use real butter

Recipe: sous vide carnitas

The end of last week was complete Crazytown. As the trial headed toward closing arguments, a winter storm warning materialized into a Big Ass Storm in the mountains. We were supposed to get 3 to 7 inches of snow overnight, which I thought would be fine for me to get down the canyon to report for jury duty. Instead, we woke to 10 inches of snow, and by the time I left the house, another 4 inches had fallen in two hours and was coming down heavily. I gave myself an extra hour, but it turned out that I probably should have stayed at home. Spring and fall snow storms can be particularly tricky because there is that added component of water due to moderate temperatures.

2 feet of snow in 19 hours

Once I reached the narrows (a narrow and steep section of the canyon, notoriously dangerous when conditions are slick) I passed two trucks that had spun out on their way up. Visibility and traction were poor so that no one was traveling faster than 15 mph. There was nowhere to turn around safely, so I continued. Then I passed another truck that had gotten stuck in the snow. That’s when my Subaru began to slide where the road is canted and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was a slow, but unnerving lateral movement toward the guard rail which keeps drivers from plunging into the rushing creek below. Subie came to a gentle stop against the two feet of snow between the car and the rail, but I was stuck. The young woman in the stuck truck ran over to help dig me out and after thirty minutes of failed attempts, I was finally able to get unstuck thanks to her pushing the car out. [If that young woman ever reads this, I owe you a bottle of wine, a cake, a fancy home-cooked meal, and my deepest gratitude.] All the while it was nuking snow, cars were slip-sliding everywhere, and I knew it would be impossible to drive home in those conditions. Heading down to Boulder was my safest option as there is no cell reception in the canyon.

I was 20 minutes late getting to court, and I knew I was holding up the trial. I ran through security in tears – a little traumatized, a lot upset – but I made it and we got underway. We lost power a half dozen times in court while the storm wreaked havoc all around. At the end of closing arguments, I found out that I was one of the two alternate jurors and that I could go home. A big part of me felt great relief, but I also felt sad that I wasn’t going to finish this journey with my fellow jurors (it was a terrific group of people), and then I felt annoyance that I drove through that shit show in the canyon to find out that I didn’t have to be in court. By the time I left the courthouse, it was snowing lightly in Boulder and Jeremy texted that the snow had let up at home. Aha! A window in the storm! But the canyon was closed because of a jack-knifed semi in the narrows. So I waited with a handful of others for 30 minutes next to the police car at the closure point until the road was cleared for travel. Despite the additional 12-18 inches of snow that had fallen since I drove down that morning, the roads were in far better shape with plows actively working the canyon. Once I got home, I just wanted to lie still and let Neva lick my ears and hair.

the morning after the storm

jeremy clears the deck while neva is neva

We are now in Crested Butte, de-winterizing the house and cleaning up all of the broken branches and repairing drip system components that were hammered by this winter’s 325 inches of snow. It’s quiet here. That’s shoulder season in a resort town. Folks flock to the desert to mountain bike while the trails slowly thaw out around town. Restaurants are either closed or operating on reduced hours. I like the quiet. I like the quiet.

the view east from monarch pass

glacier lilies starting to bloom

neva being an extra good and sweet girl on her hike

After a stressful day or event like my ride down the canyon, most folks could use a drink. I certainly felt like I could have used a drink – except I don’t drink. But you know what relaxes and soothes me better than a glass of whiskey? Tacos. Specifically, carnitas tacos. Some of us seek comfort in food rather than drink, and I happen to be one of those who prefers savory over sweet comfort food. I always order the carnitas tacos at a taco joint as my litmus test. It’s not that I know anything about how carnitas ought to be, I just know what I like.

pork shoulder, onion, orange, bay leaves, garlic, cinnamon, kosher salt

slice the pork into 2-inch thick slabs

prepped ingredients

Imagine my excitement when I happened upon a reference to sous vide carnitas and followed the link to The Food Lab. You bet I wanted to try it. I wanted to see if sous vide could give me flavorful carnitas that were also tender and moist.

squeeze the orange quarters over the pork

sprinkle with kosher salt

toss it all together

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: soy sauce braised wild mushroom noodles

