use real butter

Recipe: korean beef short rib kimchi stew (jjigae)

We got a proper snow last Thursday. Usually the first inch of snow marks the first snow of the season, but we got four inches! At the start it was a light snow that covered the deck. When I let Neva out into it, she hugged the edge of the house, remaining under the eaves – almost afraid to step on the snow. I was concerned. Had she forgotten all of the snow she played in as a wee puppy back in May and June? She had never seen it fall from the sky before and she stood there, watching it intently. By the time she went back out onto the deck for her second visit, she was already trying to eat the snow. Neva shoved her nose into it and put paw prints all over the white canvas. She asked to go back outside another 20 times that morning – just so she could play in the snow. Looks like Neva IS our puppy after all! I didn’t take any photos of Neva’s discovery phase because I was busy playing with the video and slo-mo on my iPhone. So if you want to see those videos and other shenanigans pertaining to Neva, find me on instagram at @jenyuphoto.

Over the weekend, we took Neva into the high country for a little walkie walk. She had a blast. Jeremy and I kept trying to gauge how she’ll do when we’re on skis, but the best way to know is to take her out on a ski tour. And the only way to do that is to wait for more snow. I will say that we were pleasantly surprised at how much more snow there was in the high country – about a half foot on average. Jeremy worried that Neva would get too cold in the snow (she has yet to grow her winter coat and her belly is still barely covered in baby fuzz). When we stopped to check on how she was, her hind legs were trembling – not from cold, but because she was SO EXCITED to keep going up the trail. Crazy little dog. [And she is quite little. I looked up Kaweah’s old records and found she weighed in at 51 pounds at 6 months of age. Neva was 31 pounds at 6 months.]

alpine lakes are good for your soul

four of my favorite things: jeremy, neva, mountains, and snow

Snow is a game changer. It turns the backcountry into a different kind of playground. I no longer feel as if I have to beat the sun when I get outside and I don’t dread the heat of midday (or day, for that matter). Oh, and I can cook again! We don’t have air conditioning in the mountains, so we try to keep the exothermic kitchen activities to a minimum in summer. Once the temperature turns, cooking is a great way to feed our pie holes AND warm up the house. Thermodynamics always wins in the end, so don’t be fightin’ it. Months ago, someone posted a photo of their dinner at a Korean restaurant – something steaming, spicy and stew-like. At the time I couldn’t even wrap my mind around eating stew in the dead of summer while a feral little puppy was running my life. But now… now I’ve had the time to research some recipes, the puppy is more dog than puppy, and it’s finally cold enough to justify making jjigae – a Korean short rib kimchi stew. You know I’m all over that one.

rice cakes (tteok) can be found at good asian grocers in the frozen or refrigerated sections

rice cakes, kimchi, onions, hondashi, pepper, short ribs, butter, garlic, salt, vegetable oil, mirin, sesame oil

The first thing to do is caramelize two pounds of onions. Don’t be in a rush when you caramelize onions, because you won’t get caramelized onions, but burnt onions. Caramelization takes time, so give yourself at least 45 minutes. If you live in my neck of the woods 8500 feet above sea-level, give it more like 90 minutes. The key is to give it time, keep the heat just low enough so that the onions cook, but don’t burn, and stir occasionally.

melt the butter and vegetable oil

sauté the onions

when the onions turn translucent, reduce the heat

stir and cook and stir and cook until the onions are a rich golden color

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: vegetarian chinese potstickers (dumplings)

Summer, go home already! It was downright hot this weekend in the mountains – as in shorts and t-shirt hot. I’m worried if the temperatures don’t drop soon, my body won’t be ready for winter. And by ready, I mean I won’t have had a chance to adjust to cold temperatures. It’s like dumping a dog into winter who hasn’t had a chance to grow its winter coat. At least the skies have been pretty, but seriously… get on outta here, Summer.

a nice sunset to kick off the weekend, even if it was an oven

Now that Neva has been spayed, we started shopping around for a good doggy daycare and hotel (boarding). The place we took Kaweah was down in Boulder, which I never felt was ideal because it was a long drive, it’s hotter down in Boulder, and their outdoor area was a parking lot cordoned off by chain link fencing. Of course, Kaweah LOVED it. It was all about the doggies for her. There were some locations in the mountains that boasted large acreage for dogs to roam and have fun, but we knew that wouldn’t work for Kaweah who 1) was an incredible escape artist and 2) ate sticks, rocks, and anything disgusting she could get her mouth on outside. Neva, however, chews sticks up, but summarily spits them out (thank goodness!) and she is far more focused on playing with friends than trying to escape. She had a meet and greet with a local Nederland daycare/boarder to make sure she wouldn’t be aggressive or problematic with the other pups. At first she was nervous because they all seemed to pile onto her at once, but as soon as they wandered off, she chased after the group and engaged them for more play. She passed the test.

