Greater Milwaukee Men

Poaching chicken (sous vide as well) is a great way to do some prep work to save time later, while adding flavor at the same time. I whipped up this recipe with tons of flavor using limited ingredients. It could be seen as a Clean Eating recipe, but it was created to be a Low Residue meal for prep day for a colonoscopy, following all the rules, which also works for people with IBD or similar digestive issues.

Last month we were happy to pass along that Sprecher was supporting Milwaukee parks with their ParkLife Beer ,and today we get to applaud another local company for the same thing. Stone Creek Coffee has stepped up to give us the  LOVE YOUR PARKS 2-PACK  as part of the Love Your Parks Initiative . $2 of every purchase of Love Your Parks will be donated to Milwaukee County Parks. Read more about the Love Your Parks initiative at loveyourparksmke.com . Stoen Creek says the flavor profile is "the sweetness of dried fruit paired with citrus and cream."  This is a limited time offering and will only be available until August 26th. 

It's always great when a local business supports the local community, and we get that chance with the new Sprecher ParkLife beer. First in a series of brews intended to give back to Milwaukee County Parks, one of the jewels of our community, you can grab one at the Grant Park beer garden, and other locations.

Last June I started exploring, probably a lot later than most who know me might think, the whole plant-based thing, starting , mainly with trying to give up beef products  because of both health and environmental reasons. Since then I have had mixed results. Since the beginning of the year I have actually been trying to be as plant-based as I can, not full-on Vegan, but probably the closest definition is flexitarian . My chili cauli with veg ready for beans& sauce In giving up meat, I am really trying to not use supermarket plant-based but highly processed meat replacements. A fake burger or sausage is just not going to be the same as meat, plus they still are processed foods and even if 'vegan' still unhealthy. Instead I try new recipes that aren't based on meat-centric ones with meat replacements. Lots of non-Euro, non-American recipes But sometimes you get the craving for an old standby, a comfort food selection maybe. So how do you do that and still have it...

One of most perplexing things to me is disregard for the environment. Whether people chose to believe the science behind global warming, in general there are more immediate, local impacts to not caring about what we and businesses do and don't do. Drinking water, wildlife, recreation all are impacted by how we act as consumers. While far from perfect, I am no hardcore environmentalist rather a pragmatist, I am always looking to reduce my family's impact. Image courtesy gentlebarn.com One new area I have begun to explore is the impact of diet on the environment, namely in the form of livestock. The more I look into human impact on the environment, the bigger the argument to try to give up the consumption of beef products, as well as other livestock. Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation, uses up more land and resources than the growing of plants, and creates immense waste. So for me, it is time to ...

Come see what's brewin'... Oh sorry, wrong team, still, the play on words, I had to. The Milwaukee Bucks and Colectivo Coffee are partnering on a limited-edition Bucks Blend Coffee that will be featured as Colectivo’s Coffee of the Week from Monday, Feb. 25 – Sunday, March 3 at all 13 Milwaukee-area Colectivo locations. Prior to that, the coffee will be available for sampling and purchase at Bucks games tonight and Saturday, Feb. 23, at each Bucks Pro Shop location at Fiserv Forum. In addition, one-pound bags of Bucks Blend Coffee are also available for purchase on a limited basis at shop.bucks.com. One dollar from the sale of each one-pound bag will go to the Milwaukee Bucks Foundation .

In the beer world, especially among 'craft beer' enthusiasts, Sierra Nevada brewery is iconic, mostly for its IPAs, so it shouldn't be a surprise that their peers would jump a the chance to support them, but what happened this week is shocking - in the best way possible. Sierra Nevada, which makes its home in Chico, CA where the Camp Fire has just finally been put out, but not after devastating the area. SN had already been supporting its neighbors with a relief fund but then they upped the ante: they created a new IPA style beer that they would donate all proceeds, then they invited their brewing friends to join in. And the results are astounding. As of Tuesday 11/27 over 1,000 breweries had agreed to brew the same beer and sell in the same manner - with all proceeds going to the relief of Camp Fire victims.

A shot of the pig on the spit at Big Head Brewery Need something to do today? Saturday, October 13th head over to the Big Head Brewing  4th annual Spanferkel which also benefits the Wounded Warrior Project . What's a Spanferkel? Basically, it's a German pig roast and it will be roasting away and ready to serve at about 12:30 pm.

