use real butter

Recipe: gluten-free peanut butter cookies

For folks who were wondering about the famous Williamsburg Cheese Shop house dressing that *everyone* raves about, they don’t give out the recipe. However, my pal, Rob, and I tinkered with some recipes and I settled on this one which is awesome on a sandwich. Have at it!

Cookies, I lament thee. Back in the day when I lived at sea-level, I used to bake a lot of cookies. A LOT of cookies. I would crank out several double batches a week and bring them in to my department or my workplace to give out to everyone. Jeremy always claims that caffeine fuels science, but I dare say that sugar, butter, flour, and chocolate did their fair share to support science research too. I had several go-to recipes that I could whip together in my sleep and bake to perfection consistently. Oh sea-level, if there is one thing I miss about you it would be your atmospheric pressure. At my elevation, cookies don’t behave the same way. Hell, NOTHING behaves the same way. I almost gave up on baking entirely, but over the years I was able to tackle and learn about cakes (some are still in the temperamental category), and breads (I don’t do a lot of breads), and I discovered that shortbreads had fewer issues than drop cookies.

Still, I don’t bake cookies much around here… and it’s one of my favorite things to give to people. Here! Have a cookie! That’s so much easier than “Here! Have some crème brûlée!” A couple of months ago, I decided that I needed to put cookies back in the driver’s seat because to me, a cookie is a little nugget of love. When you hand out cookies, you are handing out LOVE.

let’s start with a classic: peanut butter

I chose peanut butter cookies and I chose to make them gluten-free. It’s not that I have an aversion to gluten, but I have friends who are celiac and well – it’s always good to know how to do things. My inspirations for all things gluten-free are Shauna and Danny. When I told Shauna I was making her peanut butter cookies, she told me not to bother with that old recipe. But I needed something easy because I didn’t want to have to run out to the store for ingredients, so I made a batch.

plop goes the egg

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Recipe: lychee grapefruit martini

I hope everyone is having a great holiday, whatever it is that you do or don’t do! Today is the last day to bid on some really amazing Menu for Hope items. Pim has a very nifty and easy donation form set up on her site and I encourage you to have a look and bid! If you want to see what I and a couple of great Boulder businesses are offering, check out the bid item descriptions.

Jeremy and I have been keeping things low key because I had the flu and shared it with him. Thursday was the first time we both felt well enough to get out and enjoy some of the recent snow.

a little windy, a little chilly, but definitely some fun

While single digit temperatures are tolerable, negative wind chills and ground blizzards can be a bit much on the mountain. In the afternoon we took Kaweah for a walk in the woods where we could seek a little refuge from the winds.

a shower of snow rains down from the trees

We went to Boulder for a few errands and then walked around Pearl Street to enjoy the lights. Because it was Christmas Eve, the streets were pretty empty as Pearl Street goes.

i love little lights

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Recipe: roasted beet, chèvre, hazelnut salad with blood oranges

I’ve been horizontal for the past two days with a blasted flu (not H1N1 as everyone seems to assume). I came down with it during my trip to California last week when we were taking care of stuff for my grandma. Sigh. No good deed goes unpunished. Today, I can finally sit upright for more than a few minutes at a time without passing out.

So I think some of you might be wondering who won the CHEFS gift card? Jeremy and Kaweah had a lot of fun picking the winner yesterday. I was in and out of consciousness while Jeremy was hard at work in the kitchen. He finally presented me with a handful of dog treats etched with a number 0-9 on each one… in binary. Somehow this was more exciting to Jeremy. As long as he’s happy… Kaweah followed him around like a little black shadow, anxious to do her part (that is, to eat the treats).

your nibbly kibbly chances of winning

our dedicated employee

Per the usual routine, we set out all ten digits and recorded the first number she ate. Jeremy is quite practiced at preventing Kaweah from mowing through all ten at once (she’s a quick one, that dog). We replaced the devoured digit with a new one and reshuffled the biscuits. Binary, hexidecimal – they’re all delicious to Kaweah. 3… 0…

there goes the 5

Congratulations to Wend! You were comment #305 and you win the $100 CHEFS gift card! I’ll be emailing you to get your snail mail address so CHEFS can ship it to you right away.

But wait, there’s more! I have a $25 CHEFS gift card from the BlogHer Food conference back in September that I never used. A $25 card means only one thing – I’m going to spend way more than $25… I’d rather give that card to one of you. So Jeremy took the winning number 305 as a seed for a random number selection (Kaweah had eaten plenty for the day) and we have #33 – Paula! Congratulations to Paula! I’ll contact you shortly to get your mailing address too.

So this here flu has played havoc with my holiday schedule and I’m left digging around in the archives for something to share. I can only handle thinking about holiday fare for a day or two and then my brain revolts. The cookies, the sweets, the large cooked animals, the cream, the starches, the fat – they make me so sleepy. I find greens and citrus to be light and refreshing. Salads leave me feeling recharged and ready to spring to action!

some golden beets

a few blood oranges

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