Category Archives: food

The beermaking adventure is complete (for now)!  I gave Chris a homebrew kit for Christmas and when enough bottles were collected, we got started brewing.  This past weekend they were ready for drinking, so we cracked open our wheat beers we dubbed The Railsplitter.

We started making the beer on Lincoln’s birthday, hence the name The Railsplitter.  The text below the image states: ‘Please Enjoy This Tall Sucker – Brewed and Bottled at C+B Ranch.’  Back in the Lincoln days, a person from Illinois was referred to as a sucker… not really what it means today!

The very first step in the process was to boil the malt extract (and hops).  I gotta say, it stunk up the whole house! About a week later, we bottled and capped the suckers, then they sat for a month.

Now it’s beer!

This past weekend was chocked full of making…..baking, cooking and the next steps of our beermaking project (will post about that later).  Since Saturday was Valentines Day, I decided to make dinner and some sweets.  Let’s just say, I was in the kitchen all day and my feet were hurtin’! 

I made a batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  Yeah, I know cream cheese is not the traditional frosting for red velvet, but I just had to break the rules.

My cupcake army…

I also made  heart shaped sugar cookies….most were iced, but left some to be topped with the cream cheese frosting.

Some homemade pizza followed…and I was exhausted.  I think it will be quiet in the kitchen next weekend…but I make no guarantees.

Yeah, that’s right.   Guinness cupcakes with a simple buttercream frosting.  I love making beer bread, so why not add a bottle to some cupcakes?  I think I am defintely going to experiment with other beers, flavors, etc… maybe do something beer-y with the frosting…

oh, cupcake, you are my friend…