use real butter

Recipe: sweet potato rolls

Daylight Saving doesn’t really bother me the way it bothers some folks. I have never paid much attention to it except when we get that extra hour in the fall. I kinda like that extra hour. But certain people get really bent out of shape over the revisited darkness in the mornings. I’ll let you in on a little secret… both Jeremy and I are really looking forward to setting our clocks ahead this Sunday. You know why?

because of this girl

Neva still wakes up at 5:30 every morning. EVERY. MORNING. Lately, we’ve been leaving her crate door open and she sleeps through the night without a problem. I sleep on the right side of the bed, and because of my lymphedema in my left arm, I sleep on my right side. Like clockwork, Neva shoves her nose into my face at 5:31 am (presumably she takes a minute to get out of the crate, stretch her front half, stretch her back half, rub her left side against the bed, then rub her right side against the bed, and shake off). It scared the hell out of me the first time, but now it’s just really sweet except for the puke-thirty in the morning feeling when your REM sleep has been interrupted. I’ll feed her a couple of treats so her empty tummy doesn’t revolt, and then she jumps up onto the bed to snuggle between Jeremy and me… for all of ten seconds. Then she jumps down off the bed and trots around the room and jumps back on until Jeremy wakes up, dresses, and takes her out to potty. We are hoping after Sunday, that Neva will wake up at 6:30! Right!? I mean, it’s got to work for at least a few days, yes?

Meanwhile, we are patiently waiting for the big snows that have yet to deliver this month. They said March would be snowy, but we’ve only gotten dribs and drabs interspersed with loads of warm weather. February was four whole weeks of freakish mother-loving sunshine. I feel as if I wouldn’t know what to do if we DID get a big dump powder day. Actually, I would totally know what to do – I’d SEND IT.

local benefits: ski the powder then go to work

It’s clear that winter skiing is fast becoming a faded memory. The sun is getting higher in the sky each day and the snowpack is feeling it. When we pack up for a backcountry ski, we dig around for lightweight gloves instead of super warm gauntlets. And during my weekly menu planning, I’m thinking more and more about summer barbecues, summer fruits, and well – summer foraging. But let’s talk about barbecue. I’ve always been a fan of barbecue and the assortment of sides that come with it: baked beans, coleslaw, macaroni salad, potato salad, cornbread, rolls, mac and cheese, the list goes on. Last year I was getting barbecue at a roadside stand when I saw “sweet roll” as a side option. When I asked what it was the guy said, “It’s a sweet potato roll.” I couldn’t figure out if he meant it was a potato roll that was sweet or if it was a roll made with sweet potato or what. I bit, and it was – nice. So I set out to make some myself, because homemade is almost guaranteed to be better.

sweet potato, flour, yeast, water, butter, salt, honey, eggs, warm water

peel and cut the sweet potato into chunks, then boil

mash the sweet potato and let cool

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pralines

We’re doing the happy dance over here because we finished our taxes this weekend! It’s not as bad as all that, but it isn’t a good time or something anyone chooses to do voluntarily – except for tax professionals. I will admit that taxes have gotten easier for me because I’ve learned to document and track my finances throughout the year such that it’s now a matter of tabulating the totals and entering the numbers. I like doing the incremental work so that we don’t have to spend more than a few hours getting it all together come tax time. Thanks, Past Self!

It means that we can spend our spare time skiing and doing other things – but mostly skiing! While Neva was at doggy daycare, we skied a “no dogs allowed” trail since we can’t ski it when we want to take Neva out in the snow. I had forgotten how nice it is to be able to climb hard and not have to stop for or worry about doggy issues. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my pup, but I don’t have to do everything with her. She had fun, we had fun, and we were all happy to see one another again at the end of the day.

