What drinks pair best with cheesy chips
Reminder that this year’s NaBloPoMo theme on Quirky Cookery is “adults.” Content may not be appropriate for kids.
Cheese and wine? Nah, apparently the new thing is beer with….junk food.
And as much as I want to take it as a joke, this guy talks rather seriously about it:
You might be surprised, but a bit of classic pairing advice actually applies to the junk food example. For instance, most cheese-flavored snacks are vaguely cheddar-like. Things that work with cheddar cheese, such as IPA and stout, also taste good with cheesy (or cheezy) snacks. Beers that you might normally pair with barbecue, like stout or a Belgian dubbel, will elevate your barbecue chips, too.
It’s worth considering texture, too. Puffed snacks dissolve to slime in your mouth. You need a beer with hops or bubbles to clear away the goo. The same is true for Chester Fries, which leave behind a greasy film. Potato chips have a delicate crunch that doesn’t want a heavy beer. Nachos and Sun Chips are coarser and can take a bit of heft.
Then he actually breaks it down with several other chips, too. I can’t say I know anyone who would specifically pair their chips with a style of beer on purpose as opposed to grabbing whatever’s in the fridge, but it’s interesting to see which ones would technically go well together.
Halloween pumpkin cheeseball with Doritos
Really, can you imagine a better food to create that bright fake orange color? Cheetos might give it a run for its money, but once crushed, I don’t know how well it would stick. I guess maybe the powered cheese from boxed macaroni and cheese might work, too?
Either way, you know my love for cheeseballs, so this one gets added to the list. It’s simple, but clever, and the bell pepper stem is perfect for making it into a miniature pumpkin. I might be tempted to add pepper cutouts for a jack-o-lantern face, though.
Recipe at Family Fresh Meals.
Giant Halloween pumpkin burger – Trick or treat?
It’s both a Halloween trick and a treat, no?
The girls love burgers, so I thought it’d be a blast to make an extra large one. It was Fall of 2009 and it was probably one of the first times I went on a true pumpkin kick. I was loving “look alikes” at the time, too, so it just fit, don’t you think?
Anyway, I’ll leave you with the pictures. Details of how I made it are at the bottom.
“Bun” – Carve the pumpkin in half. By “carve,” what I really mean is that I had to fight with it and a butcher knife until I finally won. It was close, though. This isn’t the same as being able to slice off the top for a jack-o-lantern or throwing a pumpkin to bust it into chunks. Trying to get it perfectly even down the middle was a pain in the butt. Ugh. Worth every minute, though. The pumpkin seeds were turned into fake sesame seeds by gluing them on top to look like a real burger bun.
Meat – A mix of beef and turkey so that it wasn’t as greasy as pure beef would’ve been. That meant I could get a full patty to hold together instead of it breaking apart. I cooked it on a large round cookie sheet and let it cool just slightly before sliding it onto the ‘bun.’
Toppings – Tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, cheese…. nothing special here. The cheese was left in small slices and not spread across the entire thing so that it made it easy to serve individual burgers after we deconstructed it.
Serving – I cut it into jagged squares-ish, based loosely around the cheese and tomato slices fell and let each person reconstruct their own burger on a regular bun. Then they could add their own condiments and trade toppings they don’t like to other people before eating. You could easily toss them in a toaster oven to melt the cheese more or add the cheese to the whole patty before putting the burger together in the first place. I wasn’t sure how well it would hold my first time, though.
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