Football Sunday Foods

 When switching to a healthier vegetarian diet the first thing i thought of was all the "good" things i would eat on Sunday afternoons while watching football: Chicken wings, chips and dips, hot dogs... I could go on and on about all the things i would make on Sundays.
So anyways, i thought i would give making my own hotdogs a try. I was already making some faux-chicken and faux-beef out of seiten for the week and had some left over wheat gluten. So i decided i would use the rest for some hot dogs.
I used:
1 Cup Wheat Gluten
1/2 Cup of water
3 Tablespoons of Tomato sauce
2 teaspoons of Paprika
2 teaspoons of Olive oil
2 teaspoons of Vegetable broth
2 basil leaves chopped
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
salt pepper and my habenaro flakes to taste (did i mention they are HOT dogs?)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Mix all ingredients together and knead until well combined.

Portion into 4 balls and roll to form a hot dog shape.

Place each dog on a sheet of aluminum foil.

Roll the dogs making sure they are tightly wrapped in the foil.

Tie 'em off tightly, I actually had one blow up on me when i opened the oven.

Bake about 30 minutes.

This one could not wait to get out of its foil.

 They look like hot dogs and taste even better.

Of Course you need to have some chips and dip with your dogs. So i whipped up this quick Nacho Cheese recipe.

1 cup of cashews (soaked in water for an hour or 2)

3 tablespoons of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of tahini

1 cup of almond milk

1 teaspoon of red vine vinegar

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of yellow mustard

1 tablespoon of corn starch

1 teaspoon of paprika

1/2 teaspoon of tumeric

3/4 cup of salsa

Add all ingredients to blender and blend till smooth.

Tastes great, but next time i think I'll try and add some hot peppers to spice it up abit.

Just 5 days till Wineglass, kinda getting nervous.

Harvest Moon

It was yet another busy weekend on the Four Mile. The last of the tomatoes where picked, crushed and packaged up.

 The Freezer is now full of tomatoes, sauce and peppers. We may need to invest in a larger freezer, this way i can turn the one we have now into a lagering fridge for my beer. :)
Then it was time to work on the vineyard, tilling the rows to get ready for the winter. Tilling the rows will allow me to mound dirt onto the base of the grape plant to protect it from nights where the temps drop well below zero. I also can take an extra vine and bury in in case a freeze completely kills the vines, the buried vine will survive.

 In using these practices on a small vineyard, hopefully i can maintain grape plants that normally would not do well in this region (e.g. Riesling, Cab Franc and Gewurztraminer).

 The two middle rows that haven't been tilled yet, right now have Cayuga and Lacrosse grape plants.

 These will be moving to, what i hope is going to turn into, a larger vineyard up the road. This will be for varieties native to our area and well suited for this climate. In their place i will be planting Cabernet Sauvignon, Lemberger and Chardonnay, which will be on the other side of the yard. I also have 2 other native varieties, Frontenac and De Chaunac (also known as Seibel).

While i was doing all this I was also brewing the 4th installment in my IPA series. Since each batch has been using the yeast from the previous, each batch has to be stronger than the next. This last one will weigh in at a heavy 11% ABV, up from the 7% of the first batch. Did i mention i love strong beers? I also took a pic as promised in a previous post of my home made immersion chiller. Its ugly but it does the job.

Now for a little something i made over the weekend, i call it my Harvest Bake, since it pretty much all came from the garden. You take a spaghetti squash, cut it in half, scoop out the guts and bake on a cookie sheet with some water at 375 for about 30 minutes.

 Remove from oven and cool, they scrap out the stringy squash with a fork.

Mix with some tomato sauce and what ever veggies you can find, I had some zucchini and sweet potato. Then add cheese, I use Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella when i bake.

 Then bake covered at 350 for 30 mins, uncover and bake another 15.

Nice and easy.

