Via Ready Brew- Taste Challenge

Score a free coffee this weekend (Oct 2-5) at Starbucks. Take the taste challenge to see if you can differentiate between their new instant "Via Ready Brew" on the go packets and their freshly brewed joe.

Beans! Fall food! Sausages!

Inspired by the brisk weather and my re-emerging l-o-v-e for fall food, I kicked the season off tonight with sausages and white beans in a tomato-spinach sauce sauce.

I recently read an article about cooking like Italian peasants that included a recipe for cannellini beans with garlic and sage that works as a meal one night, and leftovers can be used to make quite a few different dishes for nights two or three. I love leftovers!

And then, tragedy struck: The grocery store I was at didn't have dried cannellini beans. They did, however, have dried great northern beans, which are smaller. And then I decided that I had an extra 30 minutes on my hands, so why-not-pack-some-beans-for-lunch-and-skip-to-making-leftover-recipes? Bastardization of recipes coming up!

The beans: Step one!

What you need:
One pound of dried great northern beans
Seven cups of cold water

What you do:
Empty your beans into a bigass bowl
Pour cold water over beans in bigass bowl
Let them sit overnight. Or do this in the morning and let them soak while you're at work all day.

The beans: Step two!

What you need:
Eight cups of room-temperature water
One large head of garlic, unpeeled, 1/2 inch trimmed off at the top to expose cloves
One big sprig of fresh sage
One tablespoon olive oil
One teaspoon whole black peppercorns
The aforementioned beans, drained

What you do:
Put everything in a big pot over medium-high heat
When it starts to boil, reduce heat to medium-low
If your water level starts getting low, add more. Make sure the beans are covered with water.
Simmer for about an hour, total. I took mine off the heat after about 50 minutes because they started getting pretty soft. If you're using cannellini beans, you'll need to simmer about 90 minutes.
Let them cool in the water for about 30 minutes

Drain water into the same bigass bowl you used to soak the beans in and reserve the cooking liquid

This is where peasant dish 1 ends. Feel free to stop here and eat the beans with some crusty bread, drizzled with olive oil. They're pretty damn delicious. I can't wait for lunch tomorrow.

The beans with sausages in a tomato-spinach sauce: Step one!

What you need:
Four cloves of garlic
One large sprig of sage
Four Italian chicken sausages
Three cups of cooked white northern beans from dish #1
One can of no-salt added whole tomatoes, with juice
One cup of cooking liquid from dish #1
Two tablespoons olive oil
Three handfuls of spinach
Salt and pepper, to taste

What you do:
Heat the olive oil in a big skillet
Smash the garlic
Cut up the whole tomatoes
Cook garlic until golden brown (~2 minutes)

The beans with sausages in a tomato-spinach sauce: Step two!

What you do:
Add the sausages to the skillet. Cook five minutes.
Add everything except the spinach. Put a lid on the skillet and cook 20 minutes, or until the sausages are cooked through.

The sausages look funny.

Add spinach.

Let it wilt and you're done. Serve with that good ol' crusty bread. I picked up a loaf of Scholar's Inn bakehouse bread from Marsh and heated it up for about 10 minutes. Mmm-Mmm.

It's delicious.

Fake and yummy sun-dried tomatoes!

For all of you that have lots of tomatoes from your garden and you're not just sure what to do with them OR you love sun-dried tomatoes but sometimes they can be expensive--this is the recipe for you.

Instead of laying your 'maters out to dry in this not-so-sunny not-so-dry weather, bake them! DISCLAIMER: This process takes a long time but is effortless and so worth it.

Step 1: Slice your tomatoes in half. If you are using anything larger than a Roma, make sure to cut them down to comparable size and take out a few seeds.

Step 2: Lay tomatoes skin down on a baking tray (I line mine with parchment paper for non-stickiness).

Step 3: Season them with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and Italian spices.

Step 4: This is the long part. Set your oven at 150-200 (lowest setting possible) and leave them in there for 12-14 hours. I start mine in the evening and let them go through the night.

Step 5: Wake up to beautiful and tasty "sun-dried" tomatoes!

