Tag Archives: Lourdes Gourmet

Chimichurri and Pale Ale Infused Artichoke

Working at the brewery every single day makes it pretty difficult to find the time to actually cook something. Luckily, I’ve got the pressure cooker to combat that issue. Photographing is another story since I get home after dark every day. For this artichoke recipe, I started cooking at 9am so I could get my good lighting, wrap it up and be at the brewery by 10am. Nothing like garlicky artichokes and beer for breakfast!
art1This is a recipe that has been on my brain ever since that first fateful day of Becki vs. artichoke. If you cannot beat the artichoke, you must become the artichoke. Lourdes Gourmet sent me another care package in the mail so I could actually make that dream of a recipe become a reality. First, you hack off the top inch of the artichoke and trim the leaves with kitchen shears.
art2Smother the top with chimichurri sauce, being sure to work the sauce into the leaves with the spoon.
art4Place in a pressure cooker with a cup of pale ale (preferably Snowbank Brewing’s Bike Trail Pale) and cook for 10-12 minutes.
art5Serve and pair with a pint of the same pale ale you cooked with.
[gmc_recipe 8065]
art3The butter sauce for dipping afterwards is completely unnecessary. The Lourdes Gourmet Chimichurri Sauce melts in the pressure cooker and falls inside the leaves of the artichoke while the pale ale infuses its flavor into each piece. This is, hands down, the BEST and most tender artichoke I’ve ever consumed in my entire life. I ate it for breakfast and I would eat it again with every meal if I had the means to make it.

Now go invest in a pressure cooker and order some of this sauce online. You can thank me later.

I was supplied with free product from Lourdes Gourmet with which to create recipes. All reviews/opinions/obsessions are my own.

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Growing Pains

Good news/bad news.
amThe Craft Brewers Conference of 2014 was absolutely amazing!
am1I can’t wait to recap it for you…
am5…sometime next week. I’m in the middle of all the final walk-throughs, inspections and closing (!!!!) on my house! I’m growing up, turning into an adult and going to be a homeowner!
am7My days have been filled with nothing but visiting thrift stores (I found these almost brand-new brew-style stools for $12.95!) and ordering mattresses and kegerators. Well, not the kegerator part. I guess a place to sleep is slightly more important than a kegerator. Priorities, people.
am3With all the stress, it’s been nice to have a few seconds of down time here and there. I stopped at the brand new 1933 Brewing in Fort Collins to enjoy a short afternoon and taster flight with a friend before work.
am4I also found a night to sneak out to Mayor of Old Town in Fort Collins for the most amazing cream cheese-stuffed jalapeno pretzel with raspberry jam in the entire universe! Geez, I can’t wait to be living in Fort Collins so I can eat these every day! (or just stare longingly at the menu and sniff at the air since I have a mortgage to pay and won’t be able to afford to buy universally-delicious pretzels…)
am6I received some sanity-preserving gifts in the mail yesterday! My favorite chimichurri sauce in the whole world! I already have visions of relaxing outside of my new house, sipping a brew and grilling with these wonderful spreads and jams!
am8But first, I had to try some of that chimichurri sauce to make sure it tasted just as I remember. It does. Oh, Lordy, it does!

So bad news is that you guys will have to wait until next week for the CBC recap, but the good news is…
Screen shot 2014-04-06 at 10.46.40 PMYou also have some more time to enter for free Bhakti Chai!!! Head back to this post and leave a comment for your chance to win and I’ll choose the winner sometime next week after all the insanity has slightly waned!

Have you ever found anything good at a thrift shop? I will never doubt again!

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Lessons and Obsessions: 2 {GIVEAWAY}

The giveaway is at the end of the post. This is me hoping you’ll read through because you’re super interested in the minute details of my super exciting life… Yes? Right? Halloo??

Obsession:
amChia Kombucha.
am6I just “happen” to end up near a Whole Foods almost every day…
AM10And I can’t stop buying these!!!
am23I even purposely avoided Whole Foods today, but found more at a local grocery store that’s closer to my current house. Can someone please direct me towards a good Kombucha kit? Save my wallet? PLEASE??

Lesson:
AM11Cars should be washed more than once every nine months. And when one decides to wash said car, one should make sure that it’s not supposed to snow the next day. Something like that might negate said car wash.