On Friday, I dropped Neva off for a full day of playtime and she nearly dragged me through the door. Once she entered the playzone with the other pups, she never even noticed I was leaving. No separation anxiety there! Jeremy and I felt that Neva really needed more doggy socialization in a place where she can be supervised and contained (she is still a flight risk, but perhaps less so than Kaweah was – fingers crossed). The nice thing is the proprietor is also a certified dog trainer who follows positive reinforcement training. At the end of the day, we picked Neva up and she was completely exhausted. Happy and exhausted. She plowed through her dinner then fell asleep for the rest of the night. We were told that she played so much, she might still be tired on Saturday, in case we had plans to hike her. She slept or lounged all of Saturday, which made it possible for us to get a lot of work done around the house and yard. I love puppy playtime!

still tuckered on saturday

feeling like her old self by sunday

Over the summer, my mom experimented with various vegetarian potsticker and dumpling recipes because she had made some for a dear friend’s daughter who is vegetarian. Every time I would drop by my parents’ place in Boulder, Mom would shove a vegetarian dumpling into my mouth. “What do you think?” she’d ask, smiling. Was it better than the last one? Should she add more bean thread noodles? Maybe use some egg? The variations are endless. I told her when she settled on a final version, I’d like to have the recipe so I could share it here on the blog. Summer being as busy as it was, I’m not sure she ever decided which one she liked best (they were all quite good). I decided to give it a try recently and discussed some recipe ideas with Mom over the phone. Both of my parents really get into recipe development, so Mom rattled off several suggestions as I jotted them down in my notebook.

Then she said, “If you really want to improve the flavor, add some chicken broth to the filling.” I paused. “Um, Mom, if you add chicken broth, it’s no longer vegetarian.” Oh, then you can add some dried tiny shrimps – makes it taste so good. I informed her that shrimp is also a deal breaker for vegetarians. It’s not that my parents have a poor understanding of what vegetarian means, but that (I think) Chinese people have a misconception of what “meat” means. I can’t tell you how many times we have been at an authentic dim sum restaurant with a vegetarian and I have asked the server if they had any dishes without meat. “Oh yes!” they’d smile, and plop a few tins of steamed shrimp dumplings or stewed chicken feet onto the table explaining that these were not “meat”.

I did a little research and found myself gravitating toward tofu. I know a lot of people are anti-soy, but it is what it is and I for one love tofu. Marc at No Recipes had a great little post on making vegetarian/vegan ground meat from firm tofu by freezing it, then squeezing it dry and crumbling the tofu. I grew up eating tofu like this except Mom didn’t crumble it, but sliced it. It’s a nice spongy texture that is great in hot spicy soups and stews. Sounded like a good solution.

for the filling: firm tofu, baked tofu, vegetable oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, dried shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, fresh ginger, cornstarch, napa cabbage, green onions

freeze the firm tofu in its liquid, then thaw it completely

squeeze out the liquid and crumble the tofu

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: mongolian beef

Labor Day weekend marks the close of the busy summer season. It’s when the visitors return to normal life and leave the mountains to the locals, as if the mountains have closed for the year. But the mountains don’t close, ever. They march through the seasons regardless of you or me. Despite the fact that summer is my least favorite of all the seasons (I love them all, I just love the others more), it is indeed a glorious time when trails are easy to access, wildflowers scatter across the hills, and the fruits of the earth spring forth. We hopped out to Crested Butte for the long holiday weekend so we could take care of house maintenance and get on the trails with the puppy. I also wanted to scope out what the aspens are up to because I’ve noticed yellows appearing earlier than usual in the Front Range – not big swaths, but patches here and there. Even though I won’t be doing a dedicated fall shoot this year (because of Neva), it’s hard to shut off the constant monitoring of the aspen stands right about now.

evidence that a few of the leaves are showing off early

The weather on the Front Range had been mostly hot and dry the last few weeks and our trails had few signs of the mushrooms that graced them only a month prior. But Crested Butte was getting more consistent relief in the form of rain. When we arrived at our place, the lawn had big, healthy, (poisonous) mushrooms sprouting up. That was a good sign. My hope was that the chanterelles would have a second flush, but I wasn’t sure that it would actually happen. We hiked out to some patches over the weekend and lo and behold – chanterelles. Some were dried out and old, others were fresh and just coming out of the ground. I surmised that this wasn’t a second flush, but a continuation of the original flush – stoked on by healthy doses of rain and sun. What an amazing season it has been! I used all of the August chanterelles to shoot recipes, but these will be sautéed in butter and frozen for our enjoyment in winter.

hello, beautifuls

neva waits for jeremy to fill her water dish while i forage chanterelles

not a bad haul for a morning

Of course, the weekend wasn’t just about foraging mushrooms. We got Neva out on the trails for lots of exercise and visited the neighborhood lake to let her get her swim on. As we approached the water, she began to pull on the leash as if her life depended on it. At first I thought there was a dead, rotting carcass near the shore that she smelled. But soon it became clear that this dog wanted to SWIM. So we chucked stick after stick into the water and watched as this once chunky clumsy puppy now gracefully and athletically leapt into the water – a strong and beautiful swimmer.

go neva!

wahoo!!!!!

I do plan to head up into the mountains for one last forage before returning home, but I realize that some of you may be tired of the onslaught of huckleberry and chanterelle recipes. Maybe you’re looking for something that will serve as part of a weeknight meal? I haven’t blogged too many Asian recipes this summer, so let’s change things up and go with some Mongolian beef. It’s an easy and straightforward stir fry. The only obstacle might be sourcing some of the ingredients, but I assure you that all of them can be found in an Asian grocery store or a regular grocery store that has a well-stocked Asian food aisle.

flank steak, hoisin sauce, shaoxing wine, vegetable oil, oyster sauce, chili bean sauce, dried red hot chilis, potato starch, scallions, garlic

slice on the diagonal

mince the garlic

slice the flank steak against the grain

**Jump for more butter**