BONUS: They can be kept frozen for up to six months!!

you scream, ice cream! i love free s c r e a m!

Making Wishes Come True! Take part in WORLD's largest ice cream social ! This Thursday September 24th from 5-8PM. Free 3oz (Like It Size)Make a Wish Creation Donation - see picture and description below. Make a donation to receive your ice cream! Click here to find a location near you! Do something good for yourself and the community!

Taste Casting

So, if you're looking to score a free meal- this is by far the easiest way to do it. Simply join TasteCasting (free to join)- a new way to rate and review restaurants. Basically, Taste Casting is comprised of a group of testers who are invited to complimentary tastings at local restaurants. In return, Taste Casting asks the testers to utilize their social media outlets to talk about their experience. I mean, this is a no brainer.

30kMills went to a tasting at Scottys Brewhouse downtown- and we literally tasted everything on the menu. We fell in love with some food items that we normally wouldn't order (burger + peanut butter?)- and that, is the beauty behind Taste Casting. This is such a great outlet to branch out and try something new- free of charge!

The next event is at Donato's- (W. 86th Street) on September 28. They want Taste Casters to try their new hand tossed pizzas. Pizza party on a Monday night- oh yeah, you'll for sure find 30kMills there-- without a doubt.

Check out the Taste Casting website- they now have tastings in over 23 cities! Get out there and taste something new.

A chicken by any other name would taste as good

Mama's Chicken. Lemon Chicken. Engagement Chicken. This particular recipe has a lot of alternative names, but because it's so tender, juicy, flavorful, simple and never fails to impress my guests all at the same time, I just call it The Best Roast Chicken Of All Time - because it truly is.

WARNING: It's an old wives tale that if you make this dish for your BF he will be so overcome by your feminine powers, that he will propose within the next month - hence the name Engagement Chicken. I do not believe this, but those who are superstitious (or just believe in the power of good home cookin') should serve with caution. Here's the potion...I mean, recipe...

One whole chicken cleaned out (or if you'd like to make less, get some chicken pieces with the bone in, like thighs)
1-2 lemons, quartered
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil or melted butter
Good salt and pepper
1 yellow onion, quartered with layers pulled apart
Red potatoes, halved or quartered, depending upon size
Squash or other hearty veggie, chunked (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large roasting pan, toss onions, potatoes and other veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper. Arrange onions in the middle, and potatoes/other veggies around the outside. Season inside and outside of chicken well with salt and pepper. Stuff as many of the lemon quarters as will fit inside the chicken. Place the chicken (breast side up) on top of the onions, with the potatoes and other veggies framing it around the outside. Brush the entire chicken with lots of olive oil or melted butter. Add additional seasoning if desired. I also like to throw a few extra lemon quarters alongside the veggies.

Roast for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours, or until juices run clear. Make sure you wait until your guest(s) have arrived to take out the roast as it's quite impressive when it all comes out of the oven, all golden brown and smelling delicious. Allow the bird to rest for a few minutes before carving so that the juices redistribute and keep the meat moist. Squeeze the hot lemons on top of the chicken and veggies. Serve with fresh asparagus or green beans, white wine and crusty bread for soppin' up the good stuff! Just make sure he's willing to do the dishes before taking a knee.

Help yourself to some salad.

Ok this has now officially been a hit in way too many times not to be posted-I would be depriving you of flavor explosion. Although it is just a salad dressing, it packs enough punch to knock those mixed greens off your plate. So dress to impress next time you're assigned salad at a DP.

Combine: (works best to do this in a jar or something you can close tightly and shake up at the end)

2 Tablespoons of white wine vinegar
1/2 Cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced (ok honestly it calls for 4 but I think this much would actually burn my tongue...and I love garlic)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste (kind of unnecessary)
1 teaspoon oregano
2 teaspoons of lemon juice (I also added some zest last night and it was delish)

Cas puts on her foodie cap

So, uh, it's been a little too long since I did any sort of blogging about Indy food items/news and some stuff I can't put off blabbing about any longer.

