use real butter

Recipe: jalapeno popper dip

I’ve been absent a while. It was originally unintentional, but then it became very intentional. There was a lot going on in the past month. Instead of stressing over everything that needed to get done, I reassessed my priorities and let the blog sink to the bottom of that pile. My plan was to resume posting as soon as I could. Then the thought of using that time to focus on health and well… my life, sounded like a better plan. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Here are highlights from the past month:

dim sum with my folks who were back in town for a few weeks

they came prepared for colorado’s arctic welcome

baking gluten-free sourdough for my neighbor (from this amazing book)

enjoying the return of autumn sunsets

Waiting for snow is hard on those of us who love skiing and riding. We waited for three long and dry weeks for the snow train to return. Big dump snow days are always welcome here, but we have learned that ANY snow is good as we wind down toward the shortest days of the year. As you probably know, we are huge proponents of outdoor exercise in the cold months. It’s good for you and it vastly improves your outlook on life.

catching laps above the fog bank

lovely hoar frost from the lift

getting our crazy girls out for a hike in the snow

Thanksgiving in the US is a day away and I really couldn’t bring myself to make a Thanksgiving-appropriate recipe to shoot and blog. While I am all for the giving of thanks, it is the traditional food of Thanksgiving that I have come to roundly reject – a bland carbfest that upon deeper reflection, ranks rather low on my deliciousness scale. I can separate the food from the memories. I still cherish the memories.

If there is one thing I do love about Thanksgiving food, it is The Grazing before dinner. My parents always had some mishmash of tasty Chinese and American appetizers and snacks laid out on the coffee table in front of the television, or on the kitchen table (while Mom prepared the dining table for dinner) for larger gatherings. This was where young children and introverts could look occupied and avoid unwanted engagement with boring adults. If you’re still looking for a last minute grazing idea or want to add another dip to your party quiver, here’s an easy jalapeño popper dip.

jalapeños (fresh and pickled), cheddar cheese, cream cheese, jack cheese, mayonnaise, panko crumbs, parmesan cheese, bacon

chopped, crumbled, diced

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: fig bread pudding

We waited impatiently for the flip from green to yellow in the aspen stands, but summer seemed to hold on a few weeks longer than usual. The hints dotted trails and shores on our hikes and paddles. Eventually that golden wave appeared and led the way to impressive bursts of color. We refer to this time of year as pure magic. The smell of sweet leafy fermentation lingers in the air when the aspen forests glow gold and red. It’s not rotten… rather a little funky in the way a well-aged red wine can become.

enter autumn

the pups are digging it

glowing

hiking for the views and the fresh air

crested butte mountain dons her fall colors

mountain passes at their finest

yuki and neva loving any season

I did not intend to be absent for this long, but mountain homes require pre-winter maintenance, fall colors demand to be seen, puppy dogs need exercise, and it was time for me to address some nagging injuries before they progressed and negated any chance of winter activities. Don’t think I haven’t been cooking! We finally kicked that awful hot weather to the curb and now have flannel sheets on the bed. The dog blankets are out of summer storage and our heat ran for the first time yesterday morning. It’s lovely baking weather in the mountains and a perfect time for fig bread pudding.

figs, butter, brandy, vanilla extract, cream, milk, eggs, brown sugar, lemon (juice and zest), cinnamon bread

My initial plan was to use challah or brioche for the bread, but I thought I could use up some cinnamon bread that was hanging around the house. You can use pretty much any bread you fancy. Bread pudding is quite forgiving that way. The original recipe includes raisins, but I live with an individual who is adamantly against raisins, so they got the boot (the raisins, not Jeremy). Since I didn’t have enough figs (because I doubled the figs), I halved the recipe, but doubled the brandy because that always sounds like a good idea. Sometimes you just wing it.

chop the figs and soak in brandy

butter the bread (i did both sides, but you don’t have to)

cut the bread into cubes

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pork chops with chanterelle wine and cream sauce

Ever since the calendar flipped to September, we’ve been getting out for longer hikes with the pups. It seems so late, yet in all honesty, I really do loathe hiking during the height of summer. It’s just too damn hot and buggy and busy. Sure we rise at puke-thirty in the morning and hit the trail long before the sun does, but by the time we’re heading back down the sun is a Giant Death Ray in the sky intent on broiling us for supper. By September, waking pre-dawn feels more reasonable on the body and the midday sun – while still toasty – is not nearly as oppressive when paired with cool mountain air. Most of all, I love that morning starts now require a warm jacket, gloves, and a warm hat as we pass through a blue-hued world delicately fringed in short-lived feathery white ice crystals.

above treeline in september, when one doesn’t spontaneously combust

meadows of gold and red are taking over the alpine as autumn arrives

We no longer run the fans at night to expel hot air from the house and draw cooler nighttime air in. It’s enough to open the windows and allow the chill to settle overnight. Before you know it, snuggy flannel sheets will replace our cotton sheets. The pups have already taken to cuddling on the bed each morning. Best of all, it’s huckleberry season. This year hasn’t been kind to the huckleberries, many of which are either green (due to a very late snowpack) and will likely get slammed by a hard frost before they even think of blushing pink then purple, or have already died on the stem and turned ghost white. Most of our secret patches have fizzled, but a couple managed to produce decent purple berries. Erin and I only took a few and left the rest for the grouse and bears and squirrels and everyone else who knows about the best berry in the land.

snuggy pups enjoying morning amnesty on the human bed

an early morning picking huckleberries with erin and banjo

I’ve only been foraging chanterelles for as many years as Neva is old – four years. Some years these beautiful, fragrant fungi flush early and some years they flush late. This season my chanterelle patches began with a promising effort and then the lack of rain caused them to shrivel and die. Whatever we managed to forage early on was all we had to show for the summer. It was better than last year’s haul (which was nonexistent), but not big enough for me to be throwing chanterelles in every dish I made.

pushing up through the forest duff

young ones are just as tasty as big ones

I set aside two-thirds of our chanterelles for sautéeing in butter and freezing them. The other third I reserved for new recipes including this simple chanterelle wine and cream sauce over seared pork chops. Doesn’t that sound lovely? It’s so good. SO GOOD. The pork chops can be pan-seared however you like. If cooked in the traditional way, I prefer Kenji’s method which involves bone-in, dry brined pork chops. But more recently I’ve been cooking my pork chops using Kenji’s sous vide method – also bone-in. Both are excellent. Sous vide produces a more consistent and juicy result. No matter how you cook your pork chops, I do recommend bone-in, 1-inch thick, and finished with pan-searing. Here I cooked a half recipe (the full recipe is listed at the end of the post) because it was just the two of us for dinner, and I did my pork chops sous vide with a pan-seared finish.

pork chops, pepper, cream, white wine, garlic, parsley, butter, salt, chanterelles

season with salt and pepper on both sides

vacuum seal (or seal in ziplocs, pushing as much air out as possible)

sous vide bath for 1 hour at 140°f

**Jump for more butter**