A parsnip onion blue cheese tart made with gluten free flours Usually as part of the gluten free 'craze', which often gets a bad rap as a new fad diet and I have debunked here , you see more and more alternatives to wheat flour available. Americans almost seem to take it as an offense, some new war against social norms that people would even think about replacing wheat in their traditional recipes, but the truth is around the world there are many similar foods baked or made with different flours. While its easy to credit the increase and awareness of living gluten free as the impetus to replace wheat in recipes like pasta, bread and other bakery, other sources of flour have been around for centuries especially in non-European cultures, but yes also in many European traditional recipes. For example, rice and buckwheat noodles are common in Asian fare, of course corn flour is used in South American fare, almond flour is used in a lot of Euro baking (like one of my favori...

Milwaukee born and raised Colectivo Coffee seems to constantly roll out the types of charitable efforts we love at GMM, the ones men just may do, namely easy ones. Buy something, give something is usually the model here. It's a bonus when what you buy is exceptionally good, and in the case of what we promote at GMM - man-friendly. Well, for Colectivo that's fairly easy - coffee is after all universal and their products are as a rule exceptional. Right now their Coffee of the Week is  a Featured Farm Series coffee that checks all the boxes. Buy a bag of this unique, flavorful coffee and $1 goes to relief efforts in Myanmar by way of the UN's World Food Programme which helps not only Myanmar but other areas with conflict.

Great coffee starts with clean water. Luckily in Milwaukee we have some of the best water in the world (there's a reason we have had so many breweries in town). But that water quality from safety to taste is always under attack by environmental issues. Brewers - of beer and coffee and even tea - are part of the ongoing activism in making sure we always have good water. Local coffee roasters Colectivo Coffee are one of those. Colectivo has created a special edition Three Rivers with clean water in mind. For every bag purchased, Colectivo will donate $1 to Milwaukee Riverkeeper®. The combination of Fair Trade, organic selections from Nicaragua and Sumatra offers flavors of dark chocolate, orange, and dried fig with a hint of spice. The mission of Milwaukee Riverkeeper ® is to protect, improve, and advocate for water quality, riparian wildlife habitat, and sound land management in the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic River Watersheds. They envision a future in which peop...

The holiday season is, unfortunately, the time when we start top think most about the hungry, those that need. I say unfortunately because we should think of them all the time. Now understandably its winter, we are in the giving season, we are thinking (guiltily) about our family meals and want to help others. That's great. We just could do it more often, and more importantly, better. The usual way we donate to food banks is by giving, well, food. But isn't that what we want to do? Give food to the hungry? Well, sure, but there are more cost-effective, efficient, more healthy ways of getting food to them than actually donating 'non-perishable' items at various donation events from your grocery store to a show. What is the best way? Just giving money. You seen when you donate funds, the pantry can buy in bulk to get more food for the same amount, and they can also get what they need, versus what you decide to give them. Here is great summation of what it means for a...

Good, healthy food can be expensive, even for those with a decent job. Fast food and processed foods are not only more convenient but also more affordable to many. So-called food deserts, areas in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food, are unfortunately something Milwaukee has to contend with. A new restaurant opening this month in Milwaukee seeks to solve that problem for one neighborhood. Tricklebee Cafe is a new restaurant, run by Rev. Christie Melby-Gibbons, that follows the pay-what-you-can  (PWYC) philosophy as a member of the One World Everybody Eats organization. In a PWYC business, a sliding scale of prices for products or services allows for people who are better off to pay higher prices to cover for lower prices paid for by those with lower income.

Roasted Cauliflower Cheeseburger Casserole One of the hardest things for people going gluten-free, or fully grain free, is replacing things they loved - usually comfort or fast food options like a burger. To me the easiest way is just to skip the bun altogether - you may just be amazed how much you enjoy it more without the bun, really just for convenience of eating, drowning out the other flavors of the meat and condiments. But another way is to deconstruct it and make it into a different dish with similar ingredients. Today I got out ground beef and was thinking what to do with it. Yesterday my wife and I had tastes for hamburgers but opted for something else. I didn't want to cook up burger patties and was looking for side options. When I picked out cauliflower, I thought - why not make some casserole? Initially thinking using the cauliflower as a rice substitute, I decided to try to just use the full florets in a dish. My mind went back to burgers. I know I have seen hamb...

