use real butter

Recipe: homemade almond joy candy

The first full week of December has more than made up for the dismal snowfall of November. Not only have we received decent snowfall, but snow is slated to continue for another week! This is good news for snow lovers as well as our snowpack, which provides our water all year and is responsible for the beautiful streams and wildflowers in summer.

neva’s nose was wiggling all over as she sniffed the snow in the air

it was quite chilly for a few days – neva got bundled into a snuggy blanket

the view from indian peaks chair at our local hill

Our backcountry has a nice layer of snow, but our ski poles hit rocks and dirt at the bottom because we’ve had no base. Hopefully this series of storms will build a good base for the rest of the season. I haven’t been willing to get my skis waxed and tuned until I stopped hitting rocks! Better late than never.

our skin tracks

i spy a baby moose peeking from behind the tree

crazy little neva sports her orange booties and orange ball

happy girl with a stylish snowbeard

I am in full candy making and cookie baking mode over here. It’s a good thing the holidays coincide with the shortest days or I’d be ditching all of my gift-making duties in favor of skiing. As it is, our evenings have been filled with lots of chocolate, sugar, butter, nuts, flour, candied ginger, lemon zest, more chocolate, and piles of dirty dishes. The main recipients of my annual kitchen frenzy are Jeremy’s administrative staff. I’ve been giving them an assortment of homemade treats for almost a decade. Over the years I’ve received feedback on certain cookies such that they have become regulars in the gift bags. But I do try to mix things up a little and introduce a new cookie or confection each year. This year’s newest addition is a homemade Almond Joy, which should really be called a Coconut Joy because the almond is just a small part of it. Anyway, these are easy and delicious and I had to make a second batch because Jeremy looked so sad when I said I had just enough to distribute to recipients.

vanilla extract, chocolate, flaked coconut, powdered sugar, almonds, salt, sweetened condensed milk

There is no cooking involved in these treats except for the toasting of almonds and melting of chocolate. Stir stuff together, mold it into a desired shape, pop a nut on top and dip it in chocolate. That’s how simple it is. Joy‘s version called for unsweetened flaked coconut, but I grabbed sweetened flaked coconut instead. You know what? It worked great. I mean, it’s candy – it’s going to be sweet and you will just have to climb an extra thousand feet of elevation in your skis to burn it off. No big deal.

adding vanilla to the sweetened condensed milk, sugar, and salt

stir in the coconut

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: apple roses and spiced brown butter tart

Daylight Saving may have come to an end, but Neva isn’t buying it. She tucked her furry nose under my chin Sunday morning at 5:30, probably wondering why I was 30 minutes late taking her outside and feeding her dinner (breakfast). By 5:30 in the evening, she was sitting politely in the great room, staring at the empty space next to her water dish where her dinner is typically served 30 minutes later. I’m not sure if Neva cues off the light of day or her little doggy tummy, but Mountain Standard Time apparently has no bearing on her feeding schedule. It sure FEELS like fall with the shortening days, but we aren’t getting the snow necessary for things like skiing, ski season, ski resorts, and did I mention SKIING?! But alas, if I can’t ski, I can most certainly bake. I made the most of our lack of snow when I received two packages in the mail a few weeks ago: a review copy of Irvin Lin’s first book, Marbled, Swirled, and Layered, and two dozen beautiful Pink Lady and Piñata apples from Stemilt Growers.

irvin’s beautiful baking book

pink ladies ready for some dessert-making

Marbled, Swirled, and Layered is packed with gorgeous and exciting recipes. Irvin is a truly skilled baker with a great eye for aesthetics as well as a creative flare for fun and refreshing flavor combinations. He walks you through each baked creation with clear instructions, but all of them involve multiple components made from scratch – an ideal book for people who love to bake and those wanting to take their baking to the next level. It was tough deciding which recipe to make from Irvin’s book. I dog-eared a couple dozen, but I was ultimately drawn to the apple brown butter tart. Believe it or not, I had been recipe testing some apple brown butter tarts when the book and the apples arrived, but Irvin’s version was adorned with lovely apple roses and the brown butter filling was spiced with all manner of warm autumn flavors. Let’s start with the crust.

flour, whole wheat flour, butter, rum, egg yolks, salt, sugar

whisk the dry ingredients together

add the cold butter and toss to coat

squeeze the butter cubes into butter flakes

The crust recipe is pretty straightforward and not terribly messy as long as your work area is cool and your hands are cool or cold. Once things warm up, it’s harder to handle the butter and the dough will become sticky. I found the dough easy to work with and rolled it out between two sheets of plastic wrap. I do this because it’s easy to transfer the dough to the tart pan and because my hands usually warm up after I use the rolling pin, so it keeps the butter in the dough from melting and sticking to me.

whisk egg yolks and rum

drizzle over the flour and butter mixture

fold the dough together

form into a disk and chill

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Recipe: huckleberry panna cotta

We returned home to the Front Range this evening after winterizing and buttoning up the house in Crested Butte. The next time we return will be with multiple pairs of skis! Between now and then, there is plenty of work to get done. I haven’t had a chance to really sift through my photos from the fall shoot, but here are some quick ones I’ve been sharing.

the castles with fresh snowfall

west beckwith mountain

the slopes on snodgrass

just another gorgeous aspen-lined road

last minute surprise sunset colors

In addition to shooting fall colors around Crested Butte, I spent time working with Neva on her leash skills on the nice paths in our neighborhood. She’s already amped up as it is, but there are fewer distractions on these paths than on hiking trails, so she’s slightly (ever so slightly) more responsive to commands, corrections, and praise. In the backcountry, Neva acts like a drug addict, losing her mind over every sound, smell, and movement – she even refuses her favorite treats. I should revoke her lab license! But each day she made a little improvement such that after a week away, Jeremy said Neva was better on our hike Saturday. I’ve also noticed that she is becoming more cuddly. At 18 months, I hope that Neva will outgrow her adolescent stage and become a dog we can enjoy rather than remain a ridiculous amount of work any time we choose to do anything.

neva likes down comforters and human beds

hiking in the west elk wilderness

neva tries to creep away because she doesn’t like posing for pictures

Earlier last week, I went to shoot sunrise only to wind up with a cloudless fizzle. Instead of wrapping things up and heading back home I decided to scout out a trail that had been good for huckleberries at the start of September. Most of the good patches were bare now, but the patches that didn’t have fruit before were loaded with blue orbs that had frozen solid overnight. But mountain huckleberries are tough little berries, surviving the frosts and snows of early autumn above 10,000 feet. I picked about a half cup while examining The State of the Huckleberry along the trail. I found some chanterelles, too, but they don’t weather a frost nearly as well as their huckleberry neighbors do, so I let them be. The frozen hucks tasted like deliciously slushy purple huckleberries – slurpleberries.

slurpleberries (frozen huckleberries)

There are plenty of things you can make with frozen huckleberries, which is a good thing since most folks will only ever get their paws on frozen huckleberries (you can buy them online) as the season for fresh hucks is relatively short. I recently had a craving for panna cotta (translates to cooked cream), because I love the silky smooth texture without all of the work of say, crème brûlée or flan. And everyone knows that berries and cream are a match made in heaven. Use blueberries if you don’t have huckleberries, but promise me that one day… ONE DAY you will try a huckleberry.

huckleberries, almond extract, vanilla paste, milk, cream, sugar, gelatin, water (not pictured: pinch of salt)

sprinkle the gelatin over the water and let soften

bring the milk, cream, sugar, and salt to a boil

**Jump for more butter**