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Chicken Piccata

User photo not available Saturday, 29 March 08 - 06:18 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in Recipes

 “Godly” Chicken Piccata

People never cease to amaze me, but issuing an arrest warrant for God is probably asking for trouble. Of course the problem here is that unless the Lord has a really twisted sense of humor he probably is not driving around letting police pull him over for DUI. In fact, unless God had something really important to do that day why wouldn’t he show up in court? God couldn’t possibly be worried about what the jury verdict might be. Could he?
              In all seriousness I run into clients who call me up AFTER an arrest warrant has been issued because they didn’t make it to a court date. Every so often everyone gets a traffic ticket. The best thing you can do is take some time off work and go down and handle the ticket or if you feel the matter is serious enough give Margeson & Reed a call and we’ll go down and handle it for you. Not showing up, however, is not an option! The reason behind this is, once again, every so often everyone gets a traffic ticket, and when you get that next ticket you’ll be going to jail…
            So today’s recipe is chicken piccata not because there is anything particularly godly about it, but because this is one of those recipes that is quick and easy to make so you can be well rested for your early morning court date. Seriously, just go it’s so much better for you in the long run.
 
1 lb chicken breasts
2 eggs
1-2 teaspoons lemon zest
½ cup of flour
1/3 stick of butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion chopped fine
2 cups chicken stock  
½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice  
¼ cup of caper berries and just a bit of the caper juice
1 box of your favorite pasta noodles preferably linguine
Salt and pepper
 
Beat the two eggs in a bowl and once you have a nice golden color and a smooth consistency set the eggs aside. Mix the flour with the zest from the lemons you’re going to juice later, salt, and a little pepper, and set in another bowl beside the egg bowl. Take your chicken and chop it into 1 inch chunks. Then prepare your pan by placing all the butter and olive oil in it and melting the butter over medium heat. Once the pan is hot and all the butter is melted we can get started with the chicken.
Dip the chicken in the egg and swish it around a bit to coat the chicken. Once covered in the egg, move the chicken to the flour mixture toss it around to coat. Do this process in two or three batches so that all the chicken gets a chance to soak up the goodness. Then move the chicken to the pan and brown it on all sides. Once brown remove the chicken from the pan and let it rest for a minute or two. At this point you can throw in the chopped onion and cook until just translucent.
            Take the browned up flour bits and remaining butter in the pan and add few tablespoons of the flour mixture to the pan. Stir this mixture till you start to get something with the consistency of paste interspersed with the onion bits (it’s unappetizing looking at this point but don’t worry it gets way better). Let this cook for just a minute or two stirring the whole time so the additional flour doesn’t burn. There will be some bubbling and you should notice your paste turning a golden color. At this point add the chicken stock and lemon juice and bring the mixture to a boil stirring constantly. Once boiling back down the heat to a simmer and add in the chicken and the capers and cover the pan. Let this mixture cook until the chicken is cooked through. This will take about 30 minutes
            While your piccata mixture is simmering start the pasta so that its ready to go when your chicken is done. Throw all this on a big plate and enjoy!

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Nicole's Birthday!

User photo not available Saturday, 29 March 08 - 05:16 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in General

Sorry for the long delay between posts.  We really have been quite busy creating new food and beer recipes but just haven't had the time to post them.  The Margeson & Reed law firm has really taken off since the new year and most evenings Matt's either meeting with clients or preparing for trials.  Nicole has been knee deep in beer related events from special tastings at breweries to release parties to contract brewing.  Just this week Nicole delivered her first batch of contract brewed amber ale!  A few friends have requested their own ales and next week Nicole will teach her first homebrewing "class".  It's very exciting to not only brew beer for others but to teach them to do it themselves.  The biggest recent event hands down was Nicole's birthday.  We went up to Fort Collins and met up with our friends Justie and Zach for one crazy day.  After 8 hours, 5 breweries, a few snacks, some souvenirs, and one dinner we had shown Fort Collins how to party and have the pictures to prove it...

The first stop was the Fort Collins Brewery for some Z Lager and Double Chocolate Stout.

The second brewery was Odell for some samplers, Imperial Stout (special edition small batch) and 5 Barrel poured from an old fashioned hand pulled British beer engine.  They tried to tempt us with their tour but unfortunately we were already running behind schedule at this point.

