Movie Night is a very popular activity in any household.I was feeling very nostalgic the other day, reminiscing about my childhood and the snacks we used to enjoy while spending time with my family during a movie. Whether it was a movie at home or going to the cinema, the highlight was always the treats involved. From popcorn covered in melted butter to sweets and chocolates we all had our favourites. My father was heavily involved in these memories. He spoiled us with bowls of mixes, different crisp flavours and nuts, popcorn with chocolate, ice cream bowls over flowing with sweet treats. Needless to say this sparked some research into some “adult snacks” cooked with beer!
So after browsing through endless amounts of recipes I decided on three different treats to make. All recipes I chose came from The Beeroness Website. I’ve been a huge fan of hers for quite some time. Wayne bought me one of her cookbooks “The Craft Beer Cookbook”. I’ve had much fun recreating some of the recipes in it. I think Wayne enjoys being my guinea pig.
The first recipe is Beer & Sriracha candied nuts. During movie night there’s always a bag of cashew nuts devoured in Snob HQ so I decided to make them interesting. For this recipe I chose four types of nut; cashew, Brazil, hazelnut and pecans. After recently reviewing Brewdogs Neon Overlord on our podcast, which you can listen to here, I chose this for its spicy but sweet flavours. We’re both big fans of spicy foods so these were a no brainer. They took little time and hardly any effort required but the outcome was irresistible. Once you start snacking on these its very difficult to stop. Next time I attempt these I’ll up the sriracha levels. The only change I made was sprinkling salt all over them before they went into the oven and again half way through. I’m also lucky I saved a portion for my father. They were such a hit I’ve already received orders for Christmas.
Every weekend chicken wings are on our menu either as Friday night dinner, Saturday afternoon snack or post Sunday evening podcast recording. Wayne was king of cooking them, until I intervened. We usually use franks hot sauce but I chose grilled beer & brown sugar wings. The beer I chose was a little closer to home, an Irish porter called Dark Arts Porter by Trouble Brewing. This is one of our favourites. I’ve often used it in a batch of brownies. I marinated the wings in the beer brine for approximately five hours before cooking. Instead of grilling them I baked them at 200 degrees for fourty minutes, basting them every ten and turning them half way through. The were deliciously sticky, juicy and very tasty. Give them a try!
What movie night is complete without nachos? There’s nothing more satisfying than scooping up cheese dip or salsa and stuffing your face. So you guessed it, I made a dip! I love strong flavours so chose mature Gouda and Mature red cheddar cheese to make foolproof beer cheese sauce. To compliment the strong cheese flavours I used Francis big bangin IPA. It was recently released by Mc Gargles in cans and Simon of Simonsays beer blog and their beer specialist gave us some to try. I couldn’t resist using it in this recipe. The sauce was so good I could’ve drank it all. Next time I cook cauliflower I’ll whip up a batch of this to pour all over it.
I hope you try these super easy recipesyourself, hell if i can cook them anyone can. Oh just in case you are wondering the movies we watched were Independence Day: Resurgence & The Huntsman: Winters War.
**Neon Overlord was supplied to us by fourcorners & Francis Big Bangin IPA was given to us also**
Trouble Brewing Dark Arts Porter was purchased in our local O’Briens branch.
Irish Beer Snob 
Candied nuts are ridiculously addictive. Macadamias are the favourite in our household but we have never thought to make them ourselves. I’m thinking add MSG to the mix and people will be on them like zombies on brains