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Recipe: beef porcini pot pies

Spring forward. Spring forward. I rather think of it as pouncing forward. It’s a bit jarring, the darkness in the morning and the extended daylight in the evening and whoa, when I sit down to work on the computer I have one less hour than I thought I did. Jeremy is a fan of Daylight Saving Time. He said he feels like he’s in fog all winter until the clocks jump forward. He loves the stacking of extra daylight on the other end of the day. Kaweah, we discovered, does not care for Daylight Saving. We tried to coax her awake Sunday morning, but she was having none of it. She’d open one eye, look at me, and then plop her head back onto her soft, warm bed. So we let her sleep until her little appetite clock said it was time to eat.

spring wha?

We had a nice wallop of snow Friday (great powder at our local resort) and then the snow clouds gave way to bluebird skies and the mercury soared into the 50s this weekend. Jeremy and I got out to ski tour Saturday, but the backcountry snow was already turning to mashed potatoes under the power of the sun and warm air temperatures. But it was gorgeous and my brain is already transitioning to spring skiing mode.

i never get tired of the colorado high country

It’s March, and I’m starting to poke about in the corners of my freezers and pantries to see which treasures I squirreled away last summer are still around. I have heaps of roasted green chiles, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, jams, summer corn, peaches, huckleberries, pickled things… and dried porcini. Those porcini are such a labor of love. Wendy and I slog many miles in the mountains searching for these gems of the forest. Then she cleans every single mushroom (and sometimes there are a lot of them) that very evening, breaks them down, and begins dehydrating them. No small feat. To let them spoil or go to waste is to beg the tree gods to animate and smack you upside the head for being such an ungrateful douchecanoe. When I flipped the calendar to March, I set about making some beef porcini pot pies.

olive oil, red wine, salt, pepper, dried porcini, onion, potatoes, flour, rosemary, thyme, garlic, tomato paste, boneless beef short ribs

rehydrate the porcini

strain (and reserve) the porcini liquid

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Recipe: potato masala

It’s been sunny, hot (in the 60s), and windy on the Front Range these past few days. People rejoice when the weather warms up around here, but in February it makes me cringe. I just imagine what all that warm wind and sun is doing to our snowpack. Then we head out for a trail run and it’s a slushfest of sorts. Yeeesh. But the good news is that more snow is on the way. In fact, it’s snowing outside our front door right now. Even if you are a winter hater, you must admit it can be quite beautiful. I finally took the time to do some shooting while ski touring in Crested Butte a couple of weeks ago. It was just too pretty not to…

aspen trunks

beautiful mature aspens and growing conifers

hillslopes as a squall approaches

I invest a good bit of time reading weather forecasts throughout the year as it informs my decisions on outdoor activities including my photography and foraging. In summer, it’s mainly about heat waves, thunderstorms, and cold fronts. In winter it’s ALL about the powder. (Actually, we follow the weather closely to track avalanche risk too.) When I know a big dump snow day is coming, I load up on work ahead of time so I can catch some fresh tracks when possible. I also plan our menu accordingly. We had a rather snowy first half of February in Colorado, so we filled up on stews, curries, soups, and other things that warm your belly after dropping into powder stashes up to your hips. One dish that is utterly satisfying after a day in the snow is potato masala (aloo masala).

vegetable oil, tomato, onion, potatoes, serrano pepper, ginger, curry leaves, cilantro, turmeric, salt, asafoetida, mustard seeds, cayenne, urad dal

slice the potatoes in half (or quarters)

cook the potatoes in water, turmeric, and salt

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Recipe: individual beef wellingtons

Well, we pulled Kaweah out of retirement one last time to choose two winners for the Helliemae’s Caramel giveaway. We let her choose the numbers earlier in the week. When I set up the treats and numbers, she seemed very interested and so we figured it would be familiar to her.

waiting to pick the first number

Because Kaweah is mostly deaf, we shout at her like she doesn’t understand English. Her release word has always been “raspberry” which meant “look for anything edible in your doggie vicinity and put.it.in.your.mouth!” But when we shouted “raspberry”, she looked confused. Kaweah walked up to the coffee table and regarded all ten of the treats. Her typical modus operandi was to make a beeline for a random treat, suck it down, and proceed to the next three before we could stop her. Instead, she considered the five closest to her nose going back and forth and back and forth.

then she looked at me and wagged her tail because she didn’t know what to do

She’s not a good girl, but she is a sweet girl. One thing Kaweah never did was take food off a table without permission. Except she couldn’t hear permission anymore. And she’s never been the sharpest tack in the box. So we shouted encouragement like “treat!” or “go get it!” and pointed at the treats. It took a long time before she finally ate one… reluctantly. We think she thought she was being a bad girl taking food off the table.

there’s a number 8

and then it was back to confusion

Eventually, we wrangled 6 numbers out of her (two 3-digit numbers). For trying her darndest, we gave her the remaining nine treats (she liked that). Thanks to all of you who not only entered, but shared such touching or funny stories and recollections of loved ones and the food associated with those special people. You all are great! Now on to the winners…

The numbers are: 883 and 148. 883 mod 282 (the number of entries) = 37.

Comment #37 is Twila and comment #148 is Ruthann!

Congratulations Twila and Ruthann! I shall email you shortly for mailing addresses. ***Ruthann, your email bounced. Please contact me via email (see the “about” section for my contact info).*** Thanks again to everyone and especially to Ellen (love you, girlfriend!) for making this giveaway possible. If you can’t bear the thought of forging ahead without tasting Helliemae’s Caramels (or gifting them to someone you love or even just like), you can order them directly from Helliemae’s online.

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I didn’t used to visit the butcher’s counter at Whole Foods regularly until a few months ago. Each week I swing by and see what cut of lean beef is on sale and buy a little bit – for Kaweah. If we’re heading to Crested Butte, I’ll buy extra and freeze it to take with us. One day when I was getting Kaweah’s beef fix, I decided to also pick some up for Jeremy. Well, really for both of us. And when I say both of us, I mean all of us because I wanted to try (and blog) individual Beef Wellingtons.

parsley, eggs, olive oil, pepper, salt, pâté, shallots, garlic, mushrooms, puff pastry, beef tenderloin (not pictured: butter)

My only prior attempt at Beef Wellington was in graduate school. Jeremy was out of town observing at a telescope and I had a bunch of my geology grad pals over for dinner. Back in the day, whenever we hosted friends for dinner, we always asked them to bring a chair – because we didn’t have enough. I honestly don’t remember how the food turned out because it was so nice to just unwind with friends. Everyone loved it, but we were all poor starving graduate students, so of course we loved it. I have a feeling my culinary skills have improved since those days.

season the steaks with salt

and pepper

sear the steaks 1-2 minutes each side

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