use real butter

Recipe: mallows

I feel as if every two weeks I’m doing something Daring. Oh wait, it’s because I AM! Daring Cooks, then Daring Bakers, then Daring Cooks then…

the daring bakers knead to bake

I’m not sure if I can keep this up before I start to lose my shit, kids. At least I made it through July.

The official line: The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Awesome founders: Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice.

We were given the option of one or both of the cookie recipes this month, so I chose the mallows because I have been wanting to make marshmallows for over a year. First, we start with a graham cracker base. The dough was simple enough to slap together, chill, roll, and cut out. For some reason, the recipe claims the yield is about 2 dozen cookies for 1/8 inch thickness when in fact, I used a larger cutter and wound up making about 4 dozen cookies. No idea what was up with that…

2-inch cutter

set cutouts on parchment to bake

Next up was to make the marshmallow which essentially involved boiling sugar to soft-ball stage (I boiled to 218°F instead of 235°F because of my altitude, subtract 1° for every 500 ft. above sea level), mixing it with softened gelatin, and beating it into whipped egg whites.

heating the sugar

stir in the gelatin

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: coconut macaroons

It’s the Fourth of July holiday weekend for me and my fellow Americans, but we kicked off the celebration with pyrotechnics of sorts earlier this week!

need a light?

flowers bursting

ignite boulder 5

milling about before the show while live tweets come in

Ignite Boulder 5 was the fifth in a series of community events (founded by Andrew Hyde) featuring talks with a twist: each speaker has 5 minutes to deliver a presentation of 20 slides that advance every 15 seconds. Perfect for the minimal attention span population or for anyone in need of a good laugh. They should require this format at scientific conferences. My three favorite talks from the evening also taught me something new: Larkin Carey – Surviving Free Fall from 30,000 ft without a Parachute: A DIY for the unfortunate airline passenger, Bruce Wyman – Marine Mammal Biology, Garret Smith and John English – World War Corn.

And several good things have been landing on our doorstep of late including a package of dried organic rose buds from my dear Susan (thank you, hon) and a high-angle rescue harness for Kaweah. She didn’t mind the harness much at all and even wagged her tail several times as Jeremy took her for a test drive around the house.

smells like a garden

some folks have child carriers, we have a dog carrier

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: matcha green tea passion fruit macarons

Snow. We have lots of it. You’d never know it from the bloody 80 degree weather down in Boulder today. There is a ton of snow in the backcountry still. It’s starting to get sloppy (i.e. posthole city), but the other day we caught it on a cold morning so the slopes were nice and frozen climbing up.

i accessorize like any other girl… just that i accessorize with crampons

On our way in, we encountered a couple with their dog while we put our crampons on. They were in no way prepared for the conditions. The gentleman asked if this was the way to Mount Audubon. Well yes, and no. There are some great cross country routes to Audubon from there and if that was the intended route, then yes it is. But those two… they were not going cross country. Based on the short conversation we had, I wouldn’t really trust them to find Audubon when the trails were free of snow let alone when they were under several feet of snow. So no, they were on the wrong trail (it actually helps to read the sign at the trailhead, but whatever). They told us they’d just head to Mitchell Lake instead. Okay! Have fun and be safe!

A little while later, we got sidetracked and passed a smaller unnamed lake. There they were, posing for pictures. That wasn’t Mitchell Lake, but I think they thought it was. No matter, as long as they keep from getting themselves killed. We made our way up to Blue Lake basin and well – Blue Lake was completely white and gorgeous. We should have brought the skis because it was fabulous corn snow on the way out.

jeremy traverses an icy slope

following a small backbone

**Jump for more butter**