use real butter

Recipe: lychee grapefruit martini

I hope everyone is having a great holiday, whatever it is that you do or don’t do! Today is the last day to bid on some really amazing Menu for Hope items. Pim has a very nifty and easy donation form set up on her site and I encourage you to have a look and bid! If you want to see what I and a couple of great Boulder businesses are offering, check out the bid item descriptions.

Jeremy and I have been keeping things low key because I had the flu and shared it with him. Thursday was the first time we both felt well enough to get out and enjoy some of the recent snow.

a little windy, a little chilly, but definitely some fun

While single digit temperatures are tolerable, negative wind chills and ground blizzards can be a bit much on the mountain. In the afternoon we took Kaweah for a walk in the woods where we could seek a little refuge from the winds.

a shower of snow rains down from the trees

We went to Boulder for a few errands and then walked around Pearl Street to enjoy the lights. Because it was Christmas Eve, the streets were pretty empty as Pearl Street goes.

i love little lights

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Recipe: roasted beet, chèvre, hazelnut salad with blood oranges

I’ve been horizontal for the past two days with a blasted flu (not H1N1 as everyone seems to assume). I came down with it during my trip to California last week when we were taking care of stuff for my grandma. Sigh. No good deed goes unpunished. Today, I can finally sit upright for more than a few minutes at a time without passing out.

So I think some of you might be wondering who won the CHEFS gift card? Jeremy and Kaweah had a lot of fun picking the winner yesterday. I was in and out of consciousness while Jeremy was hard at work in the kitchen. He finally presented me with a handful of dog treats etched with a number 0-9 on each one… in binary. Somehow this was more exciting to Jeremy. As long as he’s happy… Kaweah followed him around like a little black shadow, anxious to do her part (that is, to eat the treats).

your nibbly kibbly chances of winning

our dedicated employee

Per the usual routine, we set out all ten digits and recorded the first number she ate. Jeremy is quite practiced at preventing Kaweah from mowing through all ten at once (she’s a quick one, that dog). We replaced the devoured digit with a new one and reshuffled the biscuits. Binary, hexidecimal – they’re all delicious to Kaweah. 3… 0…

there goes the 5

Congratulations to Wend! You were comment #305 and you win the $100 CHEFS gift card! I’ll be emailing you to get your snail mail address so CHEFS can ship it to you right away.

But wait, there’s more! I have a $25 CHEFS gift card from the BlogHer Food conference back in September that I never used. A $25 card means only one thing – I’m going to spend way more than $25… I’d rather give that card to one of you. So Jeremy took the winning number 305 as a seed for a random number selection (Kaweah had eaten plenty for the day) and we have #33 – Paula! Congratulations to Paula! I’ll contact you shortly to get your mailing address too.

So this here flu has played havoc with my holiday schedule and I’m left digging around in the archives for something to share. I can only handle thinking about holiday fare for a day or two and then my brain revolts. The cookies, the sweets, the large cooked animals, the cream, the starches, the fat – they make me so sleepy. I find greens and citrus to be light and refreshing. Salads leave me feeling recharged and ready to spring to action!

some golden beets

a few blood oranges

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Recipe: pomegranate chocolate dessert

I thought I might find a little time to do some festive baking, but it seems that I won’t have much time this season for a variety of reasons. There has been one recipe I’ve been wanting to try out for a couple of months now ever since pomegranates arrived in our markets. Pomegranate seeds are little jewels. We have five large pomegranates sitting on our counter right now. I tend to stock up on them because Jeremy can put away quite a few. My enjoyment of pomegranate seeds increased tenfold several years ago when I learned I could EAT the crunchy center. How about that?

the glamour girl of the fruit world

boozy version

PAMA had sent me a bottle of their pomegranate liqueur last month to inspire and shoehorn me out of this creative funk I’ve been wallowing in. Well, I suppose lack of time and funk are not the same thing, but I have noticed that lack of time can be an inspiration-killer. Jeremy’s immediate reaction was pomegranate martini! Oy, martinis and I have a checkered past. I thought something more tame like a dessert, was in order.

had to try making pomegranate molasses

cutting the cake bases

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