use real butter

Recipe: chinese stir-fried chicken with vegetables

***Hey Coloradoans!!***

Shauna and Danny (and Lu) of Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef are HERE in Colorado! They have a beautiful new book out (try their pumpkin soup = teh awesome) and want to share it and the gluten-free love with all of you. Just so you know, Danny is our homeboy – a native from Breckenridge. It is so very very special for Shauna and Danny to be coming home to Colorado with their little girl. You have several opportunities to meet them this week and give them a proper welcome home:

Monday, November 15, 2010 in DENVER
Party at Udi’s Stapleton restaurant: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm. This event is SOLD OUT.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010 in DENVER
Reading and book signing at The Tattered Cover Book Store (on Colfax Ave.): 7:30 pm and open to all.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010 in DILLON (near Breckenridge)
Book signing at the Dillon Borders Book Store: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm open to all.

Thursday, November 18, 2010 in BRECKENRIDGE
A BIG Gluten-Free PARTY for Shauna, Danny, and Lu at Mi Casa Restaurant: 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm for $16.25.

Saturday, November 20, 2010 in BOULDER
Gluten-Free Potluck at First Congregational Church (1128 Pine St.): 1:00 pm and open to all. Bring a favorite gluten-free dish to share around. If you can chip in a couple of bucks to help cover the fee for the rental space and cleaning, that would be extra swell!

For all of the details on these events, please visit Shauna’s post on their Colorado Book Tour.

***Come Meet Shauna, Danny, and Lu!***

I was rather pleased that I kicked my cold in time for my Yosemite shoot last week. It was a short-lived victory though, because it came back and thwacked me square in the shins this weekend. I lost my voice. I felt sapped of energy. And Jeremy’s family visited for the weekend (but they had a blast playing Rock Band 3). The key was to lie low and stay under the radar… and watch the snow fall outside. I think we are finally getting our winter on in Colorado, albeit slowly. Oh wait, but a few more from Yosemite (and the rest are on the photo blog).

bridalveil

half dome

I’m happy to be home. It isn’t just the fact that I don’t have to plan for another trip, but that I can actually make plans at home. Plans to see my friends, to cook and bake, to SKI, to fix things around the house, to get some real work done, and especially spending time with the guy and the pup. When I was preparing all manner of recipes ahead of time to post during my travels, we were always eating a “new” recipe. Jeremy commented at one point that we hadn’t repeated a dinner in quite some time… months, in fact. I’m no fan of serving the same five recipes every week for all eternity, but the nice thing about a great recipe is that you can make it again. Variety is the spice of life, but favorites are meant to be re-lived.

chicken, green onions, garlic, straw mushrooms, snow peas, water chestnuts, baby corn

slice the chicken against the grain

There’s nothing like a quick stir-fry full of vegetables that puts a smile on my face. I grew up eating a lot of vegetables and I start to feel lethargic and sleepy when I don’t get enough of them. My mom was an ace at the Chinese stir-fry. Her vegetables were always crisp, fresh, and brightly colored. So that’s how I make my stir-fries and wouldn’t you know it – Jeremy craves those vegetables too. One of my favorite dishes is this chicken and vegetable stir-fry because of the clean and bright flavors.

sauté the chicken with the green onions and garlic

stir fry the vegetables

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: eggplant fries

Someday I will sit down to post when I don’t have a million other things going on. I don’t know when that will be. I do know that this will be the last post in 2010 I write the night before I have to catch a flight. Let me tell you, I am quite happy about that. I’ve been home for three days frantically trying to get things done before I head off into the yonder including a thorough round of spring cleaning which is merely 6 months late (or early if you want to be generous). Colorado still hasn’t decided if it is summer or autumn. And now with the time change, the dog is petitioning for dinner at 5pm.

looking east as the clouds pass overhead

So I’ll dispense with any further chit chat and get to brass tacks. When I was in Seattle this past September, my good friends took me to Poppy for dinner. There I had the most delightful eggplant fries and made a mental note to try it at home.

eggplant, herbs, seasonings, and flour

put the seasonings in with the flour

It’s a relatively basic concept to chop up the vegetable in question and deep fry it. Everything tastes good this way, right? Knowing my deep frying prowess, the potential for screwing it up was high. I checked the interwebs for reference and found a lovely recipe at The Hungry Mouse which guided me through not having to think about what goes in the seasoned flour.

mixing the seasoned flour

peel the eggplants

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: arepas with guasacaca

It has been snowing horizontally in my ‘hood for the past couple of days. I rather like the vertical snow more – you know, the kind that falls gently and accumulates so you can ski it? But I’ll take any snow we can get at the moment because we haven’t had our usual Big Dump Snow Day yet and it’s nearly November. Meanwhile, we’ve been taking care of business at home – like choosing who won the Doughnuts cookbook giveaway! Jeremy gathered Kaweah’s ragtag crew of toys, assigning each one a number and randomly distributing them in a line (that is, they are not laid out in numerical order). Then we recorded the number of the first toy she touched. We did this three times.

kaweah picked the number 557

Our number is 557. We had 274 qualifying entrants (I basically accepted entrants up until Kaweah had a number) and 557 MOD 274 is 9. Congratulations Emily Vigue! You’ve won a free copy of Lara Ferroni’s Doughnuts! I’ll send you an email to get your shipping address right away!

In case you’re wondering just how random my selection process is, my resident astrophysicist came up with the method and we had it verified for pure idiotic randomness by my friend and resident economist (also statistician), Erin. Not to mention – it’s Kaweah – does ANYONE know what goes on in that little brain of hers?

well, right now you know what kaweah is thinking

Erin and Ali came up yesterday so Erin could teach us to make arepas. Erin has been wanting to share arepas with us forever and ever. She learned how to make them the proper way in Venezuela. While I don’t particularly enjoy spending time in tropical climates, I am more than willing to partake of the cuisine. I’ve been wanting to try and blog about arepas ever since Erin mentioned them, so it all worked out. And if you see henna tattoos on the hands of our models, yes – they were at the party too!

start with harina pan

Erin told me there are two brands of harina that she is aware of and harina PAN is the one you want to use. You probably won’t find it in your neighborhood grocery store unless you are lucky enough to have a good Latin American market nearby (if so, color me jealous). So burn that image above into your brain because it is soooo worth it to make these delectable little pockets of savory amazingness.

pour the harina pan into a large bowl

add warm water

and some oil (and salt)

mix it together with your hand and let it rest

While you let the harina sit (Erin says ten minutes minimum, but the longer the better), you can make the guasacaca, a Venezuelan avocado salsa. Sounds like huasakaka – no hard G, okay? The ingredients are relatively easy to come by.

onion, jalapeño, parsley, cilantro, garlic, and avocado

blender it

You’ll also need a little salt, some white vinegar or rice wine vinegar, and oil (which you add last – always last). This might have come together easier had we used the food processor or if we hadn’t packed the leafy herbs in first. If you go the blender route and your blender sucks as much as mine does, then please blender the onion, vinegar, and avocado first. That will produce enough liquid to get the rest of the ingredients blendered properly, otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time pushing ingredients down toward the blade over and over and over again (with the blender OFF, of course).

erin finally gets the guasacaca to blend up

brilliant green color

**Jump for more butter**