After loaning my kegerator to my parents months ago, I finally have it back at my house and full of my latest batch of homebrew, the Hop Head Double IPA from Midwest Supplies.

Ingredients

Hops, Hops, Hops

Brew day for this batch was back on December 8 and everything went as expected for the most part. As I normally do, I started off with as much water in my kettle as I could leaving just enough space to avoid a boil-over. Unfortunately there was so much malt extract to add that I actually had to split the wort into another pot.

Brewing

The beer sat in the primary fermenter until December 15, at which time it was racked  into a secondary and 2 ounces of cascade leaf hops were added for a dry hop finish.

Dry Hop

Out Of Primary

Into Secondary

The beer was in secondary until I kegged it on December 26. Now that the beer is fully carbonated I must admit that this has to be my best homebrew yet. Of course my love for this style of beer doesn’t hurt.

Yum!

I attended my second Cincinnati Cyclones game of the season over the weekend and just like the first time it was dollar beer night. Typically dollar beer night only happens during their “Wet Wednesday” promotions, but Saturday’s “Throwback Night” was a special  occasion  with  $8 Tickets, $1 hot dogs, pizza, soda, and beer. This brought out a regular season record crowd of 12,228 people! Unfortunately the large crowd left us in a large traffic jam trying to get a parking spot and we missed the Cyclones first goal and the ensuing “Teddy Bear Toss” when stuffed animals to be collected for charity were thrown out onto the ice.

Missing the toss was a disappointment, even though we caught the tail end of it with a police cruiser on the ice, but fortunately we had tickets in a private suite compliments of my wife’s cousin whose husband works as a chiropractor for Beacon orthopedics and sports medicine. This was my first time in the suite seats, and though they are way up in the rafters of US Bank Arena, the view is pretty cool. It can be hard to tell how high an airborne puck truly is, but that was my biggest complaint of the night.

Suite Seats

The Cyclones were sporting throwback jerseys that matched closely to one that I actually had as a kid. Plus the  Inflatamaniacs were there to provide between period entertainment, which had my brother and I cracking up. The game itself was close throughout, but  unfortunately  the Fort Wayne Komets  squeaked  out a 5-4 win.

For lunch over the weekend my wife and I along with our soon to be two-year old son headed to El Jinete, a  Mexican  restaurant in a strip-mall on Red Bank Rd. Since moving back to Cincinnati we’ve been searching for a nearby and cheap (often  strip-mall  based) Mexican restaurant to call home. After a couple of tries at  El Toro, it is  definitely not the place for us. So how does El Jinete compare?

Outside El Jinete

The inside of El Jinete is decked out in southwestern style but still has multiple TV’s in sight from nearly every seat. Near our table was an elaborate fountain, but it was not working on our visit. There is plenty of seating available and we encountered no wait upon our 12:30 arrival. We were immediately seated at a spacious booth, chips and salsa dropped off within seconds, and our server was ready to take our drink order within a minute. Things were looking good so far.

Inside El Jinete

We enjoyed the chips and salsa while looking over the menu. The chips were warm and thick but fairly  standard  overall. The salsa tasted freshly prepared and full of flavor. Our visit was continuing  to look positive for El Jinete.

Chips & Salsa

I ordered the lunch fajitas with chicken, bell peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions. This comes served with guacamole, lettuce, sour cream, pico de gallo, rice, beans, and flour tortillas ($7.25). The chicken mix came out sizzling hot and the side plate was hot to the touch as well. The portion size was excellent for the price and everything tasted great! I really liked the addition of mushrooms and tomatoes into the mix. My only complaint was that the tortillas didn’t seem as fresh as the rest of the food. I had a hard time splitting them apart once I took them out of the foil wrapper.

Lunch Fajitas

My wife created her own lunch combo with a chile relleno and a chicken chimichanga served with rice and refried beans ($6.25). At first we weren’t sure that she was given a chimichanga, as it wasn’t served fried like we are used to. Turns out they offer both fried and soft chimichangas, and it seems that she was given a soft one by default. Even though it probably would have been better fried (what isn’t?), she was happy with the selection and loved the cheese sauce on top. The chicken that was served inside the chimichanga was not dry at all and was well flavored. The chile relleno was also very good and was smothered in a delicious red sauce.

Lunch Combo

They also offer kids plates for $3.99 which is a choice of taco, enchilada, burrito, cheeseburger, pizza, hotdog, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, or quesadilla. Each comes with either rice, beans, or fries. We selected a cheese quesadilla with fries for our son, and he seemed very happy with the choice.

Bathroom Mural

Overall we were very happy with the food at El Jinete, the service was great, and the price was just right. The menu is very large, so we will definitely be back to sample more in the near future. We often get coupons in the mail, so make sure to look in yours for even more savings!

With so many holiday parties over the last month or so, I was struggling to come up with a different appetizer recipe to bring to a party on Christmas Eve. At a prior party I spotted cocktail rye bread slices that were used to make hanky panky  and immediately thought the same loaf of bread could be used to make mini  Reuben  sandwiches. I didn’t really need a recipe but found this one to use as a guideline.

Ready For Baking

Rather than making them all with corned beef, I used a pound of smoked turkey and a half pound of corned beef to make roughly 32 to 40 servings. I also split the two teaspoons of thousand island dressing into two layers, the first teaspoon was placed directly on the bread slices, while the second (smaller than full teaspoon) was put on top of the 1/2 tablespoon of  sauerkraut  that I used for each. So it goes slice of bread, teaspoon of dressing, 1/2 slice of meat, 1/2 tablespoon of sauerkraut, 1/2 teaspoon of dressing, 1/4 slice of cheese, heat and serve.

Turkey Complete

These were such a hit at the first party that I took them to that I decided to make them again for two more parties this past weekend. They are a little time-consuming to put together, but so far it has been worth it.

Happy New Year! Below is the list of cities that I visited in 2012 with at least one night spent in each place.

• Cincinnati, Ohio *
• Dayton, Ohio
• Denver, Colorado
• Steamboat, Colorado
• Frenchburg, Kentucky
• Miamisburg, Ohio
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Negril, Jamaica
• Jonesboro, Georgia
• Loveland, Ohio *
• Coraopolis,  Pennsylvania
• Murrells Inlet, South Carolina
• Asheville, North Carolina
• Williamstown, Kentucky *
• Palo Alto, California
• San Francisco, California
• Louisville, Kentucky

Those cities marked with an asterisk were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

See also: 2011  |  2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006