We made to New Belgium just in time for our tour.  Nicole was extremely excited to see the brewery and hear more of their story.  New Belgium is definitely a big inspiration for creating amazing beers in an employee owned, wind powered brewery.  What's not to love?  Everything about the brewery screamed fun and we were even able to taste a special ale on tap that was brewed in honor of Jeff's (the founder) trip to Belgium.  Perhaps the best part was taking the twirly slide (twice) down to the main floor and heading in for some free beers in the tasting room.  And make no mistake, their tasting room is larger than some breweries!  Next up we hit the Ram's Head, brewers of CB & Potts beers, and Coopersmith's brewpub before calling it a night.  One of the last pics of the night is a few of us with our tasting glasses and unhealthy obession with a bike mounted on the wall in such away that you could spin it.  It was probably for the best that we put the cameras away after the New Belgium stop!

Of course there had to be some cake, which quite fittingly was chocolate Guinness cake.

This is a Nigella Lawson recipe and we'll post it up here in the future for those of you wishing to make it yourselves.  Nigella was the first cook Matt and I would watch on TV together and her recipes are incredibly unique and very flavorful.  The chocolate Guinness cake is no exception and everyone is sure to look when you unveil this one!

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Jasmine IPA

User photo not available Saturday, 29 March 08 - 03:24 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in Beer Recipes

Since Matt makes so many dishes just for me, I thought it would be nice to create a beer for him.  He loves jasmine tea and was excited to taste a jasmine beer.  If you're not a big jamine fan you can leave it out and make a regular IPA or you could make the flavor subtler by adding less.  Like hops, jasmine is a flower and will lose aroma during long bottle aging.  However, I think the subtler flavor and aroma could be nice so we'll see how a few more weeks in the bottle changes the ale and let you know.

 

For 5 gallons:

 

5 ½ lbs light dry malt extract

1 lb crystal malt (60L)

½ lb toasted malted barley

2 tsp gypsum

2 oz Northern Brewer hops (boiling) – whole hops were used

¾ oz Cascade hops (finishing) – palletized hops used

Jasmine flowers – Matt’s handful for boiling, a hearty pinch at 55 minutes, and a pinch at 1 minute

7 whole green cardamom pods, bruised and added at 55 minutes

2 pinches of coriander (we only had ground) at 55 minutes

1 tsp Irish Moss at 45 minutes

California ale yeast

¾ cup corn sugar for bottling

 

To start, I’d like to make a few notes about the ingredients.  For the barley, buy whole malted barley and toast it in your oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.  When cool, put the barley in a gallon sized zip top bag and use a rolling pin to crush the malt.  Jasmine flowers can be found on various spice websites.  I always try to buy organic products for making beer and was able to find organic dried jasmine flowers.  In this case we only had ground coriander on hand so it was used, but I would suggest using whole coriander seeds, slightly crushed, if you have them.  And now on to the brewing specifics…

Mmm...toasted barley... 

Steep the crystal malt and barley at 155 degrees for 30 minutes.  Remove the grain, bring to a boil, and all the malt extract.  Dry malt extract has tendency to boil up a lot so pull your pot off the heat while you mix it in and keep a close on it.  Add in the gypsum, Northern Brewer hops, and a large handful of jasmine flowers.  Boil for 45 minutes and add the Irish Moss.  Boil another 10 minutes and add a hearty pinch of jasmine, coriander, and cardamom.  Boil 4 minutes and for the final 1 minute of boiling add in the Cascade hops and a pinch of jasmine.

All those jasmine flowers...

Matt originally pitched the yeast too hot and it died so we had to add another round of yeast after a few days to get things going (pitch yeast at 70-75 degrees).  Ferment, rack to secondary, and bottle with corn sugar as usual.  Our original gravity was 1.055 and the final gravity was1.018 giving us about 3.9% alcohol.

We had our first taste about 8 days after bottling.  The carbonation was pretty good already and the color and clarity were fantastic.  The jasmine aroma and flavor were very strong.

Another beautiful glass of homebrew.

A month after our first tasting...it is now evident that not all of the original yeast died.  The beer is now extremely carbonated and causes some pouring issues.  We're finding that you just have to be patient, pour slowly, and let it rest between pours.  It takes a while, but you won't have this problem because you're going to cool the wort sufficiently before pitching the yeast, right?  The flavor at this point is the same as a month ago but much subtler and smoother.  The jasmine is very evident right from the start but not quite so overwhelming now.  We have quite a few bottles and it should be interesting to see how strong or subtle our friends prefer this ale over the coming weeks.

