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Recipe: chinese spaghetti (zha ziang mien)

I believe Peabody is going to move in with us soon if the heat wave in Seattle continues and our cool spell in the Colorado Rockies lingers. As most of you know, sun and heat do not make for a happy me. Yes, I recognize how vital the sun is and yes, I do enjoy basking in the warm rays of sunshine… when it’s 20°F out. We were beset with a few rather warm (okay HOT) days in the Colorado Front Range, but thankfully a string of overcast afternoons infiltrated our forecast. Along with the instability aloft, we got our light shows back!

in summer, we choose outside seating when it’s cloudy

i have this thing for lightning

Now it is downright chilly. And I love it. My friend said it was snowing in the basin (I assume that is A-basin – a fine place to get your ski tele on). The deck read 32°F this morning. Unfortunately it wasn’t snowing, just raining. That’s okay by me. We need the rains.

fleece weather

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Recipe: mallows

I feel as if every two weeks I’m doing something Daring. Oh wait, it’s because I AM! Daring Cooks, then Daring Bakers, then Daring Cooks then…

the daring bakers knead to bake

I’m not sure if I can keep this up before I start to lose my shit, kids. At least I made it through July.

The official line: The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Awesome founders: Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice.

We were given the option of one or both of the cookie recipes this month, so I chose the mallows because I have been wanting to make marshmallows for over a year. First, we start with a graham cracker base. The dough was simple enough to slap together, chill, roll, and cut out. For some reason, the recipe claims the yield is about 2 dozen cookies for 1/8 inch thickness when in fact, I used a larger cutter and wound up making about 4 dozen cookies. No idea what was up with that…

2-inch cutter

set cutouts on parchment to bake

Next up was to make the marshmallow which essentially involved boiling sugar to soft-ball stage (I boiled to 218°F instead of 235°F because of my altitude, subtract 1° for every 500 ft. above sea level), mixing it with softened gelatin, and beating it into whipped egg whites.

heating the sugar

stir in the gelatin

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Recipe: drunken spicy shameless shrimp with brazen cocktail sauce

I like to think that I’m not a shallow person… and then a recipe like this comes along. I read the title and immediately knew I wanted to try it – just because of the name. Perhaps from now on we should indulge in creative recipe names? Beyond the name, after skimming over the recipe I realized it was a fast and simple dish that makes traditional shrimp cocktail look like a wallflower. This take on shrimp cocktail is like the *hussy* of the shrimp cocktail world – spiked heels, overly tight jeans, bad lipstick, and cleavage. I love it.

a kilo of lovely, raw shell-on shrimp

mixing up creole seasoning

The recipe comes from the Dinosaur Bar B Que cookbook, which I always seem to rediscover each summer. I can’t recall if I bought it for myself or if my friend, Carrie, gave it to me. Even if I bought it for myself, I wouldn’t have known about Dinosaur BBQ had it not been for Carrie’s love affair with the place. So thanks either way, sweetie.

BRAZEN sauce! she’s got a bite

the boil requires beer

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