Kegs and Kitchen

There’s been a flurry of activity at Kegs and Kitchen headquarters. Instead of a bunch of small posts, I thought I’d combine some.

First, Friday night, Lefty and I staged “The Battle of the Belgians” at his house. It was a steel cage fight to the death that left only the Rare Vos from Ommegang standing.

It was a painful, bloody match for all involved. Chairs were thrown. There were several cheap shots square in the nuts, and at least one man left on a stretcher. But it was both an educational and exciting match to witness. Those Belgians are fucking crazy.

Saturday brought much time in the kitchen. First up was crab cakes for the lady. They were super easy, and she seemed to enjoy them quite a bit. Crab meat, diced shallots, roasted red pepper, bread crumbs, fresh thyme, a tablespoon of mustard, splash of white wine and an egg. Booyah.

I followed the cakes up with a first time ever dish. I had to put my recent bounty from The Johnson’s Backyard Garden to use. I had some eggplant and thought of either baba ganoush or eggplant parm. I wish I’d gone with the ganoush. I hadn’t had eggplant parmesan since I was very young when I decided that I really didn’t care for it. Turns out it’s still far from my favorite dish. I just cut the eggplant into 1/4 inch slices, breaded and pan fried them and then layered them with a basic marinara sauce, parmigiano-reggiano and mozzarella in two layers.

Then I baked it covered with foil for 30 minutes, and without for another 15 at 350 degrees. We had it with a glass of Clayhouse Adobe Red, which was quite good. The eggplant dish wasn’t bad either, I think it really just isn’t my thing.

And the top story of the report this weekend, Kegs and Kitchen was linked to for that Broccoli Cheddah Soup post a couple of weeks ago. It seems Eli in Indiana paired my soup with venison backstrap. Most interestingly, he used his own homebrewed steam beer in the soup. High five Eli!