use real butter

Recipe: sautéed snow pea shoots

Gah! Summer is HOT. Colorado has enjoyed – or at least *I* have enjoyed – a very cool and wet spring this year. It is one of the wettest springs in 20+ years according to meteorological records (which I love to dork out on). And then summer rolled around and wham! It’s been hot. The dog’s residence time per visit to the deck is on a steep decline because she can only take but so much HOT before she staggers back into the house, panting and drunk on sunshine.

One of the benefits of the heat in the mountains is the instability in the atmosphere due to that delicious mixing of cold and hot air masses. This translates into some of my favorite things to observe and capture in summer: stormy weather.

driving down on the flats you see tons of mammata in the afternoons

lightning show at our house!

It also means more dinners on the deck after the sun goes down so we can enjoy the cooler evenings, listen to hummingbirds zipping past, and watch the foxes stealthily make their way through our yard.

summer deck dining

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Recipe: chive dumplings

daring cooks – you got the onions chinese chives?

This month I’m not just a Daring Cook, but I’m the host of the Daring Cooks June challenge! First, let me pay homage to our most revered founders: Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, because we love them and they make the world a better place. I chose a recipe that was versatile enough for all manner of Daring Cooks: Chinese dumplings and potstickers. The recipe I gave for the challenge is a family recipe that I’ve blogged before. However, I wanted to push myself beyond the familiar and attempt a gluten-free version.

[EDIT] So there have been a few folks making noise about wheat starch and how it is not gluten free. Sources give conflicting conclusions on whether or not wheat starch is safe for consumption if you are celiac. So let’s be clear here – you need to make your own decision and you need to be responsible for that decision. If you think there is ANY risk, then you probably shouldn’t use it unless you enjoy playing with fire. If you aren’t affected by gluten, then you can probably safely consume wheat starch. This is a traditional recipe, it was not developed as a gluten free version – it is a type of dumpling that people make in Chinese cuisine. [END EDIT]

use wheat starch (not wheat flour!)

chinese chives (garlic chives)

If you’ve ever had dim sum, you have probably feasted upon many different kinds of dumplings. My favorite to order when I’m in a good dim sum joint is the chive dumpling. While I was looking up a gluten-free version of the Chinese potsticker for our alternative Daring Cooks, I ran across several recipes for chive dumplings and knew I had to try these at home.

chop the chives

sauté

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Recipe: shrimp toast

I’m done processing my photos from Yosemite and I think the latter half of any shooting trip always suffers. By the end of a multi-day shoot, I’m less inclined to sit around trying to get the perfect shot and by the end of my photo processing (which proceeds chronologically) my threshold for photos to even bother processing goes way down.

foothill poppies and lupine

yosemite falls (upper and lower)

You can see selected photos from the trip on the photo blog: waterfalls, flowering trees, Yosemite valley shots, foothill wildflowers, and wildflowers within Yosemite. After Yosemite, we spent three days getting stuffed to the hilt on amazing Chinese food. I can’t keep doing that. Next time I see Grandma, we’ll have to make a deal that we only eat out once a day and nosh on fresh fruits and vegetables the rest of the time. After the third meal out, I feel as if I’m going to blow up from all the sodium intake. Of course, the menus never fail to entertain.

you can always find chinglish

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