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Banged and Mashed at the Jail

User photo not available Monday, 18 February 08 - 02:40 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in Recipes
Here I thought Bangers and Mash was just a great English style pub meal, but it turns out it’s also what happens in Florida jails (new window). I know that you can get extremely jaded being a deputy especially in a corrections facility, but the level of callousness it takes to dump a disabled man out of is wheelchair is beyond belief. I’d like to tell everyone that these are isolated incidents, and for the most part that’s pretty much the case, but the number of times these types of incidents take place would shock most folks. It’s absolutely unacceptable behavior and bad day or not this is the reason that many folks just don’t trust law enforcement as much as they should. 
 
 
 
The Bangers
 
1 package of Brats (Or you can get real Scottish Bangers from the German Sausage man)
2 Tablespoons Olive oil
 
Ok so even though there are only two ingredients here there are a lot of steps to getting a really good brat cooked. First, in a small pot boil some water and add in the brats until just par boiled about 3 minutes. I hear some people asking wait a minute Matt, can’t we use beer in place of water for this step? Why yes, yes you can, and I’d recommend Nicole’s amber to do it. Now that the brats are par boiled transfer them from the pot to a pan with the olive oil in it. Toss the brats around to get the olive oil coating them and then turn the heat up to medium and cook until browned on both sides.
 
The Mash
 
1 lb of your favorite potatoes – we like Yukon gold or little red ones
¼ cup of sour cream
1 cup or so of milk or cream
2 teaspoons rosemary
1 clove of garlic minced
1 package of peas and carrots mix
1 package of brown gravy mix
Salt and pepper to taste
 
Start by washing the potatoes off a bit and then cutting them into quarters. No need to peel the potatoes, the skins taste great and are rich in iron. Now bring a large pot of water to a boil and add a few pinches of salt. The potatoes go in for about 20 minutes or until they fall off a knife when skewered.
 
Now that the potatoes are ready, let’s talk mashing. There are two ways to do this: the first being to use a potato masher, which is my preferred way, and the second way is to use a powered mixer on a lower setting. Drain all the water, put the potatoes back in the warm pot and add in the rosemary and garlic along with the sour cream. Begin mashing, slowly adding the milk or cream to the mix until you get the right creamy consistency.  Another option is to toss whole garlic cloves in with the potatoes during the boil and mash them all together. 
 
Steam your peas and carrots and season with salt and pepper. Prepare the gravy according to the package instructions. To serve, create a bowl with the mashed potatoes, fill with peas and carrots, top with bangers, and drizzle over the gravy. This English style pub meal goes best with a pint, or two, of good homebrew.
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Filling a Hole Stuffed Shells

User photo not available Monday, 11 February 08 - 09:10 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in Recipes

What Hole you might ask… This one. Some days you just can’t win. Being a lawyer here in Colorado can be fairly treacherous. First things first, you have to deal with other lawyers on a daily basis, but beyond that the weather and traffic can conspire against you. The HUGE sink hole that stopped traffic dead on the states biggest highway really came out of left field. I had a court date to make in Boulder and my rather worried client and judge with a very good sense of humor were both waiting for me while I sat in traffic for an hour and a half. I learned a lot that day: 1.) Calling the court and telling them that a giant hole opened up on the highway about a ½ mile in front of you, completely blocking traffic, is a good excuse. 2.) Judge Montgomery is AWESOME! 3.) Making sure your client shows up for court is only half the battle. So while the hole is still apparently not fixed I’m posting this stuffed shells recipe in the hopes that it will fill a hole of a different kind.

Filling

1 large container of Ricotta

½ package of frozen chopped spinach, defrosted

½ cup of sharp provolone grated

½ cup parmesan grated 1 clove garlic minced

½ a jar (a few ounces) of sun dried tomatoes, chopped fine

Salt & Pepper to taste

Sauce (you can also use your favorite tomato sauce recipe or jarred sauce)

1 can of tomato sauce

1 can of tomato paste

1 large onion chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves of garlic minced

1 teaspoon sugar

½ cup fresh Italian flat leaf parsley chopped

2 teaspoons Basil

Salt & Pepper to taste

The Rest

2 boxes of jumbo shells

1 cup of mozzarella

 

First things first, make the filing for the stuffed shells by combining all the ingredients for the filling in a large mixing bowl. If you don’t want to grate that much cheese you have two options: 1.) Do what my mom did and make the kids grate all the cheese 2.) If you don’t have children laying around use a food processor (most have a “grate” setting). Make absolutely sure to try at least one spoonful first, you know, “for seasoning.” Once you’ve finished mixing up the filling throw some Saran wrap over the mixing bowl and set it in the fridge to chill for about an hour.

