though it is a very good filling beer, definitely the kind that I recommend you order when out with some friends in a casual manner and you are looking to hang out and talk.

Guinness Extra Stout (Bottle in the Middle with the cream colored label):

Crispy is the first thing that comes to mind when I take a drink. Lighter then the original has a very crisp bite to it. Still manages to have that typical choco taste which I am starting to believe is part of the signature taste that a Guinness beer is going to have. Yet very nice, maybe not the kind of thing I would order on a cold day or at night but definitely something I would reach for on a hotter day.

Guinness Foreign Extra (Yellow label, all the way to the right):

This one is typical sold in the Caribbean, where the journey takes longer to finally reach it's destination. The are more hops in this select beer and they definitely are present in the taste. My first taste led me to think; Darker (WOW!)

I was not expecting that. A lot stronger, has more of a bite then the original Draught but still has that typical signature guinness taste lingering in the background. Much richer yet the balance of sweet and bitter is pretty good. It is definitely noticed but doesn't give the sense that it is to bitter or to sweet. In fact the sweetness is done really well with this beer, yet takes a little time to pick up on. Where the previous two are about 4.7% alcohol this one is at 7.5% and definitely shows. Maybe I wouldn't order this one all the time but definitely for special occasions with people and possibly paired with a heavier steak would be quite nice, something with a lot of pepper and spices to it.

Tri Colored Chicken Cacciotore

The Pasta, I must confess was not made by me although I plan on starting my experimentation with colored pasta soon. When I was asking about what is used for the coloring, some common responses that I would get were, obviously tomato juice to make the pasta red and Spinach juice to make the pasta green. Although to make the pasta black I got several answers that referred me to Squid ink. Though that was the only answer I got I'm sure that I could use really any kind of vegetable that would give me a black liquid because it doesn't really add much of a taste to the pasta but rather, simply a color. This pasta though that I made turned out really good. I also have been starting to realize what pasta noodles go with what kind of sauces. For example this sauce was particularly thicker and obviously had chicken in it, therefore it needed something more substantial then just spaghetti noodles. Therefore I used bow-tie pasta noodles or another one that would have been good would be simple tagliatelle pasta. Both of these types are thicker and give me to the sauce and the chicken which is obviously the main focus in this dish.

Beef Vegetable stir fry

Kind of like a stir fry, except that I was really using whatever I had. Seeing as how I don't have any really sauces or oil's to use I improvised with Lime juice, Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and various other spices. The vegetables were eggplant, onion, Green Bell Pepper, Yellow Bell Pepper and the of course left over beef from the night before. Oh, I also put in some basil to but I didn't do it right and didn't stand out very well.

some random dutch cheese

So while I was walking through Dutchieland, I came across a cheese stand by a bunch of other food stands. Specifically I was in Amsterdam, anyway I had no clue what kind of cheese this would be and it was really cheap. The guy said he made alot of it, so i figured I would try it. I thought it would be a lighter cheese but got a completely different taste. The cheese is sharp like a cheddar and almost has the same consistency. Though it has a strong taste that I cannot figure out whether it is from goats milk or sheeps milk. I think it is leaning more towards goats milk, it had a rather sharp taste to it. However it melts well, and goes really good with eggs.

Meat it's whats for dinner!

Although, that doesn't mean that it has to be a boring tasteless meat. I have been experimenting with flavoring meats by stuffing them and then wrapping them up with some string. This one I specifically used a mixture of sauteed onion, garlic, salt& pepper, blue cheese, and rosemary. Put it all together then make some cuts in the meat, I recommend go deep so as to reach more of the meat rather then just the top. The rest of the dish were things that Complimented the meat but didn't take the attention away. Tomato is a great companion, it brings a nice salty, juicy texture to the meal. Green Bell Pepper is fresh, crispy and adds a nice crisp taste when put together. The basil leaf though small holds its own, even with this beef. The bread is obviously there to help soak up the tasty juices that come from every other part of the meal.

Chicken Parmigiana (minus the cheese)

Such an amazing dish. Though it is very simple and very common in restaurant's allover, there is just always this extra factor when it is made well and made in the house. Everything down to the last detail was carefully thought through and brought together in the end to perfect this dish. The noodles made by hand add a nice touch of substance to the dish that cannot be found with normal store bought noodles. The sauce, though it is very simple was the perfect touch because it does not take away from the flavor of the chicken. The breading on the chicken is toasted breaded crumbs mixed with a variety of spices. Rather then using just bread crumbs adding the extra spices brings that flavor to the meal that you cannot quite figure out, and keeps you thinking about it until you finally give up and enjoy the combination of flavors. This definitely is one for the menu.