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Recipe: thai firecracker shrimp

What do you know? It started snowing earlier this week! It was only a few inches at first, so we didn’t get too excited, but it made for nice conditions skinning up the mountain and skiing out. It was especially nice as it actively snowed on us when we took Neva up the mountain for the first time. While uphill skiing is permitted on designated ski routes throughout the day, dogs must be off the mountain during the hours of lift operations (9:00 am to 4:30 pm). Neva had to be on a leash because she’s still such a puppy. She wants to bound off to greet every new thing she sees: snowmobiles, other skiers, other dogs, ski resort staff, ski lifts, sticks, balls of snow, snowflakes. She’s so crazy with energy, but she did great. No one got hurt (#1 priority), Neva had a BLAST, Neva was exposed to resort skiing, and the pup was completely wiped out when we got home.

she is ready for adventure!

happy happy girl

When we are in Crested Butte, I usually bring tons of work and projects in the hopes of making headway while here. I discovered a while back that it becomes so overwhelming, I don’t manage to get much of anything finished. These days, I limit the projects that come with me and my productivity has improved considerably. This includes several baby quilts that are finally materializing under the needle of my sewing machine. With any luck, I will be sending flannel rag quilts to babies and children across the country just in time for summer – the hottest season of the year. Go me?!

my favorite stages: selecting fabrics and sewing the quilt together

the “rag” side of the quilt – the left was just cut, the right has been washed dozens of times

The snow did eventually arrive here in Crested Butte, and we enjoyed some powdery turns on runs and in stashes that the spring break crowds don’t know about. But we are on track for spring in a big way with sunshine, warm temperatures, and no snow for the next week. Don’t forget your sunblock.

jeremy rides a wave of powder

it’s best in the trees right now

ski the pow, take in the views, repeat

Last month I hosted a Thai dinner for our friends and spent some time researching appetizer recipes before I realized it was just too much for me to get done for the party. I never used to let people bring anything, as if it were some failure on my part as a host. Now, I accept that distribution of labor is not a bad thing and it allows me to enjoy my own dinner parties far more than in the past. So I asked Wendy to bring appetizers, which she did – and they were wonderful. But I still had this recipe for Thai firecracker shrimp I had bookmarked and decided to test drive it.

spring roll wrappers, pad thai sauce, thai basil, water, shrimp, peanuts, cornstarch

These are simple enough to make, but a tad messy, so have a damp towel nearby for wiping your fingertips clean. The rolling of the wrappers is probably the trickiest step that took me a few practice rolls before getting it right. You will want raw shrimp with tails on but shells off. One issue when shrimp cooks is that it curls up into a C-shape. That’s fine for some dishes, but we don’t want the shrimp to curl in this case as it might bust open the spring roll wrapper during frying. To prevent the curling, three scores across the shrimp along the inside of the “C” will do the trick. Marinating the shrimp takes all of three minutes or so. Quick.

score the shrimp

marinate all but the tails in pad thai sauce

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Recipe: chorizo sliders

Spring has sprung. It is sprang. It skis like spring. It feels like spring. For all intents and purposes, it is spring. Last week, we went into the backcountry on the Front Range for a little ole ski tour. The snow started out okay, but as the daytime temperatures rose above freezing, the snow began to stick to our climbing skins in giant 6 inch thick clumps. Then it turned to mashed potatoes by the time we skied out and we were like, “Let’s go to Crested Butte.”

cruising the meadow before the descent

a rosy sunrise on james peak

Well, it’s spring in Crested Butte, too! It’s snowing right now, but the sun keeps poking through sucker holes in the cloud deck and it is warm. Now is the time to embrace whatever nature throws at us, be it powder (please, throw A LOT OF POWDER) or corn snow or mashed potatoes. Jeremy and I are already discussing our plans for Neva adventures this spring and summer – by ski, by bike, or by foot. We are all about human- and doggy-powered activities.

crested butte has pretty sunrises, too

skinning uphill at crested butte mountain resort before the lifts open

neva loves the snow

It’s nice getting out on the Crested Butte food scene after a long hiatus (read: Neva). There are new and old restaurants that we’ve been interested in checking out for a while. Last month we dropped by a taqueria, Bonez, for happy hour. All of the food was excellent (I’ll write that up soon), but the thing that blew us away were the chorizo sliders. Each one was a package of spicy, tangy, sweet, creamy, crunchy, buttery. Delicious and totally doable at home! I’ve already posted recipes for two of the components: sweet potato rolls and fennel slaw. You could buy brioche buns instead of the sweet potato rolls, and I’m guessing fancier grocers or delis may carry fennel slaw. The rest is simply: chorizo patties, garlic aioli, and tomato jam. For the tomato jam, I used a shortcut based on the recipe the server gave me.

pico de gallo, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar

place it all in a saucepan

boil it down to a jam

easy tomato jam: tangy, sweet, and a little spicy

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Recipe: grissini

There’s never a dull moment when you have a dog. Or perhaps I should say, there is never a dull moment when you live with Neva. She managed to impale herself on a stick at doggy daycare last week, but never let on to anyone that she had a hole in her side – not at daycare, not during her bath, not after we toweled her down. It wasn’t until we noticed a pink smudge on the couch that evening and tracked it back to Neva that we realized what had happened. It didn’t seem to bother her, but it looked terrible. Instead of our intended 6 am departure for Crested Butte the next morning, our dear vet took a look at Neva the minute he got into the office at 8 am and cleaned up the wound. He chuckled that she must have been having a great time to not even notice it. It’s healing nice and fast since she’s a strong and healthy little puppy.

neva’s sporting that wound like a champ

We started our Crested Butte weekend with what we’ve dubbed the freeheel ski trifecta: skate ski in the morning, telemark ski on the mountain, and then a late afternoon classic nordic ski with Neva. I could barely move the next day, but that might be because I managed a massive biff in the terrain park when I slid on water (that would be melted snow) off the ramp. February is trying to act like April… What is up with that?

skating into middle earth

telemarking down the mountain

oh, and stopping for a colorado bulldog (white russian with coke) at the ice bar

taking neva for a ski on the nordic trails

happiest dog on the planet right there

Neva’s progression into doghood has been gradual such that we didn’t really notice when she became super chill about us leaving the house without her. We are now able to get back to the restaurant scene, have friends over without Neva losing her mind, and get out for our own exercise. It’s almost like life before puppy, except it’s better because it’s now Life with Dog.

checking out a newish restaurant

having wonderful friends over for a dinner party

skating paradise park (it feels like paradise!)

Today’s recipe is for grissini – a thin, crisp, Italian breadstick. You can find them in grocery stores, but they tend to be fatter than what I want. Grissini are also pretty fragile, so they don’t handle transportation too well. Most of the time I buy them in the store for parties, I wind up with at least half of them broken. All the more reason to make them at home. The process is straightforward, and rolling the dough out into long, thin, and irregular sticks might be especially fun to do with kids. Plain is probably my favorite, but I divided my dough into thirds and made three kinds of grissini: plain, herbed (thyme), and black sesame.

you’ll need: warm water, olive oil, herbs (optional), salt, yeast, honey, black sesame seeds (optional), all-purpose flour, and whole wheat flour

proof the yeast (water, honey, whole wheat flour, and yeast)

after ten minutes you should see bubbles

add the olive oil, flour, and salt

knead the dough until smooth

coat in oil and let rise

**Jump for more butter**