Next, make the sauce by sautéing the onions and garlic in a large sauce pan with the olive oil and a pinch of salt. Once the onions have turned translucent add all the tomato products and stir to combine. Add the basil and sugar and let simmer on low for about 30 minutes.

While you’re letting the sauce simmer go ahead and cook the jumbo shells as per the package instructions except cook them about a minute less than you normally would. When you drain the pasta add some olive oil and toss to coat so the pasta won’t stick.

Take the sauce off the heat and add the chopped parsley and stir. Let the sauce sit while you get busy stuffing shells. Take the chilled filling out of fridge and with a small spoon start stuffing. While you’re doing this preheat your oven to 375. Be gentle because the shells tear fairly easily. Fill each shell with about one heaping spoon full.

Meanwhile, in a large Pyrex baking dish pour a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the dish. Begin putting the stuffed shells in the dish, and once you filled it up add the rest of the sauce over the top of all the shells. Now toss the cup of grated mozzarella on top and pop it in the oven until the cheese on top turns a golden brown color.

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Winter Roasted Vegetables

User photo not available Tuesday, 29 January 08 - 01:23 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in Recipes

Once again it’s time for Nicole’s quarterly roasted vegetables.  This time it’s mainly root vegetables with other hardy veggies that taste great even in winter.

 

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash, deseeded and chopped into approx. 1 inch pieces

8oz baby carrots (half a small bag)

1 parsnip, thickly sliced

8oz small multicolored potatoes, cut in half

1 small red bell pepper, thickly sliced

1 small yellow bell pepper, thickly sliced

12 brussel sprouts, cut in half

5 garlic cloves, unpeeled

 

Seasoned and ready to be roasted.

This time I seasoned the veggies with salt, cumin, coriander, turmeric, curry powder, a small bit of cardamom, and freshly ground pepper.  Season the veggies, toss with just enough olive oil to give it a light coating, and roast at 450 degrees until the edges begin to blacken.

Hot roasted veggies are sure to warm you up on a cold winter day.

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Holiday Ale Follow Up

User photo not available Monday, 28 January 08 - 07:14 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in Beer Recipes

As promised, we have an update ready for you guys, not only on the beer, but on the skiing case as well.  We'll start with an update on the case. 

Wow, public sentiment can be a brutal thing.  And the 60 year old who filed suit against an 8 year old for allegedly bumping into him on the ski slopes has certainly been introduced to the power of the internet.  This quote pretty much sums up what's happened since we last checked in on this case:

"The story began circulating on the internet, and Pfahler and his wife started receiving emails complaining about his legal action. A few emails became a lot, and grew into an electronic blizzard worthy of Colorado where the accident happened."  http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2234332,00.html

Does this man deserve this level of harassment?  I'll let the readers be the judge, but one thing is for sure everyone involved in this case could certainly use a homebrew at this point.  So, without further ado...

The holiday ale has been bottled and conditioned for just over a week now.  Here are a few pictures to wet your whistle.

 

Just before bottling it's a good idea to let your beer know how you feel about it.

When bottling, first add your corn sugar solution to the bottling bucket and then add the beer using the hose to create a swirling motion to help mix it all together.

A young finished product.  More bottle conditioning will yield a better beer.

We're planning to let this batch bottle condition for a few more weeks before entering it in a local homebrew competition.  It will also be submitted to the annual national homebrew competition this spring.  Wish us luck!

 

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Potato Tortellini Soup

User photo not available Tuesday, 15 January 08 - 01:31 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in Recipes
 
It’s winter time and I was in the mood for some good old fashioned comfort food. It’s rough dealing with some folks in the winter.  The cold and general lack of sunlight (it gets dark here by 5) can really get to folks, as this judge would apparently be able to tell you http://www.denverpost.com/watercooler/ci_7572391. Now, I tell all my clients to turn off their cell phones before we enter the courtroom, and whenever possible I just leave mine the car. The one close call I had was in court with my business partner Jeremy. We had sat down to observe an attempted murder trial and the judge had already cleared the court to yell at the defendant for basically being an ass. The jury had filed back in and court was almost under way when “The Final Countdown” by Europe started playing in the middle of court. Immediately I looked over to see an ashen faced Jeremy attempting to shut off his cell phone. I thought the judge was going to kill us, but instead took the opportunity to remind everyone in the courtroom to shut their phones off. This, I thought, was a much better response than sending the entire courtroom to jail for not giving up the offending cell phone.
 
