7 reasons I’d totally bum Bruges

Tags

beer, belgium, bruges, craft beer

1. It’s full of amazing beer. Belgium is known for its trappist beers, which are made by monks and taste like a little sip of heaven. In Bruges you’ll find the Halve Maan Brewery, finely crafting local tipples Brugse Zot and Straffe Hendrik – the tripel is a potent treat.

2. It’s full of people who love amazing beer. The best kind of people.

3. It’s full of people who love drinking amazing beer in amazing pubs. Must see pubs are the lovely and old Staminee De Garre (try the house brew, mysteriously served with cheese…), the incredibly friendly ‘t Brugs Beertje, Bruges’ oldest drinking den Herberg Vlissinghe, the cavernous and candlelit Poatersgat, and the smoochy, romantic Cafe Rose Red.

4. It has canals. You can take boats on the canals and the tour guide will speak any language you fancy.

5. People live in houses like this.

6. They take chocolate and waffles extremely seriously. As do I.

7. They are also very keen on chips.

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Gluten-free Italian stuffed chicken and chocolate pecan brownie

Tags

chicken, chocolate, chocolate brownie, dessert, dinner, Gluten Free, italian chicken, pudding

It must be pretty difficult being gluten intolerant, watching everyone else tuck into whatever they fancy and missing out on tasty grub all the time. Which is why I decided to restore some balance when I cooked dinner for the first time in my new weasel den.

The trick was to find something everyone would enjoy, but that was also gluten free for my gluten-intolerant Mammy.

I decided a chicken dish would be most likely to please everyone’s palette and picked up this nifty little recipe from BBC Good Food, which I tweaked a bit to suit my own tastes.

Gluten-free Italian Stuffed Chicken (for five)

Ingredients

200g full-fat soft cheese

Handful chopped black olives

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 teaspoon of Oregano

Some chopped sun-dried tomatoes

5 ripe tomatoes

Olive oil

Recipe

1.)    First of all, mix the soft cheese, olives, sundried tomatoes, garlic and oregano in a bowl.

2.)    Next, use a sharp knife to cut a slit along the side of each chicken breast, then stuff with the soft cheese mix.

3.)    Pop on a baking tray and season the chicken. Top with sliced tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil.

4.)    Roast for 20 minutes at 220C, or until the chicken is cooked through entirely.

I served the Italian chicken with roast potatoes, side salad and some crusty bread, plus a bottle of my Portuguese favourite Vinho Verde. The trick with the roast potatoes is too cover in olive oil and season, then cook on a low heat for 2 hours until they are crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle.

Think making a gluten-free dessert is a bit of a challenge? Try this super easy recipe for a chocolate brownie from Delicious and you’ll see how easy it is.

Gluten-free Chocolate Brownie Dessert (makes 6 portions)

Ingredients

100g good quality dark chocolate

3 medium free-range eggs

70g caster sugar

75g ground almonds

25g pecans

1 teaspoon of ground coffee (I used Sainsbury’s Fairtrade Colombian Coffee)

Crème fraiche and raspberries for serving

Recipe

1.)    Use the vegetable oil to grease an 18cm square cake tin.

2.)    Melt the chocolate over a bowl of simmering water, stirring gently.

3.)    Separate the eggs, whisking yolks and sugar until pale.

4.)    Add melted chocolate, almonds, coffee and pecans and stir.

5.)    Whisk the egg whites until they form peaks, then gradually add to the mixture.

6.)    Pop in the oven for 18 minutes at 180C, keeping watch to make sure it doesn’t burn.

7.)    Leave to cool in the tin, then cut into squares and spoon some crème fraiche and raspberries on top to serve.

Let me know if you try out either of the recipes? Enjoy!

Curiouser and curiouser…an evening of beer and chocolate

Tags

beer, beer tasting, chocolate, chocolate tasting, edinburgh, edward and irwyn, innis and gunn, innis and gunn pop up bar

Photography by Mary Overmeer

Few things in life give me greater pleasure than a well-crafted beer or a devilishly indulgent piece of chocolate. Understandably then, I almost did a backflip* when I heard about A Curious Evening of Beer and Chocolate at the Innis and Gunn pop-up bar.

Independent, Edinburgh-based brewing company Innis and Gunn teamed up with artisan chocolatiers Edward and Irwyn for a tastebud seducing evening of beer and chocolate matching.

Since my plus one was a little *ahem* late I spent some time nursing a rather tasty Innis and Gunn Blonde and pretending to scribble some very important notes in my little notepad. Luckily I got a chance to grab a few words with Kirsty – one of the Edward and Irywn chocolatiers – who told me about their plans to open a kitchen up in Morningside in September, and that they believe in making chocolate the old-fashioned way, using techniques like hand tempering.

The tastings kicked off with an Innis and Gunn Original paired with Heather Honey Honeycomb milk chocolate. The comforting chocolate evoked memories of distant Christmas mornings, but my usual favourite beer didn’t have quite the same appeal when mixed with something else so sweet.

Next came a Stewart Brewing Coconut Porter paired with Rye Crumb Vanilla Salt Coconut Meringue – as if my night of beer and chocolate wasn’t going well enough, now I had coconut thrown into the mix – bliss! The chocolate was a challenging mix of hearty coconut, with the sweetness of chocolate and salty toasted molasses which danced back and forth on the tongue. The porter (which I’d tried and loved before) was also delicious, yet I felt the flavours were not contrasting enough to make it an interesting pairing. Rob suggested a chilli beer might have been better to complement the cool coconut flavour.

Next up was the talk of the evening – an Innis and Gunn Rum Finish paired with a deceptively normal looking slice chocolate, the Perfume Spiced Valrhona Blend. The explosion of flavour from the chocolate was quite simply stunning – spiced with vanilla seeds, clove, cardamom and rose – and I thought the pairing with Rum Finish was spot on, perhaps mostly due to the interesting combination of rum and cardamom.

The final indulgence was an Innis and Gunn Canada Day special brew, accompanied by Malted Honey Salted Caramel in extra dark milk chocolate. Made with Scottish Blossom honey, the chocolate caramels were positively melt-in-the-mouth. I’d happily line up eight of these badboys with a nice bottle of red for a quiet night in…

All in all a spiffing evening, and just writing about the chocolate is literally making my mouth water. Now counting down the days until Edward and Irwyn open their doors in September…

Thanks to Mary Overmeer for allowing me to use her wonderful photographs in this post – you can find her at @MaryOvermeer or check out her website.