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Recipe: frosé, two ways

It’s been too hot to cook. Normally in the mountains, we can cool down nicely in the evenings by opening up the house and running the fan (we don’t have air conditioning). But the heat and the height of pine pollen season have conspired to keep us holed up in the house while thick yellow plant sex covers the world around us. I am very allergic to the pine pollen, but this year it seems to be affecting those who haven’t experienced these allergies before. What we desire is a good rainstorm, because it washes away the pollen and cools everything down, but all we’ve been getting are teases and nary a drop of water from the sky reaching the ground.

storm clouds and virga with a rainbow in the bottom left at sunset

the winds kick up pollen storms in our valley

lovely clouds at sunset, but still no rain

I think we may have hit peak pollen yesterday, which means relief is on its way. Even so, it’s still hot as blazes and I couldn’t bring myself to blog about anything other than this frozen amazingness that I finally tried last week. If you are even remotely aware of food trends, you’ve heard of frosé and you know that it was all the rage two years ago. I’m always late to the food fad game, partly due to skepticism and partly because I just can’t get my act together soon enough to join the party. So for those of you who were completely unaware of the frosé revolution, I’m here to tell you to stock up on rosé this summer.

I’ve tried two variations that we (all of the lucky taste testers) like: classic and fruity. They have nearly identical ingredients, but one incorporates the fruit (fruity) and one merely uses the fruit to flavor the syrup (classic). I made a half batch of each “in case it didn’t taste good.” Silly me! Be sure to use a bold rosé – rosé of Pinot Noir, Merlot, or Malbec. And don’t break the bank on a super spendy bottle because you’re adding all sorts of ingredients and freezing the stuff – go for the cheaper bottles.

classic: strawberries, lemon, water, sugar, rosé

lemon juice, water, sugar, rosé, hulled and chopped strawberries

boil the water and sugar to make simple syrup

steep the strawberries in the syrup

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Recipe: mango sorbet

Lots of things happen in May around here, things like my annual MRI to monitor for breast cancer or the anniversary of my sister’s passing or the typical May snowstorm in the mountains that all of the mountain folk expect and all of the flatlanders can’t believe. It’s when we swap out our snow tires for the summer tires, admire all of the flowering trees in Boulder, and begin the mushroom hunting season.

flowers for kris, every year

my favorite weeping cherry in bloom, in the rain

the rains bring the oyster mushrooms

and if you’re lucky, they bring the blonde morels

met a little garter snake while foraging

That blonde morel was my first one I’ve foraged and there were whoops and hollers and high fives and hugs with my foraging buddy, Erin (she found her first one within minutes of mine). The list of edible mushroom varieties that I want to find is quite short, but now it’s shorter by one. Blonde morels are also known as American yellow morels (the variety we forage in the mountains is a black morel).

I have yet to see any morels hit our markets, but what I am seeing on sale lately are mangoes – especially the ataulfo or yellow mangoes, which are my favorites. The pit tends to be smaller, the flesh sweet and not as fibrous as its red-/green-skinned cousin. After a day on the flats looking for morels under the hot sun, I welcome a nice cold scoop or two of a smooth and refreshing mango sorbet. It’s fruity, it’s tropical, and it’s easy to make. The tequila is a nice way to keep the sorbet smooth as it prevents the formation of big ice crystals. If you don’t want alcohol in your sorbet, you can substitute corn syrup.

water, sugar, mangoes, limes, tequila, and salt (not pictured)

combine water and sugar to make simple syrup

slice and scoop the flesh of the mangoes

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Recipe: chocolate grand marnier ice cream

We celebrated a victory of sorts this past week. Neva is now old enough that she can be at home alone for 8 or more hours without having an accident. This is wonderful news. However, Neva has a tendency to throw up if her tummy is empty for more than 4 or 5 hours. It would be an easy enough fix if we could have a dog sitter swing by to take her out to potty and give her treats during our absence, but finding a reliable anything in this town is another matter. A few months ago, I set about researching treat dispenser options. I didn’t find any that met our requirements: dog can’t reach it to break it, dispenser on self-timer. The closest one allowed the owner to dispense treats through an app on their smart phone (for $180). That doesn’t work when we’re in the backcountry with no cell reception. So we fashioned our own for a fraction of the cost and named it Dino.

this is dino

a simple dispenser made of random household items

the lid opens at the set time and drops the treats for neva

Jeremy built and programmed the microcontroller. I designed and built the dispenser, trained Neva, and tweaked the system to eliminate failure modes. We have it on the fireplace mantel so Neva can’t destroy the device. After much testing, we happily have a solid system that works! You can see a video of it operating and Neva getting treats on my Instagram.

We took a last minute trip to Crested Butte this weekend to fix some electronics at the house and figured why not make the most of it? We grabbed skis, the dog, our laptops, and drove west.

isolated storms dotted our route to crested butte

finally enough snow for neva to run on the dog-friendly ski trails

Halfway to Crested Butte, we met up with my good friend and professional pizza slinger in Buena Vista. I had texted her the day before, “Would you mind sharing some of your sourdough starter with me?” She placed the jar in my hand and in return I gave her a bag of cheese, salumi, nuts, fancy salt, Sumo oranges, and dog treats. This is how food people roll. She rattled off feeding instructions which I promptly forgot because it was freezing in the cold wind (but she emailed me detailed instructions). We hugged good-bye and for the next two hours on the road, I worried that I was going to kill my sourdough starter. It just so happened that another good friend had given me a kombucha scoby the week prior. I attempted my first brew the day before I learned we were going to Crested Butte, so there was double anxiety that I might be killing both my scoby AND my sourdough starter. But I’m home now and they are both alive and well. In commemoration of not dying, I named the scoby Scooby, and the sourdough starter Wheatley.

happy scooby and happy wheatley

It’s always good to know how to do things. When it comes to food and cooking, the opportunities are endless and I am constantly learning something new. The last time I tried my hand at a boozy ice cream, I felt the results weren’t as firm as I would like an ice cream to be. I had been itching to test another recipe to improve on the texture. This chocolate Grand Marnier ice cream looked promising because it had chocolate, less alcohol than the last ice cream (alcohol prevents freezing), and I thickened the custard with more egg yolks.

cream, grand marnier, milk, orange, sugar, gelatin, eggs, water, chocolate (not pictured: vanilla extract, salt)

heat the sugar, salt, milk, and cream

steep the orange zest in the hot cream

chop the chocolate

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