use real butter

Recipe: miso butter roast chicken

Before it got dark, before the kids would start coming around to trick or treat, I took Kaweah for a quick walk up a local trail. There were clouds stretched across the sky in wide horizontal strokes, but enough space for the sun to light them up from below the horizon. I watched them turn yellow, then orange. “Come on, pup! Let’s get to the top of the hill!” She climbed as fast as her little old legs would take her and when we got to the clearing at the top, she got her treat.

waiting for a scooby snack

…and i got my treat

We walked back as night began to envelop the neighborhood. I gave Kaweah a stick to carry because she trots faster that way. Jeremy met us half-way down the street as he had just gotten home and had set Halloween candy out. I love fall and I love Halloween because it’s a no-pressure, festive, and fun holiday. I like it because it’s about the kid in all of us. I also like Halloween because it was Halloween night twenty years ago when Jeremy first held my hand. Technically, it was November 1, but it was a continuation of Halloween. The early years were, as my dearest Barbara would say, young love. It has since evolved into the best and strongest relationship of my life. I feel fortunate, because at 21 (or 19) you are pretty much guaranteed to make a lot of bad and dumb decisions, but I think I lucked out big time back in 1992. I still feel that way today. Happy twenty years of awesome, Jeremy!

Today’s recipe is a special one, because it comes from a dear friend of mine. For our girls’ weekend we spent an evening cooking up a feast. Ellen made her world-famous Caesar salad, I contributed the gremolata smasher potatoes, and Kat made her miso butter roast chicken. Phenomenal meal all around, but the moment I tasted that chicken, the first coherent words out of my mouth were, “Kat, do you mind if I blog this recipe?” It’s just too good to not share with everyone.

all you need: garlic, miso paste, butter, olive oil, mirin, and chicken

first, roast the garlic

golden, buttery, mellow roasted garlic

The only thing you need to do ahead of time is roast a bulb of garlic and let the butter come to room temperature. This chicken is relatively quick and easy to prepare, particularly if you roast parts rather than a whole chicken (but I give instructions for both in the recipe below). We were all fans of dark meat, so Ellen got chicken thighs. My favorite way to enjoy dark meat from a chicken is via the chicken quarter – the thigh and drumstick. Majorly fantastic in every way.

beat the miso into the butter

add the roasted garlic (and a dash of mirin)

a smooth miso butter

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: barbecue chicken pizza

If you haven’t entered to win a Colorado care package yet, you have until the end of the day (midnight) this Friday, September 28, 2012. GO ENTER!!

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Autumn in Colorado is psycho. I mean this in a good way. You get those sunny days that are still warm (nay, hot) and dry. They can be sporadically intermingled with storm tracks that rain down and turn everything underfoot to mud, but leave a powdered sugar dusting of snow on the high peaks. If you are lucky, you might manage a photograph of the leaves turning colors and the mountains brushed in broad strokes of white. That is magic combo meal #1. Toss in a dramatic sunset and you have magic combo meal #2. Aw heck, and if you can combine all of that with FURRY BABY ANIMALS then you’ve pretty much got the holy grail right there. I’m only half kidding.

It’s not uncommon for me to encounter autumn storms while on the fall shoot. We like to think of them as early winter storms – sometimes snowing as much as two feet on the last day of summer! This year there has been a lot of rain and fog and clouds. That can be a bummer when the fog is so thick you can’t see anything or it’s pissing rain so hard that you don’t dare take your camera gear out of your pack. I usually rejoice at the rain and the snow. Bluebird skies and sunny days make for fine photographs, but the onset or clearing of a storm adds a different dimension to a capture.

you can’t have rainbows without rain (mt. crested butte at sunset)

I’ve been all up in my head this week because I’m driving around the mountains alone, assessing the weather every two minutes, and constantly scoping out the trees and the mountains. I was excited when I read rain in the forecast, because it meant snow up high. I got less excited when that soaking rain extended for several days. I started to wonder if it would ever let up.

this kinda sucked (iphone)

Frustrating as the rain can be, it pays to be vigilant and ever hopeful. Otherwise you could miss things if you decided to duck into a café and fritter away the time.

like a hot air balloon

or a cute gate to a ranch

or lovely sunset #1

and lovely sunset #2

So I’m glad I stuck it out, ignoring all the reasons telling me to just pack it up and go home where Jeremy and Kaweah are, where I have a nice comfy bed, where I get regular exercise, and where I eat proper food and have access to my kitchen. As you can imagine, posting a recipe just makes me want to get back to real cooking!

leftover barbecue chicken?

