Beer I Am Drinking

Weihenstephaner Kristallweissbier

Hard to find German beers in Hendricks County for some reason, but the liquor shop on the corner carries a couple, notably Weihenstephaner. The clerks always tell me that's a really good choice, and I always tell them I've been to Freising.



I see on their website they offer an English-language tour. I will begin nagging Freund to take me, if I ever get to leave the country again.

Wordless Wednesday

What's for Dinner: Bratwurst Meatloaf

While looking through assorted meatloaf recipes in printed cookbooks and online over the weekend, I noticed most are covered in a sauce comprised of ketchup, sugar, and vinegar. Extra-sweet, extra-acidic ketchup? Secret Stadium Sauce!!!  And what goes best with Stadium Sauce?  Bratwurst!!




I adapted this recipe from a 1986 church cookbook from Iowa.  I get the Bratwurst Seasoning from the Spice House in Milwaukee.  The onion will be crunchy.

Bratwurst Meatloaf

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 small white onion, chopped finely
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 2 eggs
• 2 TBSP Bratwurst Seasoning 
• Dash or two of Worchestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Mix well and form into loaf and put in oven-proof dish.

• 1/4 cup Secret Stadium Sauce
• 2-3 TBSP sweet pickle relish
• Squirt or two of yellow mustard

Mix well, smear over loaf.  Bake loaf for 60-75 minutes (pork should reach 145°F in thickest part of loaf).

Pair with a Milwaukee craft brew if you're lucky enough to live somewhere you can buy them, Leinie's if you aren't.

How Cold Is It? Hoosiers have stopped laughing at my hat.

This is my Wisconsin hat. I love this hat with the reckless, unreasonable love normal women reserve for shoes. I love the fur. I love the earflaps. I love how I feel when I wear this hat: warm, snuggly, smarter than the hatless idiots bitching that the HVAC in The Room With The Blue Ceiling must be broken because it's not 65°F 24/366.

The last two winters I've not needed to wear it--there has been no winter in Indiana when I have lived here. I wore my hat to work once last January--sartorial comfort food since it wasn't cold enough to warrant more than a knit cap--and my cow-orkers laughed at it.

LAUGHED. AT MY HAT.

They're not laughing now. Several of them openly admired it last week, when the highs were single-digits and I was toasty warm.

This morning it was -10°F when I woke up and warmed up to -8.0°F while I was drinking coffee; time to go to work. In my hat.

Quando Omni Flunkus...

My birdfeeder has brought hours of entertainment to my backyard--for myself and the cats, who were both sleeping in another room when this guy wandered through. Harrumph.

Makin' Pie Like a Samurai

Thursday was National Pie Day.  I never know about these things ahead of time, but the important part is I have pie now. Mit Schlag.

Wordless Wednesday...with words

Wordless Wednesday is a thing from about ten years ago where a blogger just posts an image--something that evokes a mood or tells a story without using words.  Quilt bloggers sometimes use them to post progress on a project, or to inspire a new project.  Some people create a new image for Wednesdays, others post an image they came across on someone else's blog but really like.

I have kind of a thing about only using images I created myself, but I'm not hung up on "recent" or "new."  I like to go back and look at old pictures (I realize on the internet anything more than a week ago is "old").  If you need a title or location, click on through to Flickr--or ask in the comments.  I like comments.

In Which I Do Not Complain

Nashville TN/Bowling Green KY

Three weeks seems like a long time ago. I think I'm done uploading photos to Flickr. Most of them were more interesting when I was taking them than they are this morning. This one would be an interesting composition for a quilt.






On the way home we stopped at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green KY. Much fun with the camera there.

Beer I Am Drinking Today

Backpocket Pennywhistle

Freund really liked this one, a very traditional Weizen.  Picked it up at a Hy-Vee on the way home from my last trip to Iowa.  I wouldn't go to Iowa just to get it, but if you have to go to Iowa, you can mitigate the trip with this beer.

Yuengling Lager
Went to Nashville for New Years and grabbed a case on the way home because it's unobtainable in Indiana.  Other beers consumed in Nashville:  Yazoo, Sweetwater, Turtle Anarchy, and the ubiquitous Blue Moon.