use real butter

Recipe: indian garlic naan

It’s October, but we’re still wrangling with Indian Summer over here. Well, we were. The forecast has some storms brewing on the horizon which could be a blessing… or a curse… or both for this week’s shoot. If you are in Colorado, now is a GOOD TIME to get out and capture those fall colors (and say hi if you see me!).

one of our best local stands

With only a few days between road trips, my time at home is more like a pit stop than being home. I’ve shot some of our local colors (which are also very good this year), but I need a little time away from the leaves or else I won’t have good leaf brain this week. There are always interesting distractions…

my favorite graffiti in boulder canyon

a surprise bloom of my queen of the night (night-blooming cereus)

All of the action in the kitchen of late has been “cooking to clean out the refrigerator”. I wanted to leave Jeremy with plenty of food while I was gone. Unfortunately, I have a terrible habit of overestimating how much food he’ll need and I pretty much prepared enough food for him to survive a zombie apocalypse. [Side note: I really am convinced that a mountain bike is an excellent way to escape the zombies – if you’re in good shape.] I guess that means I won’t need to cook when I get home.

But I must tell you that in addition to the arrival of fall colors, the anticipation of big dump snow days, and my absolute love of Halloween, the cool down in temperatures means I can get roasting, baking, stewing, and pressure cooking again. A few weeks ago I made my own garlic naan and in addition to filling my house with smoke, it also filled my head with visions of fresh naan this winter.

flour, milk, egg, garlic, ghee, greek yogurt, salt, baking powder, sugar, yeast

combine the flour, salt, and baking powder

sugar, yeast, and warm water – getting puffy

I’ve had unyeasted naan and yeasted naan. I like both. I imagine the unyeasted version must be pretty simple (another recipe to try later), but who doesn’t love a challenge, right?! I chose to go with the garlic naan over plain naan because I’m a total sucker for garlic and I always have some on hand.

add garlic, yeast mixture, milk, yogurt, egg, oil, and water into the dry mix

after kneading the dough, let it rise

punch it down

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chicken salad puffs

Good people, you still have until Monday, August 29, 2011 noon MDT to enter the raffle for a fine art print of your choice. Thank you!!

Lately it seems everyone is asking the same question, “Where did summer go?” In the case of my Seattle friends, they’re asking, “Summer who?” The start of the academic year tends to be a major social signal that summer is over. If I step outside my house in the afternoons, I can hear the children at the elementary school screaming and laughing at recess. If I drive through Boulder, it takes me twice as long to get anywhere because of all the new (and disoriented) freshman at the university. While I am already daydreaming about 4 foot powder dumps in winter (okay, I’ve been daydreaming about that since the last time I skied on June 21), I know that will come with a little time and perhaps some patience on my part. Autumn is surely coming, but we’ve still got some weeks of summer left as is evidenced by our near 100°F temps, daily thunderstorm cycle, the height of color at the farmer’s market, and meetings in the park with friends on blankets.

kaweah basking in the sun, unaware of the approaching thunderhead

beets the color of candy at the boulder market

calliope eggplants

brilliant carrots

my little buddy getting a snuggle from his mama

I haven’t shot a recipe I’ve made in a couple of months and it feels like forever. It isn’t for lack of mojo as there are several scraps of paper (both carbon-based and silicon-based) strewn about reminding me of recipes I want to try making and blogging. The mojo is there, just not the time. So I’ve dug deep into the queue and found a recipe for the chicken salad puffs I served at the afternoon tea I hosted a while back. It really was a while back – it was in November of last year. I’m hanging my head in shame at my lameness. But I assure you these chicken salad puffs are far from lame!

chicken, grapes, celery, almonds, parsley, onion

prepped and chopped

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: stromboli

You know how I have that terrible habit of sitting on the NOAA forecast website in winter in the hopes that my reloading of the page will somehow change “sunny” to “blizzard”? I do the same in summer except I am hoping to change “sunny” to “severe thunderstorm warning”. You might say I have a mild obsession with lightning. I love watching a thunderstorm, but I love photographing lightning even more. We had a pretty spectacular light show plow through the other night (I heard Breckenridge got hammered) and we’ve had a good strong run of monsoonal thunderstorms nearly every afternoon until a few days ago.

the crazy squigglies are so cool

double strike

right through the cloud

ribbon lightning (right is near 100% zoom)

I don’t actually know what our thunderstorm cycle was doing since Wednesday because I’ve been helping Jeremy host an astrophysics retreat in Boulder and at our home in the mountains. There was a good deal of wining, dining, a little hiking, and lots of science with some of the brightest (and nicest) young superstar ninjas in the field from around the country. I played hostess, caterer, event coordinator, photographer, and dog wrangler. It was exhausting, but it was great (and it’s why you didn’t hear from me all week).

a toast at the kitchen to kick things off the first night

fruit and pastries for a marathon day of science

a room with a view

marla addresses the group

jeremy wraps up the afternoon

winding down with happy hour at the kitchen upstairs

but they still have science on the brains

lisa brought her 2 month old daughter from hawai’i, by herself… lisa kicks ass

morning hike and discussion at 11,000 feet

final toast to a whirlwind of science and fun

dinner at our house

ending the retreat with dessert and laughter on the deck

From my perspective it seemed like it was a successful retreat. Jeremy agrees. It involved an enormous amount of effort and planning, but I think Jeremy and I make an effective and efficient team. We like working together. Now we get to trade places as I’ll be hosting and teaching the Food and Light workshop next week. After that, I think I’ll be happy to not host an event for a while (but just a little while).

There is something to be said for simplifying your menu in summer. I tend to gravitate toward the recipes that require little effort and time because we seem to have so much going on in the warm months. I blame the gobs of daylight hours. We like the recipes that produce plenty of leftovers too because there are days when you get back from a bike ride or a hike and want to eat right away. Stromboli has always been on my list of bread-based foods to make. I tried it out early this summer and we were hooked.

make some pizza dough

let it rise

flatten half of the dough on a floured surface

roll it into a rectangle

**Jump for more butter**