use real butter

Recipe: strawberry hand pies

You might have thought I had been sucked down the rabbit hole of foraging for morels the past few weeks and you’d be half right. The other half of the story involves Jeremy’s family and some serious medical procedures in Denver. The good news is that I found plenty of morels (but is plenty ever enough?) AND that my in-laws get to return home this week! We also celebrated Neva’s three year anniversary from the day we brought our little screwball into our lives. And two days after that, our dear neighbors welcomed their sweet rescue pup to Colorado.

relishing those lovely spring aspens

finding the hidden treasures of the forest

not bad for a couple of hours’ work

neva got a new toy and a plate of beef, cheese, apple, and treats

making friends with minnie (her temp name) with a homemade treat

At the start of May, I was itching to make some strawberry recipes, but most of the strawberries in our markets sat pale and dejected, picked too early. Such a waste. I waited impatiently until I could get my hands on the sweetly-perfumed, deep red, juicy ripe gems of spring. I knew exactly what I wanted to make: strawberry hand pies. I like pies, but I have issues with fruit pies because the structural integrity makes for an aesthetic nightmare the moment you cut into one. Hand pies not only alleviate that problem, but you can actually cradle a single serving in your arms unlike a slice of pie. I started with my now go-to pie crust (from Kenji, of course).

ice water, flour, sugar, salt, butter

mix dry ingredients in a food processor

spread the butter over the dry ingredients

pulse the dough until it clumps

add the rest of the flour and cut it into the dough

sprinkle ice water over the dough

fold and press the dough into a ball

form two disks and chill

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pheasant chanterelle pot pie

Colorado has been sitting under a trough (low pressure) of late that has delivered rain, fog, cold, and even snow in the higher elevations. I’ve been casually catching fall colors when I can, but mostly I made a point of enjoying them rather than trying to make photos. I mean, you can always take iPhone snaps, which is mostly what I do these days, but you can also dedicate time, energy, and effort in making some exceptional images. A pretty hectic summer left me burned out when the fall colors came around, such that I couldn’t see myself doing the fall shoot well and then diving into my first hunting season. So I gave myself some time off from the shoot to catch up on a lot of work, do some much-needed research, and take care of things at home.

flaming and gorgeous

i love to stand in the stands

jeremy and neva checking out the local aspens

Something Jeremy and I let slide this summer was Neva’s training. We spent a good bit of time training her to swim between our paddleboards or run alongside the bike, but we stopped working with the e-collar which our trainer had taught us to use back in March. There had been a bad episode in the spring that pretty much left me in tears (Neva seemed to be fine after 5 seconds). Neva had bolted out of sight on the soccer field and it was so windy we couldn’t hear anything as we ran after her. I used the collar, but couldn’t see or hear any feedback, so I boosted the stimulation and tapped it again until I was on the next field and saw her leaning up against Jeremy for comforting. Apparently, Jeremy saw her stop after one of the zaps and she turned to run back to him. As she ran to him, I was still coming around the other side of the field and couldn’t see her and did a boost and tap which made her cry out and jump. The whole thing made me want to throw the e-collar away forever. I silently wiped away tears the whole walk home because Jeremy said we should act as if everything is normal so as not to alarm her. I later consulted with Claire, got reassurances and advice for the future, and promptly stopped using the e-collar. I hated that I had hurt my baby dog.

But we decided to try it again this weekend with leash work and you know what? Neva was wonderful. We hardly needed to use the collar (and at very very low levels) and she was so responsive and happy on her hikes despite encountering lots of other hikers including children (little people are particularly exciting because they are at eye level), two moose, other dogs (who were not well-behaved at all), and runners. She trotted alongside Jeremy, looking up to him every few seconds, tail wagging, a slack leash, and slowing herself down when he said, “whoa” or “heel” or “no pull”. I don’t feel Neva ever needs to be off leash in our big wide wildernesses, but if she can be on leash and enjoy her time outside as a good girl, that’s all we ever really wanted. So that was huge progress.

another aspen stand with a good neva

look at that slack leash!

