use real butter

Recipe: roasted vegetable quiche

Lunch is a nice word.

Lunch is my favorite meal of the day. Then comes dinner. Then brekkie. Breakfast gets short shrift around here because we like to do things first thing in the morning like ski, hike, ride, or work. I know this is a terrible habit – skipping breakfast. I wish I had the same gusto about breakfast that Kaweah has. But when lunch rolls around, I become quite animated. Lunch can be anything and lunch can pretty much be any time for me. I like work lunches, “let’s try out this new place” lunches, picnic lunches, backpacking lunches, team lunches, lunch dates, happy hour lunches, grazing my way through awesome location lunches, loud Chinese lunches, après ski lunches and most of all… social lunches.

dana applies thai basil to her pho

I had the noodle bowl stir-fry because I’m a noodle girl and because I love the vegetables. I love vegetables in general and often times I will end up with one oddball vegetable here and there on my counter, in the pantry, or in the refrigerator. Or I’ll dig out a bag of greens that have been languishing in some remote corner of the refrigerator in dire need of immediate cooking and consumption. I hate waste. Hate to waste food, especially 1) expensive food and 2) produce.

i found purple kale, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, and an onion

i bought the purple kale a while ago because it was so pretty

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: potato leek soup

My friend sent me the coolest package in the mail the other day. We both shoot Nikon and since he got one for himself, he decided to get one for me too. It was so generous of him, but I think it might be hard to distinguish between the 24-70mm 2.8 Nikkor that he sent me and the one that I already own.

practically identical

It’s disconcerting how similar they are, because one is a lens and the other is…

a mug

But I love it, because I’m a Nikon fangirl and ’tis the season for hot drinks. I only drink hot beverages from December to March because it’s too warm for me the rest of the year. I have nothing against hot beverages. They are especially appropriate after a day spent outside in the snow.

like a day at vail

the view west from one of the back bowls

When we get home from the slopes or the backcountry, the first thing we do after greeting Kaweah and putting away our gear is heat up some soup. We have four different kinds of soup in our refrigerator right now. It’s the best kind of food to warm you up and rehydrate your body. One of my favorites is potato leek soup.

leeks, potatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, and butter

slice the leeks in half

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Recipe: baked eggs

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. I plopped my skis down on the snow and looked up at the sky: blue bird day. I could see clouds of my breath billlowing out in front of me, slowly expanding and gently swirling up into the frigid air, illuminated by shafts of sunlight. A calm, brilliant morning – Christmas morning and perfectly silent. Ice crystals plastered every surface, glistening. I flared my nostrils and took a deep breath letting the cold crackle through my nose down into my lungs. I love winter.

plenty of good skiing to be had in the national forests

the winter sun throws long shadows

Jeremy and I spent the morning and part of the afternoon skinning up into the local mountains and then skiing back down. The wilderness was entirely ours. I love hitting a stride and going into auto-pilot while my mind runs in seven different directions, pausing only to exclaim “gorgeous!” at every view of the snowy high peaks that opened before us. At the end of the year it’s natural to take stock of what has been and what is to come. To reflect on the influx of people in your life and those with whom you have parted ways. Thinking about what was good and what wasn’t so good and how to improve upon it before starting our next lap around the sun. My quads burned and my sunnies were fogging up from the heat and sweat off of my face. It felt great.

At home, I made a small batch of Chinese potstickers for dinner and we had oranges as dessert. Simple is good. There were no presents, just presence… presence of mind and heart and the occasional belly rub (for Kaweah). It works for us.

glowing halo of clouds over james peak (sunset)

I’ve completed a few of those rag quilt projects over the weekend. My friend just had a baby boy and I swore to myself that I would not go to see him until I finished his baby blanket (incentive to really get it done). Now I can finally visit with him and he’s not even in college yet! Flannel rag quilts are so soft and warm – perfect for a December Colorado baby, don’t you think?

i hope he’ll love it until it’s threadbare

Buried in my stash of fabrics was a small metric ton of dark flannel left over from other projects which I decided to turn into a flannel rag quilt for our own baby. Labor of love. All quilts are a labor of love.

kaweah is a sucker for soft and cushiony things

Lately, I haven’t been much for cooking elaborate dishes. I don’t know about you, but when I’m cooking and shooting for the blog, I feel as if we are always eating something new. That’s fine except for one problem – we love a lot of the old recipes. I actually like how quickly I can cook something when I’m not shooting every damn step and washing my hands over and over and over again. In an effort to move toward simplicity, I have been drawn to recipes like baked eggs.

a little kale, bacon, cheese, and herbs never hurt anyone

finely chopped herbs mixed with the cheese

**Jump for more butter**