use real butter

Recipe: roasted pepper, prosciutto, and goat cheese tart

Flowers are blooming down in Boulder. That is typical for this time of year. The tulips are on grand display on Pearl Street right now. So many colors and varieties. I went back to catch some in the rain Sunday evening.

but how do they keep the deer away?

love this purple

The tulips are no surprise. I’ll tell you what was a surprise… last Tuesday, Jeremy and I took Kaweah on a walk and scoped for flowers. None. Still early. On Saturday, we did the same walk in the rain and found the first pasque flowers emerging from the pine litter. They always bloom first up here, and they are a curious flower – short, low to the ground, but the flower itself is quite large and pretty neat. Thus we begin the start of the wildflower season!

a few days old, tops

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Recipe: triple layer lemon cake

I like spring. I do. I do. Love the sound of birds singing in the early morning. Love seeing the foxes traipse through our yard at dusk. The light is different outside and in the house. The sun is bright and high, but not yet oppressive as it will be in summer. This alternates with chilly, overcast, drizzly days that hover around freezing. The air is just cool enough that you need a jacket, but warm enough that you take the jacket off after hiking for an hour. Yesterday: sunny and warm (70°F, which borders on hot for me). Kaweah engaged in her seasonal brain-baking on the deck and then staggered into the office to cool down. Friday will be rainy/snowy and cold again – and Kaweah will stand at the deck door, making little grunting sounds, asking to be let out… because she thinks it’s always nice and sunny on the deck.

where could we take this?

No one fruit represents sunshine to me more than the lemon. It’s not just the vibrant yellow, but the liveliness of the juice and the scent of the freshly grated zest. It wakes me up, keeps me interested. I was recently asked to post a couple of links back to the website of a certain national magazine. But you know, I can’t endorse something I haven’t tried and to be honest, I have never tried any of their recipes before. I agreed to test-drive one of their desserts. [UPDATE: 5/28/09] Because those brilliant people can’t hold up their end of a simple agreement, I’ve removed the links. Food bloggers – I recommend not having anything to do with Better Homes and Gardens.

grating some lemon zest

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Recipe: braised beef short ribs

I am so boned. No. Really.

It all started with the ginormous dump of snow that fell on our house starting Thursday night. The storm didn’t let up until Saturday afternoon. We lost power several times on Friday (I think people in Kansas could hear me scream when I lost all of my work on the computer for the second time in an hour – time to get a UPS) and then it was out Friday night through much of Saturday. Bored? Nah – we had about four feet of heavy, wet snow to shovel into 7-foot walls lining our driveway. That should be a sport – shoveling and throwing heavy snow over a 7-foot barrier. We were running out of places to put the snow.

kaweah was so frolicky and happy

That picture was “early” on in the shoveling phase (the handsome man there is about 6 feet tall). With no power in the house and lots of snow shoveling, my mind wandered and I began to think that perhaps I should grab my desired usernames on Twitter before someone else does – not because I have a desire to tweet (I don’t even like talking on the phone), but because I am a paranoid twit. After our power returned, I registered a couple of accounts. Wacky hijinx ensued (thanks Diane, love ya, girl!), but you can now follow my inanity my tweets at @userealbutter.

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