I’ve been in fall cleaning mode because somehow I am always six months late tackling spring cleaning. The chest freezer was in need of attention because it was packed to the gills with vodka infusions, freezer jams, meats, mushrooms, fruit, nuts, ice creams, butter, homemade broth, green chiles. Things get lost in there and don’t emerge until four years later when you are trying to find a place to store your 2017 huckleberries. It was time to start making room by eating stuff. One of my Crested Butte neighbors likes to hunt pheasant. I think he likes hunting them more than eating them, so when he learned that I LOVE pheasant, he pulled one out of their freezer this summer and gave it to me! I knew just the thing to make… a pot pie with some of my foraged wild mushrooms.

chanterelles from august

cleaned and sliced

sauté with some butter

ready to freeze or eat

There wasn’t time to make and shoot the recipe until last week when it coincidentally cooled off by a good 20 degrees. That’s why I butter sautéed my chanterelles in August and chucked them into the freezer for a month until I could get around to using them. My preference would have been to roast the pheasant and shred the meat for the pot pie filling, but 1) it didn’t have any skin and 2) there was buck shot scattered throughout. This is only my second pheasant I’ve prepared, but I feel more comfortable dicing the meat so I can remove any shot and feathers. I used all of the meat I could and then froze the carcass to make pheasant broth later because it’s delicious and because I hate wasting food. The pheasant broth in this pie is from the previous pheasant carcass.

the filling: potatoes, lima beans, salt, bay leaves, butter, pheasant, pepper, chanterelles, onion, flour, more butter, pheasant broth

diced and prepped

simmer the potatoes in the broth with the bay leaves

strain out the potatoes and reduce the broth

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: peach pie

For the past couple of years I’ve sent an email in August to a local organic farm in Boulder asking them to alert me when they have tomato seconds ready for sale. The email comes some time in September depending on the weather and the tomato crop. Each year, I pick up more poundage because I am so in love with home-canned tomatoes, I want to be sure we don’t run out. I use them to make pizza sauce, pasta sauce, stews, soups, chili. Last week, I received the email to come and get the tomatoes. I got 100 pounds and spent three days coring, scoring, blanching, peeling, dicing, simmering, and canning tomatoes. When I closed my eyes for my 5 hours of sleep at night, all I saw were tomatoes. 48 pints later and I have 20 pounds remaining for a different method because I ran out of Weck jars.

48 pints of the best tomatoes

Meanwhile, Neva is finding out that the start of the school year means no more daily excursions onto the trails or lakes. She still gets out every day, but we’re getting her used to being at home because when winter comes (and by winter, I mean the winds), there will be days when home is better than going outside. Plus, we’re finally able to leave her alone for up to 8 hours. Now that she’s nearly 18 months old, we’re noticing just how different she is from Kaweah. Kaweah was not a bright girl, but Neva is an even dimmer bulb. Based on our only other data point, Neva is slower to pick up just about everything. But that’s okay, we work with her a lot and she remains a happy, ridiculous, sweet little pup.

just as happy on a local hike as she is on a big mountain hike

caught lounging on the people bed

The fall colors are moving in around here. Our aspen trees are still more green than gold, but I think some areas will flip that balance in a week or less. I didn’t shoot much of the fall colors last year because of the puppy, but I wasn’t sure I was feeling it this year. These days I’m more likely to snap a photo on my phone (most pictures here are coming off the iPhone) or if I’m lugging it around, maybe my smaller dSLR. Of course, as soon as I stood under the canopy of a small stand of golden aspens this morning, I felt that mojo return. The worry was that I was rusty, but the ideas and creative thought process came back as soon as I looked up.

getting low to shoot this brilliant shrub from below

classic sunburst + aspens + colorado bluebird sky

golden canopy

I’m a firm believer in practicing to get better at something and that applies to pies! My friend recently commented that I don’t make pies very often. I laughed because she actually keeps track of the sweets and treats that come out of my kitchen… and because she’s correct. I don’t make many pies. Pie crusts drive me crazy and removing a slice of fruit pie practically ruins the whole pie. But I like pie. I like pie a lot. I decided that I needed to tackle some recipes until I found one or a couple of reliable and excellent pie crusts. With peach season drawing to a close in Colorado, I felt I needed to get some practice on a basic peach pie.

flour, ice water, cider vinegar, more flour, sugar, salt, more sugar, nutmeg, egg, lemon, butter, peaches

It’s really all about the pie crust. Pie crust should be flaky and tender and baked golden brown. I find that my pie crust dough is almost always too dry and crumbly. But when I add enough water to make it comfortably workable (i.e. not crumbling apart) it’s too wet or it’s overworked and the crust becomes more of a cardboard texture. So I was extra mindful of not adding more liquid than the recipe requires.

place the butter, flour, and salt in a food processor

pulse until the butter resembles little pebbles

beat the egg yolk, vinegar, and ice water together

drizzle the liquid into the dry ingredients

**Jump for more butter**