use real butter

Recipe: pasta e fagioli

Can you believe that I’ve been prattling on for four years on Use Real Butter? Yup, it’s URB’s fourth blogiversary today. My perspective on food has changed so much in that time and I have to credit the food blogosphere for a lot of inspiration and education. URB didn’t start as a food blog, but eventually the food side of the blog kept the name and moved into the public arena… and here we are! So thanks to all of the readers and fellow bloggers who keep the whole enchilada lively and fun, but especially to those of you who stuck with me through my craptastic year of cancer treatment – thank you.

i cried a river of tears over those onions

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Recipe: pumpkin ice cream

Happy Halloween! I can hear the voices of my neighbor’s little kids outside. All of that excitement. All of that anticipation. I feel it too! It’s starting to get dark now and I have our bowl of candy at the ready in the mud room. Kaweah just came back from a brisk walk around the neighborhood with Jeremy while I was manning the door for early trick-or-treaters. She was so excited she ran up to me and gave me the sniff down as if she hadn’t seen me in days (she was gone for all of 15 minutes). See, when kids ring the doorbell, Kaweah thinks they are UPS or FedEx delivery people. All of our FedEx and UPS peeps in our neighborhood carry dog treats. Add to that, the fact that kids are closer to eye level with Kaweah and she is so excited you think her bottom half is going to wiggle off. I’ve eaten three baby Twix already. I’ve got to stop now.

at the ready

So there is some good news to share. I have a nice deal from Fine Cooking that allows me to give gift subscriptions at nearly half the rate. Tell you what I’m gonna do: I will award TWO subscriptions to Fine Cooking! And, since some folks can’t seem to get their deadlines straight, I will grant amnesty and allow all comments up until the time we hold the drawing. I don’t know when we’ll get to it – so if you haven’t commented yet, do so now by clicking here.

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Recipe: apple tartlets

I typically encounter few problems when cooking or baking things that I eventually post on Use Real Butter. There may be some recipes that I merely feel “meh” about and hold off posting those for times when I’m out of posting material. And then there are times, like this past week, when I try a recipe and it didn’t come out as I had hoped. This actually happened with TWO such recipes and the end results are kind of important to me (okay, okay, I AM OCD). I even told Tartelette I wasn’t sure I wanted to bother redoing them this weekend. But redo them I did… and with the proper results. That makes me feel better.

Most of today was spent working on a rather odd project that I’m pretty sure not a one of you has ever embarked on making before. More on that tomorrow. I’m quite jazzed about it.

The other day I had a few Granny Smith apples lying about with no designated purpose. I didn’t think too much about them until I was working out and the thought of caramelized apples bounced into my head. I tossed about the idea of a deconstructed apple crisp, but I’m not as keen on deconstruction as say… reconstruction. If you will recall the apple cranberry crisp from not to long ago, I went for the same theme, but different presentation.

the oatmeal streusel topping pressed into tartlet pans

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