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Recipe: machaca (mexican shredded beef)

It feels like spring. It was so hot while I was shooting Wednesday afternoon, that I opened the deck door to let some cool air in. COOL air, not cold air. The mercury read 45°F on our deck with nary a cloud in the sky, the wind abating for a day. It felt really nice. I called to Jeremy in the office and asked him to help me carry Kaweah out to the deck. Kaweah spends a good deal of time in her doggy bed because she gets so tuckered out from standing or walking these days.

Her legs are getting to the point where sometimes she doesn’t have the strength to crawl into her bed on her own and we’ll find her with the front half in the bed and the back half hanging out on the rug or the back legs in some tangled spaghetti-like mess. She always greets us with an expression, “Oh hey, how’s it going?” We rearrange her legs into a comfortable position several times a day (and night). She can’t really feel pain when her legs are splayed or twisted in odd directions, we just don’t want her to cut off circulation and do further damage to them.

Because it can be quite an ordeal for her to get out of bed and move elsewhere (like out of the sun or into the office), sometimes we pick the bed up with Kaweah in it. The first time we did that a few weeks ago, she was all, “Whoa… what the what?” But now she’s used to it and she rather likes it. Kaweah takes the opportunity to look around (it’s a new and exciting vantage for her) and almost has an air of “Bring me thither!” We set her down on the deck in the sun with a good view of the neighborhood. She was comfortable and distracted by all of the activity around her: dogs, birds, cars, neighbors. As long as she’s happy.

my mom’s orchid (in my “care”) is blooming

Of course, we all know that this warm spell is temporary. Colorado gets her best storms in March and I welcome our powder overlords! Yet spring and even summer have beckoned to me in flashes: spring backcountry skiing, foraging, travel, backpacking, and my summer rituals of jamming, canning, and roasting green chiles to freeze for winter. I always hoard green chiles in August because I fear running out mid-winter. The Hatch Chile Store in Hatch, New Mexico recently shipped me some of their frozen roasted green chiles to try. Normally product offers go straight to my spam folder, because I hate shills and I respect my readership. But I have blogged several green chile recipes in the past and the real deal can be hard to source. I thought it was a good opportunity to find a green chile shipper that I could recommend to others since so many have asked.

5 pounds of medium heat big jims

I requested medium heat whole green chiles. They offer mild, medium, hot, extra-hot, whole, diced, frozen, and fresh (seasonal). The chiles are farmed in Hatch, harvested, shipped fresh or roasted, peeled, diced or left whole, and shipped frozen. Having roasted and peeled my own chiles as well as purchased many pounds of roasted chiles in New Mexico and in southern Colorado, these are by far the most beautiful and best quality specimens I have ever enjoyed. Big Jims (the variety I received) are large, meaty, sweet, and perfect for chile rellenos. After our fix of chile rellenos, I saved two chiles for another recipe I’ve been meaning to try: machaca.

chiles, garlic, lime, tomatoes, salt, onion, bouillon, beef chuck, pepper, oil

season the beef with salt and pepper

sear the beef on all sides

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Recipe: chanterelle mushroom hand pies

Autumn is the fleetingest of fleeting seasons in the mountains, or so it seems. Sunday felt like real winter as we hiked snowy trails, falling snowflakes caught up in our hair and settling on our hats, gloves, and the tops of our packs. Our last trail run left my calves sore from all the slipping and sliding on ice. Not quite enough snow to ski, but enough to warrant wearing traction devices for running. Shoulder season puts me in a mindset for winter. I can’t wait!

high winds sculpt beautiful clouds

snowy stream crossings

Cold is relative. Two months ago, 40°F felt chilly to me. Now, it feels warm as we enjoy temperatures dipping below freezing. I know in a few months, 40°F will be a veritable heat wave. Jeremy is a little more sensitive to the cold than I am. It’s probably because I have plenty of personal warmth (read: body fat) and he doesn’t. His hands and feet are always cold. He turns on his seat heater in both cars starting in September all the way through June. I saw a box of hand warmers for sale at Costco last week – 40 pair for something like $15. Then I had a mental image of taping an entire suit of hand warmers to Jeremy’s body and chuckled to myself. Moving on to the refrigerated produce section, I got the vegetables I needed and proceeded to leave – until I spotted something magical. It was nearly the equivalent joy of finding a porcini in the mountains – except this was a whole pound of fresh chanterelle mushrooms for $9. I grabbed one. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I knew I was going to do something.

let’s make hand pies!

chanterelles, puff pastry, gruyère, egg, garlic, butter, salt, bacon, thyme, wine, cream, pepper

brush the mushrooms clean

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Recipe: corn and prosciutto pizza

Every June when the backcountry snow begins to thin and our minds turn to hiking rather than skiing, I look forward to summer’s arrival. I am ready for it. I love the idea of summer. Summer sounds great to me. By the end of July, I’ve had my fill of summer. I know summer lovers outnumber winter lovers the way extroverts outnumber introverts, but kids… I’ll have my autumn now, thanks. Just the other day it was raining and 59°F outside. Delicious. Even though our summers are pretty short here in the Colorado high country, I would gladly give up a month of summer in exchange for a month of autumn. But that’s not happening in the foreseeable future. So while I wait for autumn’s (hopefully early) arrival, we continue on.

Kaweah had her summer stink going on something fierce, so we decided it was high time for her to get a bath. She hates baths. When we take her outside, she’s happy enough just standing around sniffing the news on the air, lazily wagging her tail. Then she catches sight of THE HOSE. She notices Jeremy carrying THE BOTTLES of shampoo and conditioner and she spies THE TOWELS in the driveway. Kaweah then starts to walk back toward the front door. No matter how you call her, entice her, try to give her a little push, she digs in with all her might and won’t go an inch in the direction of the hose.

so jeremy has to intervene and carry her

kaweah has a habit of not looking at things she really likes and things she really hates

thought bubble would be “blarg!!!”

We now have a clean puppy who smells like lavender Buddy Wash and the trauma of the bath is forgotten until the next time. Kaweah doesn’t get baths as often as she used to because she doesn’t get filthy going on hikes with us anymore. It breaks my heart every single time we leave her at home, because she knows what it means when we grab our packs and don our trail runners. She used to stand at the baby gate and wag her tail, hopeful to the last second that she too would come with us. Now that she knows the routine, she curls up comfortably in her doggy bed and rests her chin on the bumper, watching us go. This is great incentive for us to hike faster so we can get home to be with our pup.

trails like this beckon to me

some of the loot this time of year in the high country (more porcini!)

When it’s warm, I tend to get lazy with the whole cooking thing. The grill sees a lot more action than the stove or oven, and I obsess over local seasonal produce like corn, tomatoes, melons, peaches, and berries (because they are so damn good). The other day, my friend emailed me that she and a friend had a wonderful meal at Pizzeria Locale. Oh yes, I love that place. My favorite pizza to order there is the Mais – corn, prosciutto, garlic chives, and crème fraîche. And suddenly, I had a craving for pizza.

let’s make pizza: pizza dough, corn, butter, red pepper, parmesan, salt, pepper, prosciutto, mozzarella

slice the kernels off the cob

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