Tuesday Night Decadence
I’m not normally a food blogger, so forgive me if this doesn’t live up to the standards that you usually expect from such local foodies as Sharon Yeo or Foodie Suz.
Tonight, I decided to make a meal that was a bit decadent. A bit over-the-top for a Tuesday evening.
So I pulled a huge freakin’ sweet potato from the small cupboard that I use as a “cellar” for storing things—such as potatos—that like to be kept dark and cool, some frozen asparagus, and a couple of bacon-wrapped sirloin steaks from M&M Meats that I’d put in the fridge to defrost last night.
I cooked the sweet potato in the microwave, as is my wont, using my microwave baked potato bag (similar to this one). The asparagus was steamed. And the steak was broiled for 6 minutes on each side in my toaster oven, bringing it to a perfect medium rare.
As compliments to the meal, I filled a small bowl with some sesame seed steak sauce from the Sawmill and a glass of Alley Kat’s Olde Deuteronomy Barley Wine (2009 Vintage).
For a Tuesday night, this was a pretty heavy meal. But, it was fairly quick and easy to prepare, so there was really nothing to it.
The steak was amazing. M&M always has good quality meat, and I’ve purchased bacon-wrapped steaks from them before, but for some reason it tasted extra good today. The salty-sweet flavour of the steak sauce was a great compliment to the bacon’s smokiness, as well as the natural flavour of the beefsteak.
The asparagus was OK, considering that it’s out of season (which is why I opted for frozen instead of fresh), but it left me longing for spring and the world’s best tasting asparagus.
The sweet potato was, well, it was a sweet potato. There was really nothing special about it, aside from how absolutely monstrous it was. I planned on eating half of it (i.e., the amount pictured above), but ended up only eating about a quarter of that. Most of the sweet potato ended up in the fridge. I’ll have leftovers for a week.
The beer, ah, the beer. What can I say about the beer? Barley wine is heady stuff. It’s high in alcohol and even higher in flavour. The first time I had Alley Kat’s Olde Deuteronomy, I didn’t much like it. That was the 2008. This was the 2009. I enjoy the 2009 version a lot, but I can’t drink it on just any old night.
This is a heavy beer, so it demands a heavy meal or a very cold night. Tonight provided both.
I won’t bore the non-beer geeks with the details, but let’s just say that this is a very flavourful beer. There are cherry notes, subtle hints of citrus, and even a bit of apple in the background. This is combined with lots of malty sweetness and a nice balance of hoppy bitterness. All in all, a very good beer.
All in all, a very good meal.
