use real butter

Recipe: lentil soup

Congratulations to Reema T. Bhakta! You’ve won the Menu for Hope raffle for the prize offered here on Use Real Butter! If you are Reema, you need to send me an email so we can discuss your choice of prize and where the heck you are so I can ship it to your hot little hands pronto! Thanks to everyone else who bid for such a terrific cause. If you really had your heart set on a print, drop me a line and we can make arrangements.

This morning a kind, portly dude knocked on the door at 7:55. I was in my bike shorts, ready to ride for an hour because these guys weren’t scheduled to arrive until 10 am to 2 pm. But here they were, not necessarily bright-eyed and bushy-tailed either. It was snowing, and the fellows in Denver aren’t too keen on the lovely mountain weather I cherish.

from my office perch – the snow conditions

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Recipe: mu shu pork

It’s actually mu as in mu shu pork. When I was a kid, I ordered this at Chinese restaurants and my parents would exclaim, “Why do you order this? We make it at home much better!” They were right, but I loved the pancakes. I was also the one who ordered chicken strips at the seafood restaurant. My, how times have changed. I now refuse to order any Chinese dish that I can make at home. I usually go for those plates that make a fantastic mess to prepare… better their kitchen than mine.

Mom’s homemade mu shu pork (and yes, she always used pork – no chicken, no beef, no tofu, no shrimp versions) included homemade pancakes – the mu shu shells. We called them bing and I have no idea if that is the proper Mandarin word or just some nickname my parents made up. I learned that one of the terms of affection they had for me translates into “stinky egg” and not “dearest daughter” as I had assumed, so you will forgive me if I am cautious about littering the page with what I *think* is accurate Mandarin terminology.

lazy chinese girl solution: buy mu shu shells

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Recipe: zebra torte

It’s a battle for time, energy, and daylight hours. I haven’t endeavored on many of the more involved baking projects since I’ve been well enough to ski. After my initial ski whore phase where I was willing to tele any thin veneer barely covering grass and rocks, I have now reached the picky phase – only if there are freshies. We had no such freshies yesterday and so you get the recipe for Zebra Torte.

slice layers from the vanilla chiffon cake

I made this once before in my pastry skills course last spring. Problem with that course was that we crammed as much as we could into each 5.5 hour class and wound up divvying duties between partners which meant I didn’t get my hands on each step of the torte.

folding in the dry ingredients for the chocolate roulade

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