Obsession:
am9This sauce. I first purchased it in California at the farmers’ market four years ago and made recurring purchases almost every month. (I tried to recreate it once after I decided it was “too expensive” and ended up massively regretting that decision.)
AM3I found it at We Olive in Ventura (after scouring the same farmers’ market for Lourdes’s stand) this past visit to Cali and started slathering it on EVERYTHING.
am17Last night, the jar ran out. I panicked and ran to Instagram to let everyone know how woeful and distraught I was, as normal people would.
Screen shot 2014-02-25 at 5.46.19 PMLuckily, just before I imploded from stress and depression, Lourdes Gourmet contacted me via Twitter and saved the day with a coupon! Ricardo (who runs the social media for Lourdes Gourmet) and I are besties now. Just so you know.

Lesson:
AM12If you have an entire Saturday off (which hasn’t happened since I was hired, minus the vacation Saturday last week) and you’re hoping to be productive, don’t go visit friends on what you later find out that it’s “National Margarita Day”. Instead, go visit friends on “National Margarita Day” and plan on having an awesome time, laughing your ass off, playing “pimps and hoes” and not going to bed until 3am. Errands can always be pushed back one day. Even laundry. Perfume works wonders on dirty clothes. Sorry for that, coworkers…

Obsession:
am5My new house!!! The shingles are on, the plumbing is in and the electrical is almost done!
am4I enjoy my mountain view while I still can, before the house next door goes up.
AM9You can’t tell here, but I’m doing a mirror selfie in my new bathroom. If I had a mirror, it’d look like this:
am2Except there wouldn’t be a bowl of towels or weird yellow paint on the walls. And I wouldn’t be doing a selfie because it’s shameful and everyone hates them…
am3But if I were doing a selfie (which I would never do, or admit), I’d be sure to show off this other obsession – my new Ladyface tank I got on my trip! I’ve worn it around way too much already.)

Lesson:
AM14Sauteing grated butternut squash smells like sushi. Weird.
am16If you’re making Jenna’s latest recipe for Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Risotto and you’re really hungry and want to be fed in less than two and a half hours, don’t sub in short grained sprouted brown rice (no matter how healthy it is). If you can wait and want to be healthy ‘n stuff, definitely sub it in. A delicious pain in the ass dish.
am18And no matter what you make, be sure to top it with crazy amounts of goat cheese. Because goat cheese is delicious.

Obsession:
am7These. I found them while I was at the grocery store with my bro, convinced (haha, yeah, like he needed to be convinced) him to buy the pack and then proceeded to steal one. I guarantee you if I’d purchased the pack, I would’ve consumed them all within half an hour. No joke.

Lesson:
AM13Kobe Sushi in Loveland makes their brown rice with black beans. That’s all.

Which brings me to my last obsession, and the giveaway!
am19Books in the mail! Back to Butter is the creation of my friend Molly from Apricot Lane Farms and her mother. I’ve tried Molly’s food at the farm before. It is beyond epic. I’ll be in my kitchen until further notice.
am15The copies finally arrived in the mail – thanks Dennis! I have three more of these babies to give away to my amazing readers!
am22Gratuitous photography of my photography in said book. I’m still ridiculously proud.
am21Here’s the deets: All of you who commented on the last giveaway are still entered to win one of the new copies! As a bonus and because I think you’re all amazing and love you so very much, you can be entered up to two more times (more means in addition to those other entries from the last giveaway, in case you were unsure)!!!

How to enter: Leave a comment on this blog post letting me know your favorite food and beer pairing. Be specific! Make sure you leave a valid e-mail so I can contact you if you win!

For a second entry: Follow me on Twitter! Leave a comment on this blog post telling me you followed! (If you already follow, leave a comment letting me know)

For a third entry: Tweet about the giveaway on Twitter and link this blog post (and @ me so I can add an entry for you)!

For a fourth entry: Follow me on Facebook and leave a comment on this blog post telling me so! (If you already follow, leave a comment letting me know)

For a fifth entry: Follow me on Instagram and leave a comment on this blog post letting me know! (If you already follow, leave a comment letting me know)

You get up to FIVE entries for this one! Open to U.S. residents only (so sorry, my other followers. Shipping be cray cray) . This giveaway will run through next Tuesday, March 4th at 6pm MST. I’ll randomly select two winners and contact you by e-mail!

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