use real butter

Recipe: stir-fried mi fun

Congratulations to the winners of the Menu for Hope bid items from Boulder! All of the raffle winners are listed on Chez Pim and I’m happy to announce the winners of the local prizes I hosted on use real butter:

UW23 an original photograph by Jen Yu (that’s me) goes to Lee Knapp!
UW24 a $100 gift certificate to the Culinary School of the Rockies goes to Laura Vanderschaaf!
UW25 a $100 gift card to SALT goes to Susan Tamaki!

The winners should contact me with their email addresses so I can get you your prizes. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this annual fundraising effort which raised over $78,000 for the UN World Food Program. As always, a huge thanks to the regional hosts and a huge thanks to Pim for everything.

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We haven’t had much snow this winter, which is not atypical for an El Niño year in the Rockies. Many of my ski pals are getting antsy in the pantsy for some fluffy, white powder because we’re at the end of January. While I might bemoan the paltry number of epic ski days this year (um, NONE so far), it really hasn’t cramped my style. I always shake my head at people who complain that they are bored. I don’t even know how to achieve that. I cram as much as I can into every day because every day is a gift… aaaaand because I’m hyper. Oddly, when Work gets busy, Play seems to get just as busy. I like busy. We’ve been having plenty of fun.

fun at the movies

fun on the slopes

fun at the sushi bar

fun with fellow food bloggers

And don’t forget the mi fun. What is mi fun? It’s Chinese for rice noodle vermicelli. Or would that be rice vermicelli? It is yet another Asian noodle I grew up eating and loving. I’ve never found them fresh, only dried in the Asian grocery stores. I usually have at least a package or two of the dried, delicate noodles in my pantry.

here’s what they look like right out of the package

after soaking in lukewarm water

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: stir-fried soybean sprouts

Oh hurray! It’s so good to be back to normal again. Don’t get me wrong, it was delightful to have a mellow visit with my parents, but to finally be well again is something I cherish very very much. Jeremy and I noted on our flight back to Denver that it feels like we’ve been in a twilight zone for the past month with the travel and the illnesses. I missed out on all of my typical holiday baking and I’m sure that means our local post office will start leaving packages in the backroom for months on end ;) Oddly enough, we here in Colorado are experiencing a “heat wave” of sorts. Seems we always have at least one week of warm weather every January. I’d rather have snow, but… I’ll gladly take a sunny day to walk with my guy and my pup in the mountains sans ground blizzards.

positively balmy at 32°f

patterns on the frozen lake

As long-time readers know, I don’t do new year’s resolutions. I resolve to do things ALL THE TIME regardless of calendar date. That doesn’t mean I don’t have new year’s rituals like… The Changing of the Calendars (for some reason, I get very excited about this). The other thing I do is mark Chinese New Year on my new calendars because it always manages to sneak up on me and you need time to prepare those lucky foods and dishes for the celebration. The Chinese follow the lunar calendar which means all manner of headache for a completely westernized girl like myself. There are also those superstitions like not buying salt for the entire month after Chinese New Year (bad luck). Anyway, I marked it. It’s Valentine’s Day this year. I will make sure to have the appropriate goodies for the party which includes one of my favorite vegetables.

the humble soybean sprout

I have been eating soybean sprouts since I was a wee bern. My mom and grandma would always buy a large bag of them from the Asian market and open the bag up in the middle of the kitchen table where we would gather around plucking the tiny ends off the sprouts. It wasn’t until I got to college, bought a bag and began picking the ends when a roommate informed me that she doesn’t bother plucking the ends off. Well, that certainly saves time! I think it’s a Grandma thing, because last week when I was at my parents’ house, I noticed Mom hadn’t picked the stringy ends off either. I don’t clean the ends anymore, except on Chinese New Year’s Eve – otherwise I’d get a little stabby.

these have been plucked

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chinese lion’s head meatballs

Have you entered to win a scarf made by yours truly yet? You’ve got one more day. And even if you live in let’s say, a volcano, you can always give the scarf as a gift to someone you like! Or you could give it to your sworn enemy as a gesture of good will as opposed to a swift kick in the shins. Just sayin’.

Jeremy and I attended a tweet up in Boulder Tuesday evening at Centro hosted by Rick Bakas (follow on Twitter @RickBakas) and St. Supéry. I know it seems backwards, but Twitter has kept me connected with many of my global blog friends while introducing me to several local people – many of whom I get to meet in real life (IRL) at tweet ups, community events, and the like. Plus, it’s so nice to finally speak to these good people without having to worry about that 140 character limit.

there were five wines for tasting

centro filled up

centro serves up latin fare in a lively atmosphere

the wall o’ live tweets

kurt heckel brings great wines like st. supéry to all of colorado

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I have done zero with respect to Thanksgiving dinner. I’m not all that worried. I know we’ll have dinner, but it won’t be a Thanksgiving dinner this year. It will be… dinner (something that swims or at least used to swim). The thought of a giant meal makes me sleepy which in turn makes me want to go play in the snow and burn a lot of calories. Hey – no one ever said I made any sense! My Dad has been known to boycott the traditional turkey ever since I left home for college, so it isn’t all that out of character for me to follow in his footsteps.

A specialty that my dad makes is called Lion’s head meatballs. These are giant Chinese pork meatballs that are tender, full of flavor, and very moist. Two years ago when I was at my parents’ home, I asked my dad to show me how to make the recipe and it took me a couple of tries to get it right in my own kitchen. It’s one of Jeremy’s favorite dishes and my parents always make some whenever we visit.

ground pork, green onions, ginger, bamboo shoots, chinese mushrooms

coat the meatballs in flour

**Jump for more butter**