use real butter

Recipe: tequila-lime halibut tacos

Afternoon thunderstorm cycles, the buzz of hummingbirds zooming through the neighborhood, and near-record heat for this time of year… You’d think it was summer. Wasn’t I just griping about spring? I think all of the seasons are over-achievers. At this rate, I’ll be skiing again by next week (which would be absolutely fine by me). It is what it is.

okay, tulips are spring

we’ve traded skiing for mountain biking

cooling off with thai iced tea and taro boba tea slush

kaweah walks in the morning or the evening to avoid the heat

either way, there is always plenty of sniffing (i.e. reading pee-mail)

Good things are coming into the markets now: asparagus, strawberries, English peas, ramps, fiddleheads, and halibut (to name a few). [Hey FTC disclosure:] I received a comped shipment of frozen wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, wild Alaskan halibut, and wild Alaskan cod fillets from Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) a few weeks ago. They describe the fish as wild, natural, and completely sustainable. My preparation of fish relies heavily upon my experiences with various types of fish. It’s based on if I have had it prepared a certain way in a restaurant, saw a recipe for a specific type of fish, or grew up eating that species of fish. I puzzled over how to prepare the halibut when I recalled a book I had purchased last year that would surely give me guidance.

good fish (it sure is)

I bought a copy of this book for myself because I was sending one as a gift to my friends in Seattle (Becky Selengut, the author, is also based in Seattle). It’s just so easy to change that 1 to a 2 under the quantity field. I like fish and seafood very much, but my knowledge of how to prepare it well is just enough to be dangerous and not enough to be confident. I know people go through life all the time like that in far more important arenas, but it makes me uncomfortable. So Good Fish was going to fix that. Lo and behold, there was a recipe for tequila-lime halibut tacos with red cabbage slaw. Get out! It sounded dreamy.

first the slaw: red cabbage, cilantro, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, apple, mustard seeds, salt

shred the cabbage

toss the cabbage with kosher salt

Make the red cabbage slaw first, because that is the step that takes the most time. It’s all easy and straightforward, but squeezing the liquid out of cabbage is the rate-limiting step. At least it is for me. Becky explains that minimizing the liquid content of the cabbage concentrates the flavor. She sprinkles great tips and tidbits of information throughout this educational and highly entertaining book. The rest of the slaw is easy peasy. Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and toss together.

squeezing the liquid out

pour in the olive oil

add the cabbage

season to taste

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: homemade blueberry muffin lärabars

You may recall how I declared in a previous post that cherry pie was my favorite LÄRABAR flavor. I was prompted to try making them myself after picking my jaw up from the floor at Whole Foods when they rang me up for a dozen LÄRABARs. They carry a large assortment of flavors and I wanted to pack some with Jeremy for his meeting in South Africa back in February. It has become a routine to carry portable food with us since our graduate school days of cancelled flights and being stranded in airports when nothing is open.

cashews, dates, dried blueberries, lemon, vanilla bean

process the dried blueberries

One of the new flavors I tried was blueberry muffin. It has a bright and buttery flavor compared to the deep earthiness of the cherry pie LÄRABAR. I flipped the wrapper over and looked at the ingredients. Again – the beauty of the LÄRABAR is the simplicity of its components. I had everything on hand and set about replicating it. You may or may not encounter this, but when I ran the dried blueberries through my food processor, it looked like nothing happened to them. If you pick one up, you’ll see it is full of cuts, but still resembles an intact dried blueberry. No problem.

from the food processor: dried blueberries, cashews, dates

grate some lemon zest

scrape the seeds from half a vanilla bean

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chocolate mochi cake

Easter is coming. (If I were a Stark, I’d say, “Winter is coming.”) Working with artisan Robin Chocolates these past few weeks, I feel as if it has been Easter for a while. I’ve had hand-crafted marshmallow-almond butter chocolate bunnies, bunny sugar cookies, chocolate ducks, marshmallow peanut butter bears, peanut butter crisp chocolate eggs, caramel turtles, and assorted (amazing) truffles marching past my camera and into my (or rather, Jeremy’s) belly.

the cutest dark chocolate ducky

bunny filled with marshmallow fluff and almond butter (it was delicious)

If you live in the Boulder-Denver area, you are so totally in luck. You can stop by Robin’s storefront in Longmont (Monday-Saturday 12:00 pm – 6:30 pm) for a free sample while you pick out your gorgeous Easter goodies for the sweet-toothed loved ones in your life (or yourself, ahem…). Heck, go there for their incredible pastries in addition to the confections. Or try your luck with any of these locations that carry Robin Chocolates. If you aren’t fortunate enough to live in beautiful Colorado, you can always rush order for Easter. Don’t forget Mother’s Day is just around the corner!

Robin Chocolates
600 Airport Road
Building B, Suite D
Longmont, CO 80503
720.204.8003
12:00 pm – 6:00 pm, Monday – Saturday

robin makes award-winning truffles

Normal began to lose all meaning for me until this week when a storm front drifted in and dumped several inches of snow in my yard, on my house, on the trees, in the mountains – everywhere. I know a lot of people in Seattle, Washington and Ithaca, New York who become noticeably depressed or cranky when they haven’t seen the sun in a couple of weeks. I get that, I think. I’m the opposite. I need my snow and in summer, I’ll settle for rain (rain is good). As soon as Jeremy got home on Tuesday, I shoved his ski pants at him and said, “We’re taking Kaweah for a ski.” It had snowed all day and five minutes before he walked through the front door, the sun came shining through.

the storm clears out

snow, at last!!

kaweah didn’t want to stop for pictures

but she did stop for treats

Kaweah ran her little brains out, she was so happy. We were elated to be out there alone, in the still and quiet of the woods, blanketed in white. Cold air feels good when your face is flushed bright red from exercise. I don’t know if we’ll get any more snowfall. I hope we do for recreation, yes, but especially to mitigate wildfires this summer and fall. Once home, we both dug into some chocolate mochi cake I had made, to tide us over while we cooked dinner. I know I’ve said I’m not a fan of chocolate, but I do love 1) a little bit of good quality dark chocolate and now 2) chocolate mochi.

evaporated milk, glutinous rice flour, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, chocolate, butter, eggs

mix the dry ingredients together

My friend Fran, a native of Hilo, Hawai’i, sent me a link to a recipe for chocolate mochi cake last year, but I lost it. I began to google about for it recently and came upon a recipe from the Polynesian Cultural Center website. Having made complicated pastries and confections in the past, a recipe that calls for mixing everything in one bowl and dumping it into a pan to bake sounds like heaven to me. This is heaven. Now, the original recipe calls for margarine and well… you know we’re using butter instead of margarine. It’s worth stating (again): glutinous rice flour does not contain gluten. This is totally gluten-free friendly.

melted butter and chocolate

stir in the evaporated milk

**Jump for more butter**