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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

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Recipe: huckleberry bread pudding

When it is full-on winter outside, people’s brains go into overdrive dreaming of warm, tropical places and summertime. My feed is filled with pictures of bare feet on beaches, palm trees, swimming pools in sunny locales. It’s not something I can honestly relate to, but I understand that this is what my friends desire. Jeremy and I? We love to frolick in snow. It is what we talk about with longing during the throes of summer – how much we miss gliding over and through the snow, or feeling the delicate kiss of blower powder on our faces.

me dropping into the powder

jeremy catches a little air

From what I can tell, Neva loves winter even more than summer. She spent all of 8+ miles running her face through the snow on Saturday’s ski tour. It’s as if those bazillion little snowflakes give her an extra jolt of energy. Jeremy noted that she calmed down a tad after the first 6 miles, but even as we got back to the car, she was alert and ready for more action. Of course, once home, she passed out for a long and happy nap in the sun. Such is the life of a happy pup.

neva sports a snowbeard

that rare moment when neva and banjo are simultaneously sitting still

More than a month had passed since my last ski tour with Erin, so we took the opportunity to catch up with one another on the climb. We discussed “Making a Murderer”, family visits, and new locations to scout for porcini, chanterelles, and huckleberries this summer. I told her that I had dreamt of chanterelles one night over the holidays, and then of foraging huckleberries the following night. She smiled and nodded as our skis silently sliced through the soft white fluff underfoot.

My obsession with huckleberries is only slightly diminished in their off season. For the other eleven months of the year, I think of different ways to incorporate those nomalicious berries into various recipes (and where else in Colorado I should look for huckleberry patches). Those of you without access to fresh or frozen huckleberries can easily substitute blueberries, raspeberries, or blackberries in this croissant bread pudding. Any kind of juicy berry should do. But let us be clear… wild Maine blueberries – as delicious as they are – are not huckleberries. I’ve had both and hands down, hucks win.

croissants, cream, sugar, eggs, huckleberries, butter, vanilla extract, milk, lemon (zest)

butter your ramekins

slice the croissants into bite-size pieces

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Recipe: chanterelle puffs

It was our smoochiversary this weekend, November 1. To celebrate, Jeremy installed a new faucet in our kitchen to replace the one that had been leaking progressively worse over the past year. I know that doesn’t sound like much of a celebration, but we are both thrilled about it since the old faucet was clearly designed by a moron.

To be honest, we didn’t have any special plans to mark 23 years together. We went for a hike with Erin and Banjo for the purposes of scoping out the snow conditions (for ski touring later) and to get Neva used to winter on the trails. Then we did laundry, brought the deck furniture in for the season, switched summer jackets and sandals out for winter jackets and boots, and put away old puppy things that Neva has outgrown. While Jeremy sorted through the puppy crate and puppy beds, Neva walked over and curled up on a flower pillow she loved when we first brought her home. She used to take up twenty percent of the area, but now her legs, tail, and head spilled over the edges.

happy colorado dogs

moonset over mount audubon

high winds brought in a huge standing wave cloud sunday morning

here’s the coolest section of the wave cloud

playing tug with neva until she started to drowse off

It had been a couple of months since I had last seen Erin because our schedules have been completely out of sync. When her truck pulled up in front of our house the morning of our hike, Jeremy and I grabbed our gear and headed down the stairs. Neva hesitated at the top of the stairs because she knew a car ride was imminent, but she did not know who was walking up to our door. We coaxed her down, and when she spied Erin and Banjo through the glass of the front door, she lost her mind with joy. After the hike, but before Erin went home, I ran into the house to grab a bag of huckleberries I had foraged, cleaned, and frozen for Erin while she was away on her canoe trip in Alaska. While shuffling the contents of the chest freezer around, I came across my frozen chanterelles from the summer. I’m not such a huge fan of summer, but if there is anything that makes summer an adventure, it is the foraging.

double happiness

I know from Instagram and Facebook that friends of mine in the Pacific Northwest and Scandinavia are still foraging chanterelles, and that people have been able to buy fresh chanterelles at farmers markets. I think you can use fresh or frozen (I froze the rest of my chanterelles after they had been sautéed in butter) for this chanterelle puffs recipe. These are like gougéres, but with chopped mushrooms. If you don’t have chanterelles available, substitute another kind of edible mushroom – it will still be great.

gruyère cheese, flour, chanterelles, eggs, salt, butter, chicken broth

mince the mushrooms

pour the mushrooms into the broth

add the butter and salt

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