slapping skins on for the climb

soft snow in the trees (kinda crappy out of the trees)

my reward was (half of) this amazing bacon cheeseburger at oak

And it’s not like Neva didn’t get to go play in the backcountry, because the very next day Erin and Banjo joined all of us on a ski tour! Neva is getting better about minding Jeremy and keeping clear of his skis (and those sharp metal edges). She’s actually best about avoiding them when they are moving. When we all stop to rip skins or shed layers, she starts hopping around and between the skis which is when she’s most likely to cut a paw. To help her obedience when we’re on skis, we alternate days working with her while we hike. It’s all about fun for Neva, but for us, it’s all about training her so she can be safe AND have fun for many years to come.

erin and banjo on the way up

getting neva ready for trail running season

I just booked travel to see my parents in Virginia this spring. Spring is a fine time to visit my home state because Williamsburg is thick with green leaves, flowering dogwoods, azaleas, and a host of beautiful birds. Any later than mid spring and I just can’t handle the heat and humidity. There are some staples that I always bring back to Colorado with me – like Virginia country ham, Virginia peanuts, and praline pecans. I never ate a praline on its own until a few years ago, but that doesn’t mean I never ate one. I consumed more than the legal limit when I was kid – all of it in the form of ice cream because pralines and cream ice cream was a favorite in our house and my parents used to own an ice cream store. Fast forward almost 40 years and I’m thinking “how hard can it be to make your own pralines?”

sugar, light brown sugar, salt, vanilla, pecans, cream, butter

Yup, that’s all there is to it. Basically you’re cooking pecans in caramel on the stove and agitating the caramel until it turns grainy. At that point, start dropping the pralines to form the beloved candy of the South. DO get all of your equipment ready ahead of time, as caramel waits for no one when it’s time to start dropping pralines. DO use a saucepan no smaller than 4-quart capacity because this stuff wants to, and will, bubble up during cooking. DO use a candy thermometer so you can track the temperature of your caramel.

toast the pecans

place all of the ingredients in a medium saucepan

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: huckleberry waffles

I told someone recently that we aren’t powderhounds – the types who drive around from mountain to mountain chasing down winter storms to ski the best powder. Clearly, one could do it. I follow a lot of Western ski resorts on Instagram, and some mountain somewhere is getting the goods on any given day. We just happened to get lucky a handful of times and then the rest is tracking weather forecasts for our local mountains. After our fun (but not snowy) weekend in Crested Butte, we returned home to Nederland just as – wait for it! – a snow storm dumped 11 inches on our local hill, Eldora. Is it luck or is it constant vigilance? You can mull that over while I ski the powder.

the morning commute looking pretty good

it was hip deep (for telemark) in some places

Powder days are not limited to human enjoyment. In fact, I’m pretty sure Neva loves her powder more than we do. She is just SO happy in the snow – bouncing and pouncing and digging and rolling and running and crashing. This is why we’re working so much with her this season to get her used to traveling with us into the backcountry – so that she can enjoy the snow with us, and safely.

puppy gets first tracks on the soccer field!

a little backcountry ski training with neva

skiing out on fresh powder with longs peak in the distance

All of this outdoor activity means Neva has been taking a lot of car rides. We have been working with our vet to try different medications and combinations – slowly getting closer to a solution. She is no longer vomiting, and I think that is in large part due to dramamine – or rather meclizine (which is dramamine 2), but she doesn’t like traveling in a vehicle – period. Neva’s anxiety goes through the roof when she is in the car (aka the torture-mobile), so we have a sedative for long car rides which helps her to just sleep through it. But for short drives to local trailheads, we just give her a meclizine about an hour before we leave. As we were packing up our gear for the ski tour, we found her chillaxing in the sun, on the stairs… sort of.

feeling pretty mellow

I really like that little girl. Not only does Neva share my love of snow, but she also shares my love of huckleberries. Whenever I make something with huckleberries, she always gets a few. If I empty a bag of frozen huckleberries, I’ll turn the bag inside out and let her lick the juices. So it was when I emptied a bag of frozen huckleberries last summer for a kitchen experiment. I wanted to see if there was a difference between huckleberry waffles made with fresh huckleberries versus frozen huckleberries. But really, I just wanted huckleberry waffles.

butter, flour, buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, cornstarch, eggs, frozen and fresh huckleberries

fresh hucks on the left, frozen on the right

**Jump for more butter**