Carbs, Carbs and more Carbs

With just 11 days until my 15th marathon its is time to start the most important part of the training process (besides running). That would be fueling up my body for 26.2 miles, and that means plenty of carbohydrates, especially in the 3 days before the race. Since my training was cut a little short this time around,  I really need to concentrate on having enough energy. I know I can make it 26.2 miles, I've done it on less training than I have now, but I don't want to just finish. I need to have enough energy stored up to maintain at least a 7:20 minute mile pace to qualify for Boston. This is also the first time running a marathon on a completely vegetarian diet so it will be interesting how I goes. I have come up with the next weeks eating schedule that I think will meet my needs and it goes like this:
Sunday:
Normal Breakfast and Lunch (Egg Sandwich for breakfast and what ever is in the fridge for lunch)
Dinner - Garbage Plate
Monday:
Normal Breakfast and Lunch
Dinner - Broccoli "Cheese" Soup
Tuesday:
Normal Breakfast and Lunch
Seiten Chicken and Biscuits
Wednesday:
Breakfast - Egg Sandwich w/ Potatoes
Normal Lunch
Dinner - Pizza
Thursday:
Breakfast - Waffles, Potato and Egg
Lunch - Mac-n-"Cheese"
Dinner - Mushroom and Potato Fettuccine Alfredo
Friday:
Breakfast - Waffles, Potato and Egg
Lunch - Left over Alfredo
Dinner - Seiten Beef Stroganoff
Saturday:
Breakfast- Waffles, Potato and Egg
Lunch - Eat Out (Light Sandwich)
Dinner - Eat Out (Light Pasta Dish)
Sunday:
Normal pre race Bagel with peanut butter.

Most of these are my favorite meals and I will try and give a detailed recipe each day. Another part of the last week of marathon training is to keep hydrated (lots and lots of water), to cut down on my alcohol intake and get lots of rest.
Oh who am i kidding, a glass or 2 or 3, of wine and/or beer won't hurt.

Beer, wine, pizza and the end of summer

Yesterday was one of those amazing fall days, well last day of summer anyways, so lucky me i got to spend a good portion outdoors. It is crazy how fast the leaves have been changing around here, I really did not notice until i was out and decided to take a few pictures.

Then when i got home i took afew more, this hill i swear started to changed over night.

Even our maple is getting a lot of orange and yellow.

 

As the Double Rainbow Guy would say "what does it all mean?"
 To me it means its time to get the wine making gear ready. Next weekend while in the Finger Lakes for my marathon  we will be picking up 6 gallons of Gewurztraminer and 12 gallons of  De Chaunac. So I've been working on getting all the equipment cleaned and sanitized.

This year we will be producing a total of 30 gallons so we have been working on collecting as many bottles as we can, which i don't mind at all. In all we will need around 160 bottles this year.

We are getting there, and we have till April and July when we will be bottling this years wine. Here is a pic of last years on my makeshift wine rack. I'm hoping we can do our kitchen addition next years with a nice basement wine cellar included.

While i was down there i decided it was finally time to keg IPA #1 of my 4 week IPA replenishment project. This week will be the final 5 gallons of the 20 gallons i wanted to have before changing over to wine production. This is last weeks fermenting like crazy.

With weeks 1 and 2 clearing up in the secondary fermenter.

IPA #1 getting ready to be siphoned into the keg.

I can't wait to start drinking this, the hoppy smell is just amazing.

Now it is in its proper home, adding some carbonation and ready to try this weekend.

With all this work down in the brew cave, i have little time to really make something for dinner. So i thought I'd just share a quick 10 min pizza i like to create just for these occasions.
First i use Flatout Flatbread for the crust, Some sauce (any tomato sauce will do), Some Daiya Mozzarela Cheese, and what ever toppings i have on hand. I had some jalapeno and Hungarian wax peppers from the garden and a few slices of tomato.

and of course a glass of my Harvest Ale, which i recently added an ounce of homegrown hops to the keg. Now it tastes like a nice harvest beer.

Bring on the Fall!

You take the Good, You take the bad...

Stupid facts of life!

Like the fact that when everything is looks perfect a calf strain comes along and knocks you down. A calf strain i can deal with, i can just wrap it tight and go. Its the fact that I went for a 10 mile run, over compensated in my running form and destroyed my foot. No running till the marathon for me, it hurts to even walk right now,  my dreams Boston is starting to fade away.
So anyways, at least I got to brew the 3rd IPA in my 4 week brewing spree. Next weekend will be the final batch to make it 20 gallons. What shall i brew next? Maybe something dark and heavy?
Also i thought I'd share one of favorite eats, i think we have this one every weekend, looks so unhealthy but who cares. Its not!
Garbage Plates!!!
My own variation of the late night Rochester treat.

I use some Morningstar crumblers for the meat portion.

Some fries cooked in with the "meat" and peas

 Some Ketchup

I add some Habenero pepper flakes i made from my garden

Cook it all together

Then i make some Mac n "Cheese", for the cheese i take some cashews and soak them in water.

Drain and add garlic, sea salt, Almond milk, lemon juice, pepper in the food processor.

 And you have "cheese", now mix with pasta.

and serve with the "meat" and fries

 Make sure you add more ketchup and hot sauce, who eats garbage plates with out tons of ketchup?
Also have a tasty beverage, Southern Tier's Harvest Ale is so damn good.

A vegetarian (and almost vegan) Garbage Plate, dare i say, better than the original.

Now off to ice this foot and have a few of those Harvest's.