use real butter

Recipe: taco seasoning

It’s Kaweah’s eleventh birthday today! In celebration, we here at use real butter are having a giveaway this week in honor of Kaweah. Hmmm… what should we give away?

a puppy?!?

I can’t give that puppy away – that was Kaweah almost 11 years ago (it was sunset, so she looks brown). We tossed around a ton of ideas, but finally settled on this puppy:

how about a $100 gift card to chefs?

I’m giving away a $100 CHEFS gift card this week. What better way to launch the giveaway than on our little random number generator’s birthday? To enter, follow these rules:

Leave ONE comment on this post telling me what you want to do with the $100 gift card (e.g. What are you going to get? Is it for you? Are you going to give the card to someone else?) Multiple comments will be deleted. Entries will be accepted until midnight, Friday December 18, 2009 (12:01 am will be Saturday the 19th). The winner will be selected at Crazy Random courtesy of Kaweah and the Astrophysicist and announced on Monday, December 21, 2009. I’m pleased to tell you that CHEFS ships internationally, so this giveaway is open to ANYONE. Woohoo!

For Kaweah’s birthday, we did an early celebration because we have too much going on today. I’m sure the majority of you will think us insane, but I thought a little bit of steak might be nice for Kaweah’s birthday dinner. Just a little. That’s not the insane part. The insane part was finding ourselves in front of the Whole Foods meat counter. Hmmm, why was the dry-aged rib-eye $19.99 a pound? I asked what the difference was between dry-aged and regular. Curiosity got the best of us, so I pointed to one steak and said, “How about that one?” I thought it was 1.5 inches thick… when the nice gentleman lifted the steak out of the tray, it was 2.5-inches thick and the bloody thing cost me $30!

more wondrous snow

she even got dressed up

We grilled the steak and set aside a few thin slices for the birthday pup. The problem with giving Kaweah any kind of beef is that she scarfs it down without chewing. And just in case you thought it was because the piece of meat was too small – she does the same thing with large pieces of meat too (I have experimented with this in the past).

the birthday plate

it was gone in seconds

Jeremy and I sat down to share the remainder of the steak. It was like butter! So tender and melt-in-your-mouth. Can you dry-age beef at home if you have a cellar or some such thing? I’m tempted to look into it just for kicks (and well – to save having to pay out the nose). I don’t know that I will regard steak the same way again.

When Kaweah cleared her plate like a good girl, we gathered her favorite toys together for birthday cupcake. But that beef was fatty enough as it was, she didn’t need frosting too. Jeremy graciously volunteered to polish off the cupcake while Kaweah enjoyed a healthy carrot. She’s a simple girl, you know.

when kaweah really wants something, she won’t look at it until she hears her release word

what’s that mr. bunny? oh no, i’m 11 years old, not 11 months!

**Jump for more butter**

Long-time readers will be familiar with Pim’s Menu for Hope event each holiday season. Food bloggers the world over are once again gathering awesome bid items this year for the sixth Menu for Hope. I’m delighted to be part of that group and even more excited to bring two of my favorite local food businesses into the fold. I sincerely hope you will participate and bid on some of these great items!

In a nutshell, Menu for Hope is a yearly fundraising campaign that Pim Techamuanvivit hosts each December. Food bloggers and food businesses around the globe donate gorgeous, creative, mouth-watering, fun bid items for a gigantic raffle. ANYONE can purchase a virtual raffle ticket for a mere $10 to bid on a prize of their choosing. If you REALLY like a certain item, you can buy two, five… TEN tickets for said item or a selection of different ones. The more the better!

The beneficiary this year is the UN World Food Programme‘s new initiative, Purchase for Progress, which combines support of small and low-income farmers with addressing hunger through the UN World Food Programme’s global operation. It connects local food producers with those that need the food.

The tax-deductible donations are collected by a third party organization, FirstGiving.

Bidding is open from Monday, December 14, 2009 through Friday, December 25, 2009.

