use real butter

Recipe: custard apple pie

It seems like yesterday when we would have to wake up a few hours before sunrise to hit the trailhead and beat the sun and the heat and the afternoon thundershowers. The thing about hiking in autumn, before the snows come, is that we hike any time of day without the typical summer concerns. The bigger issue is running out of daylight if you start too late in the afternoon, or bringing enough layers should temperatures drop or rains fall. There are fewer people on the trails. The same applies to trail runs where I used to have a short window each morning as I couldn’t tolerate the heat of the day, but now it’s cool enough to run any time. Most of the aspens that were once an impenetrable wall of green or gold now stand bare and reveal views of valleys and mountains in the distance.

an almost glass-like surface on an alpine lake

passing through a slot between boulders

Soon it will be time to change to flannel sheets. I hold out as long as possible, because I know when it is cold enough for flannel sheets that it becomes a little harder to get out of bed in the morning. We have already begun placing Kaweah’s little flannel quilt over her at night – making a sort of puppy pie as she curls up in her bagel bed, the quilt as the top pie crust. I even say, “Puppy pie!” as I tuck her in and I know she likes it because the tip of her tail wags in anticipation.

And speaking of pies, I couldn’t resist the idea of making an apple pie the other day with all of those apples I bought from YA YA Farms. I like pie. I mean, I really like pie, which is why I don’t make a lot of pies. I like them too much.

they picked most of their apples before the hard frost

in the farm store

Traditional apple pie is great, but I’m also a lazy bum. If I can get away with making one pie crust instead of two pie crusts, I’ll do it. I have a recipe in a 20-year old notebook that I had jotted down from I don’t know where. Most likely the interwebs, which weren’t web pages back then, but forums like rec.food.cooking or rec.food.recipes – all text-based. Anyone remember those? It was an apple pie… a custard apple pie.

pie crust dough, apples, vanilla, sugar, flour, sour cream, cinnamon, eggs, butter

roll out the pie crust dough

crimp the edges

I used the Jonathan apples from the farm because they have a nice tartness to them while still maintaining their sugar. For me, sweet on its own is really boring. I like sweet with salty, or tart, or bitter, or spicy. It’s just more interesting that way. The recipe originally calls for three apples, but apples vary in size. I used four. Leftover apples are never a bad thing. Also, I used my deepest pie dish because shallow fruit pies… what’s the point?!

peel, core, and slice

layer the apple slices in the pie crust

extras for my assistant

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pumpkin cake with chocolate ganache and salted caramel cream cheese frosting

Last Friday, I cleared everything off the calendar to spend the day with my good friend, Kat. We don’t get to see one another very often, but when we do, it’s always special. Special, not because we have a lot in common (which we do and we don’t), but because we cherish many of the same things in life. And when I say things, I mean non-things like time, relationships, qualities, experiences, moments. Whenever I spend time with Kat, I learn something about her which in turn makes me learn about myself. Sometimes it’s an “ah-ha!” moment and other times it’s an idea that has been simmering in my head when she comes along and moves it to the front burner.

obligatory shoe shot at ya ya farm & orchard

two very sweet donkeys

and there was lunch at pizzeria locale

nom nom pizzas

It was a lovely start to the weekend, which was spent mostly working rather than going out to a number of social events. Social is fine. Social can be good. But sometimes I need to shut all of that down and have a weekend with no obligations to anyone but Jeremy and Kaweah. We are catching up with fall and preparing for winter in the mountains.

kaweah under freshly laundered dog towels just out of the dryer

Jeremy trimmed dead and mistletoe-infested branches around the property while I dragged them away to the slash pile. Kaweah watched us work from the front porch until I took the last bunch of dead branches down. She came bounding after me, gently closing her teeth on a nice branch. She wanted to play. It’s been a while since Kaweah has been frisky enough to play, so I let her have the branch. She followed me to the slash pile, parading with her branch in her mouth. I said “drop” and she put the stick down. I chucked it into the pile. She dove in after it. Repeat. Kaweah will be 14 years old in two months, so I tend to let her do whatever she wants these days. I let her keep the stick. But she wanted more than that. So I took the stick and threw it a short distance into the yard. And she ran after it, her stiff hind legs stumbling a little, but she didn’t seem to mind at all she was having so much fun. She brought it back to me. We did this a dozen times – more than she has EVER fetched (usually she would run to the object, pick it up and continue running away) until the sun went down behind the Continental Divide.

