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Recipe: bean curd rolls

Hey there. It’s Friday. I hope you all have a fun weekend ahead of you. There’s something GOOD coming up on Monday, so definitely check back in when you’re trying to avoid that email in-box.

Remember all of those photos I posted of hills covered in wildflowers? The only reason I shot those on our March road trip was because Death Valley and Antelope Valley weren’t ready. We were early on the blooms. That’s why Jeremy and I detoured out to the Coast Range in search of wildflowers (and thankfully, we found some). That’s also why Jason and I were in Death Valley and Antelope Valley this week.

desert gold in death valley

a carpet of gold at the base of the black mountains

When you have limited time and long distances to travel, planning your shoots becomes a sort of gamble. High winds made for tough shooting in Death Valley, but the weather was supposed to nice up in the next two days. We drove south to Antelope Valley and agreed if the flowers weren’t awesome, then we’d return to Death Valley for our third day.

the poppies, they were awesome

California poppies are my favorite wildflowers. FAVORITE. They were essentially at peak bloom when we arrived, so we spent our third day crawling around in the fields. We (and by we, I mean Jason) got swarmed by a nest of giant black ants and nearly stepped on a baby rattlesnake. Fun times!

totally worth it

Some of my Death Valley shots are up on the photo blog. I’ll get around to the Antelope Valley photos this weekend. I processed the photos I was less enthused about first because I knew if I didn’t, I’d never get to them. Do you ever do that? In the meantime, let’s get to a recipe… If you’ve ever had good dim sum, you might have encountered these tofu skin rolls – fu tse juan. [As my “more Chinese than me” friends know, I can’t ping ying to save my life.] It’s a favorite dish of mine: pork, bamboo shoots, and Chinese mushrooms wrapped in sheets of bean curd skin and fried then braised. I made these rolls forever ago after casually asking my awesome Chinese grandma how to do so.

i start with chinese tree ears (left) and chinese black mushrooms (right)

and don’t forget the pork

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Recipe: stir-fried chinese chives and pork

You all are really great. Thank you for the anniversary wishes! Jeremy and I enjoyed a fantastic dinner at a favorite resto in Boulder – Jax Seafood. We always manage to overlap with happy hour because we have to get home at a reasonable time to feed Kaweah. Believe it or not, the dog gets acid reflux if she goes without food for a length of time. Perfect affliction for a lab, no?

jax – pork belly sliders

jax – old school tuna special

It was sunny and 40°F on my deck yesterday – a positively gorgeous day in the mountains. Spring is a wicked little girl. She taunts you with the sunshine and the longer daylight hours and that pervasive happy mood that sends people outside for sidewalk dining in short sleeve shirts. I happily wander toward the temptations of Spring like everybody else, but I also look back with longing and wonder if Winter is gonna diss me and withhold any further snow. Not a great ski season. Okay, I’m over it. Anything else is icing on the cake at this point. And really, I can’t complain because Spring is like the super social season when folks are ready to mingle but they haven’t left for their summer travels or vacations.

happy hour with the ladies (she’s only pretending to drink the cream)

One lunch gets canceled, another takes its place. There is always laughter, but yesterday we added sushi and hauntingly bad 80s pop classics to the mix. Right on! It was blindingly sunny and lovely outside and I think the temperatures were in the upper 40s or even low 50s? It’s hard for me to gauge because I felt like it was 90 degrees and that my skin was burning off my limbs. Ah spring!

good times

salmon skin roll

chirashi bowl (my fav)

I have a little potted plant in our great room that toggles between life and death on a regular basis. My grandmother gave it to me via my aunt (this is how Chinese people send things to one another, they never mail anything directly). This isn’t just a houseplant though, it’s a Chinese chive also known as garlic chive. Grandma can grow these on her balcony because… she lives in CALIFORNIA. I keep mine potted and indoors because I like to take snips of it for garnish at times throughout the year. Otherwise I’d only see it for three months of the year. Okay, maybe four. I don’t grow enough to cook with, so I have to make that special trek to Denver to get some.

chinese chives

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Recipe: kung pao chicken

We are quite enjoying the “no cleaning” directive after Chinese New Year. Not that I am an avid house cleaner in general, just that for these two weeks my slacking is condoned. This morning it occurred to me that I am more like my dad than my mom when it comes to cleaning. Dad likes things to be tidy and neat whereas Mom likes to disinfect and scrub until prettier than new. Kaweah was always disappointed when she visited my parents’ house because there was never anything to sniff let alone eat off the floors. Not that we have burgers and cake sitting on the ground, but this dog routinely monitors the state of the kitchen floor and snarfs up the tiniest of crumbs… she’s a lab for crying out loud.

you say the word, and i will eat these grapefruits

Why no cleaning for 2 weeks? It’s because the traditional lunar new year festivities last until the next full moon (Lantern Festival), but my family typically celebrates with a feast on new year’s eve and then they refrain from cleaning for 2 weeks. I guess I also leave the Chinese symbol for luck pasted upside down on our front door until the Lantern Festival. Anyway, even though the big party is over, I’m just telling you that it’s not officially over. I’m sort of having a little party of my own here…

little tripod, meet tripod on steroids (it’s tall, i’m standing on a chair)

I’m learning that the upgrade never really ends and that compact, lightweight, durable precision instruments are beautiful and ridiculously pricey. Well, for that matter, large, heavy precision optics are also beautiful and ridiculously pricey. I’m pretty sure these are tears of joy falling down my face…

two newest members of the lens family (left)

There is only one recipe left from our Chinese New Year’s Eve menu to be posted and I wanted to share that with you before I resumed staring lovingly at the new lenses I am cradling in my arms. I had an old kung pao chicken recipe for years and it was decent. I never ordered it in restaurants because it was so easy to make at home. One day I saw Bee had posted a recipe for kung pao chicken, and it looked heavenly. I bookmarked it to try and never got around to doing so until last week. [Hey, I never said I wasn’t slow about some things.]

green onions, bamboo shoots, ginger, red chili peppers, garlic, cashews

diced chicken meat

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