I know it’s hard to imagine having leftover barbecue anything, but it can happen if you make double or triple batches! We generally plow through this barbecue chicken recipe, but I set a few aside to make some pizza the other day.

roughly chopped

pizza time! pizza dough, barbecue chicken, mozzarella, barbecue sauce, red onions, fresh cilantro

The first time I had a barbecue chicken pizza was probably at California Pizza Kitchen in the late 80s in southern California. Talk about back in the day… Now, we tend to make our own pizza at home because they are easy and really quite good. Pizza is flexible like a sandwich – put whatever you fancy on the pizza and omit whatever you dislike. I tried to keep it simple with barbecue sauce, barbecue chicken, mozzarella, red onions, and cilantro. Tempting as it may be to load your pizza full of goodies, a little restraint will result in a better pizza. For reals.

spread barbecue sauce on the dough

cheese, chicken…

ready to go (i recommend adding the cilantro after the pizza is done cooking)

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chicken congee

Is everyone back into the groove now? Holidays are over and all of the new calendars are up for 2012. I’m chomping at the bit to get this party started: things to do, places to go, people to see. There’s been more emphasis on the first two, but hopefully I’ll remedy the third one this week. I’ve been getting my physical and digital houses in order here (still not done, not by a long shot). How did the weekend treat you guys? Mine went a little like this:

we started with a nice show at sunrise

it only took me 6 months to get to our new ikea

It’s a bit of a haul from our house to the new (well, new to me) Ikea in Centennial, Colorado – just under 90 minutes. But hey, that’s better than a 9-hour drive to Salt Lake City, Utah. I think of Ikea as the OCD adult amusement park. They even provide sofas, beds, and a restaurant because you’re basically going to be there long enough for your body to require sustenance and rest as you try to find your way out of the store. If it sounds like I hate Ikea, I do not. It’s just that I am occasionally distracted from our seek and destroy shopping mission. Jeremy will have to come and fetch me from the children’s section or he’ll find me standing mesmerized in front of the colorful lamps and lights. And if the “we’re only going to be there for an hour or two”-trip-turned-7-hour-adventure wasn’t enough, you get to spend as much time assembling everything when you get home. But now we have clever Swedish storage for all of our junk!

did i mention it finally snowed? (why yes, we skied it)

and a hot bowl of ramen to warm up après ski

Mmmm noodles. I am a noodle girl. Every now and again I’ll wonder if I’m a rice girl, but no – I am true to the noodle. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy my rice. Now that we’re acting like winter again, it’s the perfect time to be making congee, jook, or xi fan – Chinese rice porridge. I like my mom’s chicken congee.

start with short grain rice

My parents used to make congee on the weekends for breakfast when I was growing up. It is a savory porridge which might explain why I have never been a huge fan of sweet breakfasts. In college, I’d make the basic rice porridge when I wasn’t feeling well because it was neutral and settled my stomach. These days I make my mom’s chicken congee because I love the ginger. I called them up last week to verify the recipe in my head with the recipe in their heads.

rice, chicken, ginger, green onions

i like to make my own chicken broth in my pressure cooker

Mom is so cute when I tell her I have a question about a recipe. She’s eager to help out and to make sure I do it right. Thing is, when they see that it’s me calling, they put me on speaker phone. So as soon as Mom starts to share her method, Dad butts in and says, “Let me tell you how to do it the right way…” See, Dad is just as eager to explain how he does it. It happens practically every time and I try my hardest not to laugh, but it’s really entertaining and a little insane to get a recipe from them. Most of my recipes are a marriage of the two versions and I think that’s a good thing. Whenever I eat these family foods, I feel a little tug in my heart.

wash the rice

add water to the rice and cook until mushy

add chicken broth when the porridge is thick

**Jump for more butter**