Last Friday when I left the Boulder County Justice Center, my head was pounding from countless hours of listening to lawyer-speak. Right before I stepped out of the building, one of the security staff shouted at me. He ran over to thank me for the blondies I baked for them and wished me a happy weekend. I had brought some for security, for my fellow jurors, and the courtroom. Who couldn’t use a cookie on a Friday? A friend of mine has pondered aloud why I bake and give away sweet treats. Like, what’s the dealio, Jen? It’s a simple gesture that goes a long way to elicit a smile, brighten someone’s day – a small gift made with love (and butter).

chocolate chip toasted pecan sea salt blondies

Driving up the canyon at the end of the day Friday, my shoulders relaxed and I let the cool mountain air wash over me, my mind turning to our weekend plans. I was looking forward to spending time with my puppy, catching up on work, and maybe even getting outside for some fun with Jeremy. Check. Check. And check! On a lark, Jeremy and I went to do a little reconnaissance and we each found a few morels, kicking off our second season (at least the first season wasn’t a fluke!). On Sunday morning, we threw the bikes on the roof rack, loaded the skis in the car, and set off on a bike-hike-ski. We rode in with our skis strapped to our packs, stashed the bikes in the woods where the snow started, then hiked up a little way before switching over to skis and skinning up the rest of the way. There is still plenty of snow in the backcountry and we’re slated to get another foot or more in the high country this week! Ski season isn’t over, kids.

i love this goofball

first black morel of the season!

skinning up

skiing out

pausing as we look east toward the plains (where it’s hot – too hot for my tastes)

One of the best things about finding black morels in the mountains is that I can stop looking for blonde morels on the flats. You see, foraging for black morels means staying in the mountains where I don’t get ticks (I’m still careful though), it’s much cooler, and it’s where I want to be. Foraging for blonde morels on the plains is an exercise in paranoia because I have to worry about ticks and poison ivy AND the hot weather makes me irritable, there’s tons of trash, and there are too many people. I know, I know… I’ve become that weird-ass mountain person. At least my searches on the plains resulted in some good hauls of oyster mushrooms. The good news is that I don’t have to return to lower elevations to forage those because their cousins, the aspen oysters, should start flushing in the mountains any day now.

oyster mushrooms are welcome in my kitchen

The first time my buddy, Erin, and I found oyster mushrooms this season, I told her to take them home. I wasn’t ready to deal with wild mushrooms just yet. One of my great fears is to forage some beautiful edible wild mushroom, take it home, then not have time to deal with them and let them rot. That’s just plain wrong. So once I knew we could find oyster mushrooms, I did some research on recipes I wanted to try and went to buy the ingredients. I’ve seen oyster mushrooms at Whole Foods, but I didn’t realize (or didn’t register) that you could purchase fresh oyster mushrooms at the Asian market. I went ahead and bought some just in case our foray the next day was a failure.

Luckily, it was not a bust and I went home to make some soy sauce braised wild mushroom noodles. My friend, Kelly, had posted a link to this recipe on Facebook and I thought, “How timely! Oyster mushrooms are flushing.” In addition to oyster mushrooms, this dish calls for beech mushrooms and shiitakes. The only complaint I have about the recipe is that I had to go buy Yet. Another. Bottle. Of. Soy. Sauce. I have six different kinds of soy sauce in my refrigerator right now, the newest addition being the Mushroom Flavored Superior Dark Soy Sauce. If you can’t find the mushroom dark soy sauce, then I imagine dark soy sauce (which is different from regular soy sauce) should work.

for your soy sauce reference

beech mushrooms, chinese wheat noodles, oyster mushrooms, dried shiitakes, mushroom dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, green onions, shallots, sugar, salt, vegetable oil, sesame oil

The dried shiitake mushrooms are rehydrated in boiling hot water and the soaking liquid is reserved for braising the mushrooms. Ever since one of my aunts sent an email around to the family with unverifiable information about chemicals in the soaking liquid of dried shiitake mushrooms from China, I’ve harbored this paranoia in the back of my brain. So I went out of my way to purchase certified organic shiitake mushrooms for a small fortune from Whole Foods. Welcome to my head.

rehydrating shiitakes (save the soaking liquid)

trim the stems and slice

ingredients prepped

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chinese shrimp and sizzling rice

