New Year's Eve 2011

We decided to do our first ever beer pairing party to celebrate New Year's Eve. I researched some online to get my creative juices flowing and here is the menu we came up with. If you enjoy craft beers, this is the perfect way to try a few while also eating good food. We split one bottled beer between the two of us for each course.


Course 1: Samuel Adams Latitude 48 IPA with chocolate malted milk balls and Kettle brand sea salt chips (this beer is super malty and goes well with fried foods)

Course 2: Hefeweizen with Citrus Dressed Salad. This pairing was quite delicious. This dressing is very thin and liquidy, I recommend tossing the chopped romaine lettuce to make sure it's coated well. We topped our salads with goat cheese crumbles, which was a nice smooth finish.

Course 3: New Belgium Blue Paddle Pilsner Lager with Pepperoni Pizza Puffs (recipe to follow). The saltiness of the puffs was delicious with this heavier lager.
Course 4: Homemade Pretzel Bites - these were even better than the pretzel bites we made for our Christmas party. Even though the dough is made from scratch, it was less complex than the previous recipe. I recommend using the same cheese sauce as what was used at our Christmas party. Since we had already gone through 3 courses, there was not a particular beer we paired these with, as they will go with any one of your choice. We are planning to dip these in chocolate later, mmm, salty and sweet, yum!

Pepperoni Puff recipe:
1 can of crescent roll dough (I used Great Value from Walmart)
1/2 pack of pepperoni
1 c of shredded mozzarella
3/4 - 1 c of tomato pasta sauce
Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.

Step 1: Open crescent roll dough on a floured surface. Pinch together any open seams so that the dough is in one piece. With a floured rolling pin, roll dough to about 1/8" thickness
Step 2: Spread pasta sauce on the dough with a spoon - you should be able to slightly see the dough through the sauce.
Step 3: Sprinkle cheese evenly over the sauce then layer evenly with pepperoni.
Step 4: Cut dough in half lenghthwise in preparation to rolling into logs.
Step 5: Cut dough at about the 1/2" mark to create individual pinwheels.
Step 6: Place pinwheels into greased mini muffin pans, should make 16 pieces.
Step 7: Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Link to pretzel bites recipe (these were made courtesy of my hubby, the doughboy): http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/homemade-soft-pretzel-bites/http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/homemade-soft-pretzel-bites/

Link to citrus dressing : http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/citrus-vinaigrette-10000000221970/. Additional notes on this recipe: We were out of fresh oranges and grapefruit, so I doubled the amount of orange juice used in the mixture. Also, we did not have fresh ginger and used ground ginger to taste (about 1/2 tsp).