use real butter

Recipe: green chile bacon egg bake

At last, the cookies are done and gone. If ever I entertain the thought of baking for a living, I need only remember the days of intensive baking in December that make me hate all cookies and chocolate. So why do I keep doing it? Jeremy asked this of me in the car as we drove down the canyon this morning on our way to deliver the cookies. When we started several years ago, it was because buying gifts for his administrative staff wasn’t really in our budget. But each year people loved the homemade cookies and candies so much that it seemed like a cop out to consider buying gifts as opposed to making something from the heart. I suppose I loathe shopping far more than dealing with tempering chocolate. Even now, mere hours after hand delivering the holiday goodies and shipping packages out to some special recipients, the sore back and lack of sleep are but a faded memory. I think as long as I can get outside for a little exercise during the mad frenzy, I can deal with it. After a week with this lingering low-level non-cold, I decided to beat it out of my body by going skate skiing. That felt terrible, but afterward, I felt SO MUCH BETTER.

the start of skate season always hurts so good

don’t forget to shred it on a 9-inch powder day

farewell cookies! go forth and maketh your recipients happy

Now with the cookies out of the way, I can concentrate on what needs to get done in the next couple of weeks. Part of that includes menu planning in Crested Butte because we don’t have access to as many ingredients out there as we do in the Front Range near Boulder/Denver. But honestly, when we are in Crested Butte, I try to avoid involved baking and cooking projects because the whole reason for being in CB is to be outside in all that gorgeousness, not inside in the kitchen. With houseguests coming at the start of the new year, I thought about simple and satisfying things to serve for breakfast. One recipe I settled on was an egg casserole loaded with bacon, green chiles, and cheddar cheese – something quick to whip up before you hit the mountain or the nordic trails!

eggs, milk, salt, roasted green chiles, black pepper, cheddar cheese, bacon

toss the chiles and cheese together

spread the chile-cheese mixture in the bottom of a baking dish

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: cookie butter truffles

My refrigerator is packed to the hilt with cookie doughs, candy fillings, and other ingredients for assorted baked goodies. We are coming down to the wire in the next couple of days and it’s always a miracle when I can send the packages of homemade treats out the door. I’ve cruised through five pounds of butter and it looks like I’m going to have to get some more to finish this year’s deliveries and shipments. Part of the reason for my cookie frenzy is because we got a nice dump of snow (finally!) Saturday, so Jeremy and I got out early to catch some first tracks on the mountain. The other part of the reason for the perceived time pressure is because I had to wait until this non-cold finally passed before I could start making cookies to give to other people… and dogs.

the beautiful view from corona chair at eldora

neva inspects the pumpkin peanut butter treats before they go in the oven

Are you the type to walk into the grocery store and browse before you decide what to buy or do you go in with a grocery list? After a couple of decades of data, I know for a fact that I need to walk in with a grocery list. It saves me both time and money. This is particularly true if I go shopping when I’m hungry. But sometimes, even with a list in hand, not having eaten anything by 3 pm means the likelihood of unauthorized items appearing in my basket will increase. So it happened last week as I wheeled through Trader Joe’s looking for a handful of things jotted on my notepad. And then I saw the cookie butter. Plunk – into the basket it went. Then the speculoos cookies. Plunk. I wasn’t sure what would become of them, but I figured I would hash that out later. And I did come up with something eventually – cookie butter truffles. I just wanted to see if they would be good.

speculoos cookies and speculoos cookie butter

let’s make truffles: cookie butter, salt, chocolate, butter, cookies, confectioner’s sugar

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Recipe: apple bacon cheddar dog (abcd) treats

While working on our annual digital year in photos, I scrolled through a lot of snaps I took of Neva when she was a wee pup. I had completely forgotten about them because I was in such a state of sleep-deprivation for a period of three or four months starting on May 23, 2015. Jeremy was in the other room, but he could tell I was looking at puppy pictures because I kept squealing and cooing at the computer. Neva was so cute, but she was so feral compared to a normal dog – because she wasn’t a normal dog. She was a puppy.

these cute little faces will suck up all of your time

Oh, but now Neva is becoming a really good girl as she settles into a routine of the familiar. She’s now used to watching dogs, cars, and people passing through our neighborhood. She doesn’t flip out when she sees birds anymore (there are so.many.birds). Her favorite places to nap depend on where the sun is hitting the house. Neva knows to ask when she wants to go outside instead of sneaking into the office to piddle next to Jeremy’s desk. I remember how it took forever and a day to walk anywhere because she had to put every damn pine cone, rock, stick, blade of grass, and flower in her mouth. We loved her little adorable puppiness, but we both knew from the start that we couldn’t wait for her to grow into a dog.

Neva always knows when I’m making HER treats in the kitchen. She’ll hang around patiently at my feet until I pop them in the oven, at which point she stares longingly at the oven. I’m not sure how much variety Neva needs in her treat selection, but I know for a fact that these treats are her number one all-time favoritest treats on the planet. I threw them together last month with a bunch of leftover ingredients and she’s been pretty devoted to them ever since. They smell fantastic while they bake because duh – the treats are made with cheddar cheese and bacon! I used applesauce as a healthy binder, along with an egg, and threw in some parsley for her breath. So I wanted to share this with anyone looking to make some extra wonderful goodies for their canine companions.

applesauce, bacon, cheddar cheese, egg, parsley, whole wheat flour

prepping the ingredients for mixing

chop the bacon and parsley fine, especially if you are making small treats

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