Winners shall be announced on Chez Pim after the two-week campaign ends.

To learn all of the details, please visit Pim’s page.

THE BID ITEMS

I encourage you to also refer to the Master List of bid items.

***(UW23) Choice of one original photograph by Jen Yu***

Select one of four original 12×18-inch photographs shown below. Photo will be matted to 18×24-inches (winner’s choice of black or white matboard). All archival materials. Ships anywhere.

summer aspens

blue columbines

fall in the colorado rockies

golden aspens

***(UW24) $100 gift certificate to Culinary School of the Rockies***

The Culinary School of the Rockies in Boulder, Colorado offers professional culinary and pastry programs plus a full calendar of home cook classes throughout the year (they also offer corporate team-building classes). Learn to make Thai food, take a week-long vacation course, enroll in a weekend cakes class! The subject offerings will make your mouth water. I’ve taken the knife skills class (1 morning) and the pastry skills program (10-weeks). It’s fair to say a lot of that has helped me become a better cook, a better baker – just look at my recipes on the blog to see for yourself! CSR has the friendliest staff and they are SO MUCH FUN! It’s not just a school, it is a dedicated and integral part of the local community. Discover what’s fresh. Discover CSR! Thank you, CSR for your generous donation of this $100 gift certificate!

***(UW25) $100 gift certificate to SALT the Bistro***

SALT the Bistro is situated on Pearl Street in beautiful downtown Boulder, Colorado. They were recently featured in the Wall Street Journal as one of the bright lights of Boulder’s hopping restaurant scene. Bradford Heap’s SALT serves up local and organic food. Serving brunch, lunch, happy hour, and dinner. SALT: civilizing taste for over 6,000 years. Huge thanks to SALT the Bistro for stepping up to the plate and participating in Menu for Hope with a $100 gift card to your fine restaurant!

To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice from our Menu for Hope main bid item list.

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.

3. Please specify which bid item you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code.

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02 – 2xEU01, 3xEU02.

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim on Monday, January 18 for the results of the raffle. Thanks for your participation, and good luck in the raffle!

Recipe: korean bbq-style burgers

Administrative note: The strong undertow of the holiday season is fast sucking me down to the bottom of the sea. I will do my best to answer any pressing questions in the comments this weekend, my good people!

Jeremy and I met our pal for a quick happy hour yesterday evening and there were THREE parties going on at the restaurant. I guess Office Party Season has officially begun. We had one to attend ourselves last night. It’s more of an event though. Ignite Boulder 7 – another sold out crowd at the Boulder Theater! My friends Andrew Hyde, Ef Rodriguez, and heaps of wonderful coordinators, volunteers, sponsors, and speakers pulled off yet another hugely entertaining evening of presentations, music, and prizes. AND they donated all proceeds to The Food Bank of the Rockies. It’s great meeting so many people from my online communities in real life, plus some fresh out of the blue.

ef always warms up the crowd with his sweet voice, guitar, and wit

sold out crowd

fellow citizens play the intermission

What was I saying the other day about my love of summer food in winter? Right… I can’t help it. We had some record low temperatures smacking the Denver-metro area about recently. Last weekend, I was flipping through my copy of Jaden‘s Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. I know, everyone has already seen it. It was part of the schwag bag from the after party at BlogHer Food 09 and I had emailed in for my free copy a few months ago. I waited and waited. I saw tweets and posts from everyone and her sister raving about the book. I waited some more. Then one day, I whine-tweeted online that mine had yet to show up.

Then Jaden, aka Busiest woman on the Planet, said she’d fix everything. And she did.

i love this book almost as much as i love jaden

For as long as I have been aware of food blogs, Steamy Kitchen has always been one of my goto sites for rock-solid Chinese recipes. That and Jaden makes me laugh much like the way my sister made me laugh. But her book is more than just Chinese recipes. It has Thai, Viet, Korean and lots of great Asian fusion dishes like her Korean BBQ burgers.

look at all those goodies

they go *in* the burger

**Jump for more butter**