use real butter

Recipe: korean bbq-style burgers

Administrative note: The strong undertow of the holiday season is fast sucking me down to the bottom of the sea. I will do my best to answer any pressing questions in the comments this weekend, my good people!

Jeremy and I met our pal for a quick happy hour yesterday evening and there were THREE parties going on at the restaurant. I guess Office Party Season has officially begun. We had one to attend ourselves last night. It’s more of an event though. Ignite Boulder 7 – another sold out crowd at the Boulder Theater! My friends Andrew Hyde, Ef Rodriguez, and heaps of wonderful coordinators, volunteers, sponsors, and speakers pulled off yet another hugely entertaining evening of presentations, music, and prizes. AND they donated all proceeds to The Food Bank of the Rockies. It’s great meeting so many people from my online communities in real life, plus some fresh out of the blue.

ef always warms up the crowd with his sweet voice, guitar, and wit

sold out crowd

fellow citizens play the intermission

What was I saying the other day about my love of summer food in winter? Right… I can’t help it. We had some record low temperatures smacking the Denver-metro area about recently. Last weekend, I was flipping through my copy of Jaden‘s Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. I know, everyone has already seen it. It was part of the schwag bag from the after party at BlogHer Food 09 and I had emailed in for my free copy a few months ago. I waited and waited. I saw tweets and posts from everyone and her sister raving about the book. I waited some more. Then one day, I whine-tweeted online that mine had yet to show up.

Then Jaden, aka Busiest woman on the Planet, said she’d fix everything. And she did.

i love this book almost as much as i love jaden

For as long as I have been aware of food blogs, Steamy Kitchen has always been one of my goto sites for rock-solid Chinese recipes. That and Jaden makes me laugh much like the way my sister made me laugh. But her book is more than just Chinese recipes. It has Thai, Viet, Korean and lots of great Asian fusion dishes like her Korean BBQ burgers.

look at all those goodies

they go *in* the burger

**Jump for more butter**

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

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: cornbread

Sometimes the recipes I post here are completely out of whack with the time of year (although completely in whack with the southern hemisphere, so it’s not a complete bust). I’m probably more guilty of posting summer recipes in winter than the converse. If I could have my druthers, I’d eat summer food in winter. Is that crazy? Don’t get me wrong, I really do love those slow cooked winter stews, soups, and braises. I like to make those in the dead of winter, when temperatures are cold… very cold. Lately it has been feeling like the dead of winter and yet it’s still technically autumn. We’re a little ahead of the curve here in Colorado, I suppose. Time for some food to warm the soul.

Last month my friend introduced me to her favorite charity The Women’s Bean Project in Denver, Colorado. It’s so much more than a charity. The Women’s Bean Project is a non-profit organization that tackles the issues of poverty and hunger by empowering women with the skills to be self-sufficient. When I inquired about sending a donation in, I had a lovely email exchange with Diana Lachiondo who offered to send me some of their products to sample. The Women’s Bean Project gives participants entry-level training in their gourmet food business, turning out packages of soup, chili, bread, dip, iced teas, or cookie mixes. (They have jewelry now too – great ideas for holiday gifts.) What I got was a beautifully wrapped gift basket with several packaged mixes, each one signed by the individual who made it.

i picked the firehouse chili

I had chili on my brain and gave it a spin. The packet contained a gorgeous assortment of dried beans and spices. I merely followed the recipe instructions and added the fresh ingredients like ground beef, tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers. It had a nice kick and received the thumbs up from both Jeremy and myself. Imagine my delight the other day when we were walking through the grocery store in our little mountain town and saw Women’s Bean Project soup mixes on the shelves! Don’t fret if your grocer doesn’t carry their products – you can order online directly from their website for a very good cause.

Making chili also demands cornbread. A friend of mine recently asked if I had a cornbread recipe I could recommend. I had plenty of cornbread recipes, but none that knocked my socks off (the socks, they were still on my feet). Even though there was a mix included in my WBP packet, I had been itching to test drive a version I had dog-eared long ago.

a little sugar never hurts

cornmeal

**Jump for more butter**