Makings of a Guinness Fest

I've been experimenting with some dishes that use a good chunk of Guinness in preparation for a meal coming up with some friends. =9~ I started off with two dishes to try and possibly tweak. The first on the list was the typical must have, Beef and Guinness Pie. A classic dish that is well loved by all. It's not particularly hard to make, but just time consuming. The long cooking time, though, means the meat becomes incredibly tender while scenting the kitchen with the rich, malty scent from the Guinness. After the stew part was all cooked up, it looked unctuous and ready for a winter, stick-to-your-ribs meal. This definitely falls under the category of your favorite grandma's comfort food. ;)


Portioning the stew into individual ramekins that were topped with pre-made puff pastry was a breeze. That flaky topping really turned this home-cooked dish into restaurant fare...at least for the eyes. ;) Unfortunately, my excitement at seeing the end product lead me to forget to photograph it.

The other dish I tried out was Mussels in Garlic & Guinness. This too smelled delicious while cooking up, but ended up with an unbearable bitter aftertaste since I used the Extra Stout version which is extra bitter. =P Otherwise, the sauce was quite tasty with the mussels. It also cooks up quite quickly too. I think it took longer to clean and debeard the mussels than it did to cook and eat them. ;) As I didn't have any white bread of any form in the house at the time to sop up the sauce, I went searching for some sort of replacement. Let's see...raisin croissant bread...ice cream wafer cones...salt and pepper Kettle chips...or tortilla chips. Great options, eh? Safest bet seemed to be the tortilla chips. Turns out to have tasted great with the corn chips! It gave me an inkling as to why beer tastes great with salted crunchies like potato chips. =9~ Or are the chips there to make you thirsty and buy more beer?