This is typical of an anti-gluten-free meme that is almost more popular than the diet itself Two of my goals here at GMM are to increase awareness and sensitivity to others so that we can all live together better and also to increase awareness of ourselves - our physical, mental, and spiritual health - since we need to care for ourselves before we can properly care for others. To me they go hand-in-hand, they are essentially two sides of the same coin, as so often happens, the other shoe drops and we can unknowingly end up personally, or through a family member or friend, connected to an issue. In recent years my family has gone to a mostly grain-free diet, and as time passes I meet more and more people who have been recommended to do so as well, so I am going to start using this space, under the tag of GF for not just gluten- but also grain-free, to post my experiences and recipes with this type of diet. If you find yourself on this track, I hope it will be a place where yo...

That may look like a dark beer, but it's not, it's nitrogenated coffee In recent weeks Colectivo Coffee Roasters has introduced a new beverage poured at their beer bars: Nitro Cold Brew Coffee .Wait what? Are you confused? I was at first and had to ask. What is this? Is it a new coffee beer (they already have a coffee stout)? Is it a coffee? Well, first, though it is served from a tapper alongside their beers (at locations that have them) it is not  beer. It is coffee. Just coffee. OK, not just  coffee. No, really it is. The name actually says exactly what it is: nitrogen infused cold brewed coffee. That is all. It is essentially carbonated (nee nitrogenated) coffee. But the end result is very unique ending up looking and drinking like a light stout except without the alcohol. And that's a good thing, a very good thing. You can read Colectivo's release information here , but I'll continue with my own description and review.

Braise is a Milwaukee restaurant of the farm-to-table variety, but it is much more than that: a CSA (community supported agriculture), RSA (restaurant supported agriculture), culinary school, and more. Across all its different functions there is a core mission though: to bring good food to the people of Milwaukee, and by good we mean more than good tasting, we mean food that is good for the environment, for you, for the community. Braise has helped the community including restaurants and farmers, now it needs the community's help.

The Turkey Club may be the name of a sandwich, but its also a great organization in Milwaukee that makes a true 'Thanks'-giving possible for those in need. The Club was founded in 1978 for the sole purpose of raising funds for the purchase and delivery of turkeys at the Thanksgiving holiday. All turkeys are given to food pantries and meal programs in the five county area of: Milwaukee, Washington, Jefferson, Dodge, and Waukesha. On Saturday, November 14th, you can help raise funds to pay for the turkeys.  O’Brien’s Pub at 4928 W. Vliet St, Milwaukee from 2PM to 5PM will host a Turkey Club fundriaser with terrific Raffles & Silent Auction Offerings Including; Hotel stays, Fine Dining certificates, Sporting packages & Memorabilia, Entertainment Certificates, and many other Fabulous packages and CASH ! Win your own Holiday Turkey!! Bring a friend, if you don't have one we'll find you one. All proceeds go towards the purchase of turkeys for The Turkey Club The T...

The Buffalo pork tenderloin with dill potatoes and homemade slaw that started the movement By now most have heard of Meatless Monday, which may seem new but goes back to war times along with Wheatless Wednesdays. Back then they were conservation efforts to reduce consumption, but today MM has been 'reintroduced as a public health awareness campaign, Meatless Monday addresses the prevalence of preventable illnesses associated with excessive meat consumption'. Well, I came up with a new weekly night to share and reduce food waste and also provide healthy food to others. While participating in social media shenanigans I invented a new program that was meant as a joke, turned into a half-joke and now may be something I would seriously pursue and encourage others to do: Third-Wheel Thursdays, or maybe Three's Company Thursdays - you tell me which rings better and I'll run with it. The concept is for a household of less than 3 people (yes that us 2 or 1) to invite oth...

On Friday, September 11 2015 at 6pm, Milwaukee's iconic Five O'Clock Steakhouse will host the first annual Milwaukee Man Dinner - Beef, Bourbon & Brandy Benefit. A portion of the night's proceeds will directly benefit the  Milwaukee Rescue Mission "Safe Harbor" Program ,providing refuge and hope for local men seeking to transform their lives through emergency assistance,  shelter, counseling, education & job resources.