I guess I too am feeling recharged and energized. Energized and enthusiastic enough to attempt a cake. There are cakes and then there are cakes. I personally prefer easy cakes which you serve immediately after turning it out of a pan with minimal futzing. That is a level 1 cake in my book. This is not that kind of cake. This is considered a level 2 cake which involves layers of cake and other components and some sort of decoration. [Level 3 cakes are works of art with multiple tiers and I refuse to even think about them.]

yes, now we can do pumpkin (eggs, milk, spices, brown sugar, vegetable oil, pumpkin purée, flour, leavenings)

butter and flour the pans

mix the dry ingredients

The idea of a pumpkin layer cake has floated every autumn, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I finally implemented it. Making any new cake recipe always runs the risk of a major failure around here because I never know how stable the cake will be at my altitude. This pumpkin cake turned out well for me with a slight reduction in the leavenings (baking soda and baking powder).

mixing the wet ingredients

alternate adding dry ingredients with the milk

pour the batter into your prepared pans

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: barbecue chicken pizza

If you haven’t entered to win a Colorado care package yet, you have until the end of the day (midnight) this Friday, September 28, 2012. GO ENTER!!

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Autumn in Colorado is psycho. I mean this in a good way. You get those sunny days that are still warm (nay, hot) and dry. They can be sporadically intermingled with storm tracks that rain down and turn everything underfoot to mud, but leave a powdered sugar dusting of snow on the high peaks. If you are lucky, you might manage a photograph of the leaves turning colors and the mountains brushed in broad strokes of white. That is magic combo meal #1. Toss in a dramatic sunset and you have magic combo meal #2. Aw heck, and if you can combine all of that with FURRY BABY ANIMALS then you’ve pretty much got the holy grail right there. I’m only half kidding.

It’s not uncommon for me to encounter autumn storms while on the fall shoot. We like to think of them as early winter storms – sometimes snowing as much as two feet on the last day of summer! This year there has been a lot of rain and fog and clouds. That can be a bummer when the fog is so thick you can’t see anything or it’s pissing rain so hard that you don’t dare take your camera gear out of your pack. I usually rejoice at the rain and the snow. Bluebird skies and sunny days make for fine photographs, but the onset or clearing of a storm adds a different dimension to a capture.

you can’t have rainbows without rain (mt. crested butte at sunset)

I’ve been all up in my head this week because I’m driving around the mountains alone, assessing the weather every two minutes, and constantly scoping out the trees and the mountains. I was excited when I read rain in the forecast, because it meant snow up high. I got less excited when that soaking rain extended for several days. I started to wonder if it would ever let up.

this kinda sucked (iphone)

Frustrating as the rain can be, it pays to be vigilant and ever hopeful. Otherwise you could miss things if you decided to duck into a café and fritter away the time.

like a hot air balloon

or a cute gate to a ranch

or lovely sunset #1

and lovely sunset #2

So I’m glad I stuck it out, ignoring all the reasons telling me to just pack it up and go home where Jeremy and Kaweah are, where I have a nice comfy bed, where I get regular exercise, and where I eat proper food and have access to my kitchen. As you can imagine, posting a recipe just makes me want to get back to real cooking!

leftover barbecue chicken?

I know it’s hard to imagine having leftover barbecue anything, but it can happen if you make double or triple batches! We generally plow through this barbecue chicken recipe, but I set a few aside to make some pizza the other day.

roughly chopped

pizza time! pizza dough, barbecue chicken, mozzarella, barbecue sauce, red onions, fresh cilantro

The first time I had a barbecue chicken pizza was probably at California Pizza Kitchen in the late 80s in southern California. Talk about back in the day… Now, we tend to make our own pizza at home because they are easy and really quite good. Pizza is flexible like a sandwich – put whatever you fancy on the pizza and omit whatever you dislike. I tried to keep it simple with barbecue sauce, barbecue chicken, mozzarella, red onions, and cilantro. Tempting as it may be to load your pizza full of goodies, a little restraint will result in a better pizza. For reals.

spread barbecue sauce on the dough

cheese, chicken…

ready to go (i recommend adding the cilantro after the pizza is done cooking)

**Jump for more butter**