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Recipe: chinese curried beef pastries

Mom and Dad returned home last week. As we all get older, I tend to feel a hint of sadness whenever we say goodbye, but let me tell you who was the saddest about their absence…

yes, kaweah

I kinda love that picture because it’s so funny and it’s also incredibly sweet. Kaweah is utterly devoted to my dad and to be honest, I don’t think anyone adores him more than she does. In the days that followed my parents’ visit, Kaweah was mopier than usual, but she has since resumed her normal schedule of chasing bunnies in her dreams, eating, pretending she hasn’t eaten yet, and tracking the sun across the living room each day. As for me, my sights are set skyward once again, rather than on the road from a car. We’ve had some great cloud porn of late – especially the combination of stacked lenticulars and wave clouds.

sunset gold

a final rosy blush

dramatic mid-morning wave cloud front right over my driveway

Living on the leeward side of a high mountain range that abuts a flat topography (the Colorado Front Range or the Eastern Sierra Nevada, for example) provides opportunities to witness some amazing cloud formations and to appreciate the beauty of fluid dynamics and optical phenomena. Oh, and if you mosey an hour east of where I live, you can actually find decent dim sum! And by decent, I mean, it could pass for the average dim sum joint in California’s Bay Area. As I’ve said before, I don’t venture to Denver often, but when I do, there has to be good food involved. Add good folks like Kat and Cindi, and it’s a grand old time.

dim sum at superstar asian in denver (iphone)

cindi made custom whee one toys of our pets! (iphone)

kaweah and her doppelgänger (before she tried to eat it)

And look, December has not forsaken me, after all. I’m willing to forgive the sunny and 70°F weather in December in Colorado if I can finally get the skis out…

yes, please

Dim sum means “snacks”, which got me thinking about all manner of Chinese snacks or treats I grew up sampling. It’s been my long-term goal to learn to make some of these treats, partly out of curiosity and mostly because I can’t get them around here. One of my favorites is a savory curried beef pastry – curried browned beef with onions wrapped in a flaky, golden pastry.

beef, soy sauce, onion, curry powder, salt, flour, egg yolk, butter

dice the onion

sauté onion with curry powder

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: patty melt (animal style)

Time to fess up – I’m not doing traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I haven’t done one in several years. We voted turkey OUT and seafood IN. Sea critters cook faster, taste better (to us), and I don’t become stuffed, sleepy, and belligerent. Winning! Are you having a traditional meal or are you doing something different?

I wish I could say I’m going to be skiing, but I think I’m going to be trail running and biking instead – because we don’t have much snow locally. Sure, our local hill has the White Strip of Death (the single run that goes top to bottom on the mountain), but it’s not especially appealing now… or ever. However, I was able to enjoy snow in Crested Butte this weekend, because we had some business out there. On Saturday, we were greeted with week-old snow on the ground under blue skies. Kaweah was eager to get out for a walkie even though she can’t walk very far any more. We stopped in a field and I told her to sit for a photo. Kaweah sat, then slid into a comfy lounging position. She was tired, but happy. Sunday morning brought fresh snow and once again, we got Kaweah outside for a short walk around town. I swear, snow makes everything awesome.

this car ride leads to a trailhead, right?

enjoying the snow with mount crested butte looming large

my happy girl

fresh snow sunday morning

We’re home now, looking forward to a mellow week of house maintenance, catching up on work, and quick meals. From time to time, my friends at Lava Lake Lamb like to send along some of their beautiful products for me to prepare and sample (rack of lamb, rosemary lamb noisettes, and braised lamb shanks). This time, they mentioned they are partnering with 100% grass-fed Brandon Natural Beef from the Wet Mountain Valley of Colorado. Lava Lake Lamb is good lamb from Idaho, but I wanted to give Colorado some lovin’. I received a 12 ounce Rib Eye steak, a 12 ounce New York Strip steak, and two 16 ounce packages of ground beef (80% lean) to try with no obligation on my part. After Jeremy and I had the steaks (grilled rare), I was so impressed with the tenderness, quality, and flavor, I was excited to try something with the ground beef.