Winter does crazy things to people, but have a bowl of this comforting, creamy, delicious soup and for that brief little bit you too can just relax. Just don’t forget to turn off your cell phone first. You definitely don’t want to be interrupted.
You can generally find bags of small assorted variety potatoes in the supermarket now.  They add great visual interest and flavor to the dish, but if you can't find them regular baking potatoes will work just fine.  We used cheese tortellini in this recipe, but you can use whatever kind you like best.
 
Ingredients:
 
½ pound of assorted potatoes chopped
1 package of tortellini
1 large onion chopped
¼ cup of flour
½ stick of butter
3 cups of milk (2% will do fine)
1 cup chicken broth
½ cup of shredded asiago cheese
¼ cup of grated parmesean
¼ cup of shredded sharp provolone
Salt and pepper
 
Melt the butter into a large pot over medium heat and throw in the chopped up potatoes and onion with a bit of salt. Once the onions start to turn translucent slowly add the flour while stirring continuously. Once everything is coated with the flour, cook for a minute or two more until the flour butter mix on the pan is golden color. At this point stir in the milk and raise the heat to medium high until you start getting some bubbling. Immediately turn down the heat and let the mixture simmer slowly while you add all your cheese products about a ¼ of a cup at a time so that it melts evenly. If the mixture seems too thick for you add some of the chicken broth until you get the consistency you like.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
Yes this does smell as good as it looks
While all of this is going on go ahead and cook the tortellini per the package instructions and put the cooked tortellini into a bowl. Mix with a little bit of olive oil and set a towel over the bowl to keep the tortellini warm. Once the soup is at a good consistency toss in the tortellini and enjoy.
The finished product is full of creamy goodness
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Our Blog Gets Recognized!

User photo not available Monday, 14 January 08 - 07:56 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in General

Thats right the humble, yet awesome, Food Court was mentioned in an article called Blawg Reveiw #142. I guess we're moving on up in the world. Check out the article here (it'll open in a new window)

Also we're trying a new site Technorati Profile at this link for some help with search engine optimization so it'll be even easier for everyone to find The Food Court.  We're interested to see if folks can find us just by googling us.  So, let us know!

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Holiday Ale

User photo not available Thursday, 10 January 08 - 09:25 PM (GMT -07:00)
By Matt Margeson in Beer Recipes

Alright, we know the holidays have passed but Nicole is a firm believer that holiday ales are best enjoyed during ski season and why not?  Everything at Christmas time is already rich, spiced, and heavy so the ale gets lost in the crowd.  After a long day of skiing, however, you can really sit back and enjoy the full, deep, warming flavors of holiday ales while taking in the snow covered mountain views.

 

Skiing is one of the best parts about living out in Colorado, and I find that most folks on the slopes are fairly laid back.  Not this guy though...  http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14897687/detail.html.  So here's to you guy who got knocked over by an 8 year old and thought that the proper response was a lawsuit.  Maybe if he'd had a homebrew he'd have been in a better mood.  As we brew this beer and keep posting updates with new pics I'll keep following this case with updates on its status and commentary. 

 

Since we've already posted details about the brewing process, from now on we'll just be putting up the ingredients and basic instructions.

 

Our Holiday Ale

 

7lbs plain light malt extract

1 lb clover honey

½ lb crystal malt

2 oz black malt

2 oz Cascade hops (boiling)

½ oz Saaz hops (finishing)

1 oz grated ginger (we grated 2 inches of a piece about as thick as my finger)

6 in cinnamon stick

3 allspice balls

5 cloves

1 vanilla bean (broken in to pieces since ours was dry, otherwise slice in half lengthwise)

1 whole nutmeg, cut into 3 or 4 pieces

3 orange peels, grated

1 lemon peel, grated

American-ale type yeast (we used California ale yeast)

 

Simmer grains for 30 minutes at 150-160 degrees.  Add malt extract, honey, and Cascade hops and boil for 60 minutes.  Add all the the spices and citrus zest and boil for 8 minutes.  Add in the Saaz hops and boil for 2 more minutes.  Follow the rest of the brewing process and get ready to enjoy some holiday flavor.

Our holiday ale grain blend.

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