For one thing: Neal Brown is opening up a pizza joint: Pizzology. I should've shouted this one from the proverbial rooftops the second I caught wind of it, but frankly...ehhh, I have no excuses. Sorry. I really don't want to talk about it, I just want to stick it in my mouth. (That's what she said.) I've seen the tweets, heard the murmurs on other blogs, etc., and I'm trying to be patient, but damn it, Neal! Hurry!

If the pizza is even 1/10,032 as good as the food at L'Explorateur, I'm doomed. We all are. I will be a mammoth, more than willing to pack on the pounds. Check out Neal's tweets about the new digs on Twitter @pizzology

Other notable comings-abouts:

Upland Brewery is opening up an Indy location. An odd Indy location: Uptown Business Center at the corner of 49th and College. Right near...uh, that chicken wings place. From a few visits to their B-town home, I can attest to Upland's burgers being good about 50 percent of the time and their coconut tofu salad being exactly what a coconut tofu salad should be. Good ambiance, though. I hope they carry that through to their weird-ass location.

Good Morning Mama's is going to open...eventually. No new news presents itself as I stare lustfully at that ridiculously painted exterior. If the exterior paint job doesn't get you moving in the morning, you have obviously never stared at 80's jazzercise videos or old Sesame Street clips while hallucinating. Ahem. An old Indy Star article claims the extension of Mama Carolla's was set to open in July. It's September.

Nicole-Taylor's Pasta & Market is amazing. So far @josephjames and I have obsessed over the following pastas: Spinach, lemon-pepper, chipolte, curry and red pepper. The curry went well with a bastardized version of the curry dish I posted here a while back. They also had a real winner with the watermelon salsa they had available a few weeks ago.

I'm hooked. I am a certifiable junkie for anything that comes out of this spot. Located, conveniently, a few hops down from Locally Grown Gardens at 54th and the Monon. (Look for the yellow painted segment of the strip mall-ish building.) Special note: They also make gluten-free pastas.

30K Profile: The Queen

In this weeks' 30k Profile we feature, The Queen. Ok, so his real name is Ryan but we call him Queenie. It's just something we do. He is the queen of our hearts and the source of many hours of laughter. Seriously- this dude is super fun to be around.

Just like all the other 30km's we asked him a few questions. Here is his response.


My motto is: Smile more.

Childhood ambition: I wanted to be an action hero. . .like in the movies. . .but real. . .

Favortie cocktail: Cranberry + Vodka = Cape Cod

Favorite place to grab a cocktail: On the couch.

Cheap eats: A Super Chicken Burrito, with no lettuce, tomato, or cheese from La Bamba. . .7 bucks for 2.5 pounds of food. . .pa pow.

Cheap thrill: When the squad be chillin', that shit be thrillin', cheddar be damned.

Favorite thing about Indy in the summer: The outdoors.

Fav type of music: Impossible. . .but. . .Top 5 recording artists (in no particular order): Guster, Kings of Leon, Atmosphere, The Black Keys, and Phil Collins.

Looking forward to this summer: I certainly am. Teammates, cocktails, snoogs, the Indians, the outside, all of it.

On my days off you’ll find me: Or will you?. . . . . . . .

You might be surprised to know: I hate spiders. Hate them. Watch, I'm'a punch a spider in it's head!!!!

Favorite websites: facebook.com, YouTube.com, ButtholesScareMe.com

Best advice anyone has given me: Be whatever you want, but be happy.

Favorite party memory: I can't answer that. . .but know that I'm smilin' just thinkin' about it. . .

Favorite way to be green: Don't really have a favorite. I just do whatever Ben tells me to do. . .

Favorite weekend morning spot after a night of parties: On the couch (I'm into couches.) and/or Biscuits.

Thirtythousanddollarmillionaire is: Something you should make yourself aware of. . .

DPs make me feel: Like I'm an integral part of the designing, manufacturing, packaging, and mass distribution of cool. You know you feel it, too. . .

Favorite recipe: Aunt Becky's Mac 'n' Cheez


And that's a booyah.