When I hear a weather forecast on the radio for “a beautiful day”, I already know they mean sunshine and warm temperatures, because our society has got something against rain and snow and cold. But I have lots of good reasons for loving precipitation! The most obvious is the skiing, but recreation aside, our snow pack and rainstorms provide much-needed insurance against out-of-control wildfires in the mountains as well as water for all of the flat-landers downstream. Other bonuses include mushrooms (oh, the mushrooms!), wild berries, and wildlife that rely on moisture to survive and thrive. Don’t forget those stunning wildflower displays at the height of summer, or refreshing waterfalls and alpine lakes that are a joy to hike. Besides, rainy days make sunny days all the more delicious.

So yes, we are getting some belated April showers, at last! Sometimes it falls as snow, sometimes it falls as rain. At this point, I am happy with either one. Sure, I’d love a few more backcountry ski days, but I’m already four weeks into my trail running season. I could go either way and it’s all good. The longer days also mean more time for outdoor puppy play and training!

rain can give you rainbows

those clouds can create magic

neva wanted to show me her new favorite toy

i met an adorable 3 1/2 month old golden retriever, penny

I’ll be honest. My main desire for rain right now is so the mushrooms flush instead of petering out in another drought. Despite hitting the jackpot a couple of times, last summer was a crap season for mushrooms overall in Colorado. It was simply too dry. So you can imagine my delight when it rained for two days last week. Erin and I met shortly after sunrise to wade through freezing cold streams, carefully picking our way through mazes of branches while spotting and avoiding poison ivy. The conversation meandered from topic to topic, much like our path which wasn’t a path, but a series of points of interest that led us further into the woods and tall grasses.

plum blossoms – these will be good for plums come end of summer/early fall

picking wild catnip for the kitties (and dodging lurking leafless poison ivy stalks)

a pretty cluster of perfect oyster mushrooms

harvesting some more good finds

Despite her protests, I made Erin take all of the oyster mushrooms home. Part of the reason was because I know Jay, her husband (and also my friend), is crazy about wild mushrooms. The other part was because I had accumulated so much psychological freak out over poison ivy contamination with each hour we were foraging that my brain was about to explode. I’m just a little OCD… When we got to the cars, I told her I wanted her to keep the mushrooms as I began shedding my outer layers, turning them inside out, and stuffing them into plastic bags (to take home to wash). I wouldn’t have the time to clean and cook the mushrooms anyway.

I had plenty to get done at home like baking a batch of cookies to mail to my dad. Mom had pneumonia for the past couple of weeks and Dad took great care of her, so I felt he deserved a treat. Plus, he gave me this “recipe” for Chinese shrimp and sizzling rice. I put recipe in quotes because it was conveyed to me via phone conversation with a lot of shouting and hand-wavy quantities. A little bit of this. Some of that. Maybe some peas. I don’t want peas. Okay, no peas. I can only imagine if my parents had a food blog.

rice cakes

After some research, I did find a couple of recipes for homemade sizzling rice which involve steaming rice, then baking it low and slow, then deep frying it. I took the easy way out this time and bought Chinese sizzling rice cakes at an Asian supermarket. I’m showing you the packaging because that is the only way I can find it. It’s usually tucked somewhere among the dried noodles, but one time they moved them and I spent a half hour scouring the aisles before I located the rice cakes.

straw mushrooms, water chestnuts, baby bok choy, shaoxing wine, vegetable oil, chicken stock, white pepper, shrimp, rice cakes, egg white, salt, cornstarch, water, green onions, fresh ginger

The shrimp should first be mixed with Shaoxing wine, a half teaspoon of salt, and a little bit of egg white. Don’t use too much egg white or else you’ll wind up with a lot of cooked egg in the pan. You just want enough to coat the shrimp. The cornstarch should be mixed in last. I let the shrimp marinate for ten minutes on the counter, then I pop them in the freezer for another ten or fifteen minutes per my dad’s instructions. The freezing is just to get the shrimp cold and not to actually freeze them through. This probably keeps the shrimp from overcooking.

shaoxing wine, egg white, salt, cornstarch, shrimp (peeled, deveined, and butterflied)

add the shaoxing wine

toss with egg white

mix in the cornstarch

**Jump for more butter**