the beef arrived frozen, so i let it thaw slowly in the refrigerator

I really feel the best way to let ground beef shine is in a burger, grilled. Oh, but I’ve posted many a burger here before. As I muttered to myself over the many variations on burgers that exist, Jeremy interrupted and asked me what a patty melt was. Silence. “You don’t know what a patty melt is?” He had a vague idea, but really… he didn’t. That’s partly my fault because I hadn’t had a patty melt since college much less made one. It’s the marriage of a hamburger and a grilled cheese sandwich, but I wasn’t going to make just any patty melt.

crusty sourdough, mustard, salt, pepper, fish sauce, onions, swiss cheese, ground beef

When I say “animal style”, what do you think of? If your mouth is starting to water, then we speak the same language – the language of In-N-Out Burger. If you don’t get it, that’s fine. You don’t get it. If you tell me that you can make a better burger at home, my response is “Duh!” and yeah, you still don’t get it. But for the rest of you lovers, I figured I could snazzy up the patty melt with a little riff on an animal style burger which in this instance means: mustard and caramelized onions.

thinly sliced onions

browned after about 20 minutes

First you want to caramelize the onions, because that’s the big time sink. No matter how much you try to rush the process, you can’t. Whenever I rush it, I burn the onions. So set the heat to medium and brown the onions in some oil slowly for at least 20 minutes. Stir it about every now and again to prevent burning. If you’re a multi-tasker, go ahead and mix the beef while the onions soften and brown.

the dash of fish sauce = magic

don’t laugh, i made the patties the shape of my bread

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: vietnamese grilled lemongrass pork (thit heo nuong xa)

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My wonderful friend, Jennie, lives in New York City and has a great post with links on how to help with relief efforts as the city tries to recover from Hurricane Sandy. If you are so inclined, please click on over. Thank you! xo

And a reminder to please GO AND VOTE on Tuesday if you haven’t already voted! Thank you, again!

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We set our clocks back Saturday night and the morning felt much brighter when we woke up. Of course, come sunset (and it came fast and early) Kaweah was already petitioning for her dinner two hours early. Jeremy dreads the overall shortening of the daylight hours and I think he makes it worse by counting the days. He told me this evening that it will be six weeks until the shortest day of the year and then another six weeks to get back to the amount of daylight we have right now. Well, yes – this is how it works with the Earth and the Sun. I accept the reduced daylight hours as long as there is some snow in the deal. I want my snow, please. If we get another repeat of last year’s lame snow season, I’ma gonna spit.

But before sunset jumped to 5:00 pm (and I’ll not complain since my girlfriend in Alaska is dealing with far more drastic diurnal shifts), we put our 5-6pm time slot to good use. On our 20 year smoochiversary, we went to Frasca for dinner, because it’s Jeremy’s favorite restaurant in Colorado. Who am I to tell him no?

brussels sprouts, duck prosciutto, pickled turnip salad (jeremy had pumpkin soup)

polenta-stuffed pasta with rabbit and chanterelles

my pork four ways: tenderloin, belly, bacon with spaetzle, and sausage

jeremy’s beef four ways: ribeye, marrow, beef cap, and carpaccio

fig hazelnut frangipane tart (me), pumpkin upside down cake with caramelized pecans (jeremy)

And we enjoyed the last of the evening walkies with Kaweah. For the next few months they will have to be afternoon walkies. We have some nice local trails around our neighborhood that have seen improvements over the years. I love trails so much. LOVE them. We were delighted to see another extension of a Boulder Parks and Open Space trail network finished. Kaweah was happy to give it the sniff down too.

yay! new trails!

and home in time for the last colors of the day

on the horizon

As I have indicated (read: complained), we haven’t had a whole lot of snow yet. When I say snow, I mean enough snow to last the winter and spring. The trails we slogged through last week are now dry or have a thin layer of ice at best. It’s been sunny and warm. Ahhh, shoulder seasons… So instead of sulking about, wishing for ski season to start already, I sulk about and run the trails. And I’m sulking and grilling. Actually, I’m not really sulking, because this Vietnamese grilled lemongrass pork (thit heo nuong xa) is crazy good.

pork shoulder, garlic, shallots, lemongrass, oil, pepper, brown sugar, dark soy sauce, fish sauce

roughly chopped garlic, shallots, and lemongrass with light brown sugar

pop the garlic, shallots, lemongrass, and sugar into a blender or food processor

**Jump for more butter**