use real butter

Recipe: goat cheese-stuffed mushrooms

This was a good weekend for catching up on work and sleep. I always used to say that I could sleep when I was dead, but it doesn’t really work that way. You know, good tidbits you learn in your 30s that you wish you could tell your College Self. Sleep is tremendously helpful for things like functionality, coherence, and that whole not-feeling-like-crap problem. But a favorite pick-me-up is to go ski touring with a dog.

whenever we stop, banjo lies down in the snow and watches for us to get moving again

me, banjo, and erin after our ski tour

stripes of color at sunset

We noticed new signage on our ski tour, something that hadn’t been updated in years. Part of the route crosses through the City of Boulder Watershed, so they ask that you stick to the road and not do things like shoot stuff, camp, burn things, and park your darn car. Oh, and…

don’t pick mushrooms

I’ve never seen a “No Mushrooming” symbol before in these parts. We got a chuckle out of that because the mushroom graphic is super cute. I mean, if you really examine that symbol, it’s a bolete. And then for the rest of the trip, I had mushrooms on the brain. The last couple of times we dined at Secret Stash in Crested Butte, we ordered the stuffed mushies appetizer which quickly became our favorite. It’s hot mushroomy goodness stuffed with creamy goat cheese. Easy enough to replicate at home. So that’s what I did.

crimini mushrooms, olive oil, herbed goat cheese, parsley, garlic, pine nuts, roasted red peppers, butter, bread crumbs, flake sea salt

drizzle olive oil on the garlic bulb for roasting

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: blood orange pâte de fruit

In this final week of January, I’ve watched the snow in my neighborhood practically get up and walk away. Actually, it just melted really, really fast under bright sun and in unseasonably warm 60°F temperatures. For skiers and riders and snow enthusiasts, this is Mother Nature giving us the bird. I did my part though. I got my car washed on Monday and we received a little – just a very little – bit of snow today on the mountain. My hope is for a snowier February because January was a stinker for snowfall. But even without heaps of snow, there are always things to look forward to. For one, Chinese New Year will be February 19th and that means you have to eat ALL OF THE LUCKY FOODS starting on the 18th. I’ll talk more about that next week. And I think some big sports ball event will take place this weekend which will hopefully keep folks off the ski slopes. Then there is Valentine’s Day, which I typically revolt against on principle alone. For a good many years I detested Valentine’s Day for the greed, the guilt, the implications, the sexism, the exclusion. These days, my attitude has shifted. Valentine’s Day, like any other day, is reason to just be nice to people. Be nice. Don’t be a douchebag. Such a good set of rules for life.

One thing that never fails to put a smile on most people’s faces is to hand them a little bag of homemade sweets. I like trying new recipes for desserts, baked goods, and confections. It’s dealing with the aftermath that I dread – like having 63 blood orange pâte de fruits (fruit jellies) on my kitchen counter. Having tasted the first one, I didn’t really need to taste more and certainly not 63 more, which is why I love to bag them up and distribute to friends and family.

sugar, a pat of butter, liquid pectin, blood oranges

juicing the blood oranges

boil one whole orange for 10 seconds

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: kimchi meatloaf

It was one of those weekends here on the Front Range, much like other winter weekends on the Front Range. For starters, we were treated to stunning sunrises.

fiery sunrise looking east toward boulder

sunlit snowy peaks

And then in true Front Range fashion, we bounced from a high of 11°F this past week to near 60°F tomorrow. You know what that means. Well, maybe you don’t know… but we do. It means wind. That kind of temperature shift around here brings the winds. I checked the forecast Friday night before going to bed and NOAA was predicting gusts up to 33 mph. That’s nothing for the Front Range – a breezy day. By morning, NOAA had “updated” the winds to 50 mph, which is considerably less pleasant for ski touring in the mountains. This happens so often that I have developed trust issues with NOAA. But as I said to Jeremy Saturday morning, “If I let the wind dictate when I go outside to ski, I’d never get to ski.”

putting climbing skins away and getting blasted by a ground blizzard

twila with the mountain we opted not to summit in the distance

The character of our winter winds is antagonistic, but also unpredictable. I know NOAA isn’t trying to intentionally lie to me, it just feels that way because they haven’t been great at predicting the wind around here. I don’t know that anyone is good at it. Living in the mountains, you learn to roll with what comes because moving away from the mountains isn’t an option. Mountain living is just that good. We worked Sunday until there was a lull in the winds in the late afternoon – our cue to grab the skis and drive to a trailhead. The trail starts at the local ski resort where throngs of families from the flats were up for their weekend fix. We left the commotion behind and quickly made our way up the trail. Once over the ridge, the hum of the ski lifts and the screams of happy (or terrified?) children gave way to the soft scratching of skis on snow. Tall conifers closed in around us as we moved deeper into the national forest.

it’s like a sunday stroll, but better

By the time we skied out to the top of the bunny hill, the resort had closed and three lonely cars remained in the parking lot below. There’s something fun about skiing down the bunny hill whether on my teles, my skate skis, or my touring skis. Once at the base, we high-fived, carried our skis to the car, and asked each other, “What do you want for dinner?” It’s always a good idea to have plans for feeding after skiing, otherwise we wind up eating out. This time, I had meatloaf already made – kimchi meatloaf.

ground beef, fish sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce, cornstarch, black pepper, kimchi, panko crumbs, milk, onion, egg, garlic, ginger

mince the garlic and chop the kimchi

grate half the onion

grate the ginger

**Jump for more butter**