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: puffy hearts and rings

When I was a little kid growing up in Virginia, snow storms would catch me by surprise. The only way I knew anything was in the works was when Kris would stay up late tuning the radio to find out if school would be closed the next day. On those very rare snow days we would stay home playing games, running around the house like maniacs jumping off the stairs, building forts, watching television, lip syncing Shaun Cassidy while standing on top of the coffee table, and sledding down our steep driveway. I have a lot of good memories of Kris.

Living in Colorado, we can get snow as early as September and as late as May. It snows in our mountains in June and July too. Even though it is a common occurrence I still get excited – I just don’t lip sync Shaun Cassidy from the coffee table anymore (I have that very coffee table in our great room). These days I suit up and head out.

hit the lifts early to beat the late morning rush

that’s jeremy freezing his bum off on the lift

After we return from a ski – be it at a resort or in the backcountry – it’s Kaweah’s turn to play in the snow. When she was a wee pup in Ithaca, New York, we’d take her out into the snow and find the deepest drift to drop her in. She’d expend an enormous amount of energy bounding about in the snow and would sleep all night long at home. Yay! Now in her golden years, Kaweah doesn’t wander as far into the snow nor does she handle the cold as well as she did in her crazy years (years 0-10). She sleeps much of the day and all of the night.

she’ll always be a puppy to me

sun setting on a quiet, snowy day

when the storm moves out, we get blue skies once again

As a kid, I never remembered being cold when I played in the snow. Maybe that’s because as kids, we’re crazy people? I would barely recognize myself today, grabbing a warm hat, gloves, boots, jacket, sunnies, chapstick, sunblock… While thinking back on those snow days of my youth, I grew nostalgic for my mom’s baking projects. She wasn’t much of a baker, but she did have a handful of sweets she could make for potlucks and parties. What I loved most were these things called puffy hearts and rings.

stick of butter

stir in flour

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Recipe: passion fruit bars

Happy new year, everyone! Did you make any new year’s resolutions?

As some of you know, I don’t do new year’s resolutions. I was wondering about this the other day. I realized that it’s not because I don’t do resolutions, it’s just that I am too impatient to wait until the first of the year to start one if I think of it on any other day of the year. That’s how I roll. In the past few months I’ve readjusted my goals a smidge. It’s always ultimately been about passion – the things I’m passionate about – but a little course correction was warranted. I think I’m on the right track.

This morning, Kaweah is happily romping about and disemboweling her plush toys with great gusto. Jeremy and I have eaten something sweet first thing in the morning to ensure that “sweet words” come out of our mouths all year long! I think it’s going to be a very good year. In fact, let’s all agree to make it so, okay?

geese at sunrise

And speaking of passion… this past week I got a small package in the mail from Todd and Diane – those two hilarious green thumb, photographer, videographer, practical joker extraordinaires. It was a box of precious passion fruits from their garden. I know, right?! Those two are freaking awesome!

a box of california sunshine in colorado

I began looking for passion fruit recipes to put these gems to good use when I ran across a blog entry for passion fruit bars. Passion fruit bars! That’s like lemon bars without the lemon, but with passion fruit. I’m a huge fan of lemon bars as it is, so I was all over the passion fruit bars.

cutting butter into the flour and powdered sugar

pressing the coarse crumbs into the bottom of the baking pan

In hindsight, I should have lined the baking pan with parchment because the bars didn’t release nicely. So if you don’t care about a clean release, then do whatever you want. If you want the bars to look presentable without mangling them, then line the pan.

six eggs to be beaten

add the sugar gradually

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