use real butter

Recipe: sigara boregi

We saw off our fifth visitor in the past two weeks today. Hey, we planned the visits a while ago – no one figured I’d be having an appendectomy right around the arrival of the first visitor. Well, now that we have the house back to ourselves, we’re relishing it. Actually I’m resting and Jeremy is catching up on work. My healing is slow going and I’m not caring a whole heck of a lot about blogging at the moment as there are other pressing things to worry about. Looks like September will be a slim month on Use Real Butter.

suzanne and kaweah on the deck

I’ve only picked the camera up again in the last couple of days. Our weather was rainy and cool over the weekend. And that meant I had one thing on the brain: snow in the mountains.

start my base, baby

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Recipe: chinese scallion pancakes

I’ve been able to resume my cardio workouts this week and it feels great. It helps alleviate some of the lingering side effects. My body and mind are much happier for it too, albeit a little tuckered out. That’s okay with me. I am a firm believer in the no pain, no gain mantra. Did I mention that I’ve dropped two sizes? Crazy – I know. My oncologist mentioned that I hadn’t gained any weight as most of his chemo patients tend to. It’s hard to gain weight when food 1) tastes like ass and 2) plays havoc on your insides. At least the endorphins from my workouts are flowing – w00t!

Jeremy made it home late this afternoon. Even though I don’t get bent out of shape when he’s on travel, it’s always nice to see my best friend again. Some folks require time away from their partner, but we can get along 24/7 indefinitely and that’s a good thing to know. Actually, we can work together 24/7 in adverse conditions – read: vacation. I literally trust him with my life (well, he used to be high-angle Search and Rescue).

It’s now 1 am and Jeremy just woke up to operate that giant radio telescope… My astrophysicist is hot. [I was about to say astrophysicists are hot, but that is a totally untrue and completely laughable statement.]

This afternoon, I made a recipe I’ve been wanting to post for a while. I usually make these in small quantities when I need to use up leftover dough from Chinese dumplings. It’s something my mom always used to do when I was little. I never learned how to make these outright from my mom – the technique just sunk into my head with all of my visual memories of my childhood. Same with the dumplings. To see how the dough is made, I’ll refer you to the dumpling recipe.

chopped scallions

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Recipe: guacamole

Christine had commented on the avocado mound that was sidling up next to the stacked enchiladas from a few days ago. Funny that, since I was planning to blog it! She’s an observant one.

My first true exposure to the beauty of avocados was the first time I lived in California. My pal, Melinda, had two giant avocado trees in her backyard and she always asked me to make the guacamole whenever they hosted parties for the club volleyball team. Then before we’d head home for the evening, she would grab me by the arm and foist a grocery bag full of avocados on me. “Take these!” she would insist. Gladly, Mel.

the goods: avocados, sweet onion, tomato, jalapeño, garlic, lemon, salt

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