use real butter

Recipe: pistachio rose shortbread cookies

This year, our town of Nederland decided to have a giant picnic instead of the annual Fourth of July fireworks. So we decided to get to Crested Butte a week ahead of my wildflower shoot to catch their fireworks. My parents came along to visit us as they’ve never been to the town and they wanted to see our new place. They are terrible at hiding their emotions, so I was rather pleased when they kept exclaiming how much they love the house, how much they love Crested Butte, and how much they are enjoying themselves. Sadly, it looks like the fire bans across Colorado counties caught up to us here too. The usual fireworks at the base of the mountain were canceled. But it’s okay, because the flowers are quite good already.

arrowleaf balsamroot

lupine

scarlet gilia

Wild roses are also peaking in the mountains and several bushes were gracing our yard with an incredible fragrance last week. I happened to be researching a recipe for a rose shortbread when a light bulb went off in my head. Recipes that call for rose petals always instruct you to source organic unsprayed roses. That’s because you don’t really want all of those chemicals in your food. The wild roses in my yard are chemical free and the flavor is more intense than any commercial rose.

my wild roses

My pal, Wendy, told me that roses have cooling properties. That makes them particularly wonderful in summer. However, I also love the floral essence that roses impart to food. Ever since I bought that bottle of rosewater, I’ve been looking for other things to make with it. I found a lovely recipe on Julia Usher’s site. She offers an alternative to rosewater, which is to infuse the sugars and butter with rose petals. I met her halfway and infused the sugars, but still used the rosewater.

a cup of wild roses, granulated sugar, confectioner’s sugar

half cup of rose petals in each bowl of sugar

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Recipe: banana peanut butter pupsicles

We’re back home in Nederland and it’s been ass hot here on the Front Range. Not only has it been ass hot, but pine pollen season is in full swing. We haven’t had any rain to wash away the pollen such that when the winds blow, giant clouds of thick yellow blegh go swirling into the air for miles. So of course the windows stay closed during the day and the house just gets plain old angry hot (or perhaps that’s me?).

i bet this fox was running for the nearest stream to cool off

Kaweah’s susceptibility to the heat has increased with her old age. After seeing how much she enjoyed the scoop dog frozen treat in Crested Butte, I decided to make some at home for her. I didn’t want to make it dairy-based as we try to keep her dairy intake to a minimum because it gives her gas. So I went with my favorite non-dairy ice cream recipe: single ingredient ice cream. The ice cream base is made entirely of bananas, which she loves, and I added some other goodies to sweeten the deal for her.

ripe bananas, peanut butter, bacon, carrot

slice the bananas

place them in a vessel and freeze them

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Recipe: garlic shrimp pesto pasta with roasted tomatoes

There is still good snow in the backcountry despite the warm temperatures. It’s the intersection of spring and summer which means we did the bike-hike-ski on Sunday. Throw your skis on your pack, hop on your bike and ride in as far as you can (basically up to the snow). Then you can either hoof it by foot or by ski into the high country depending on how strong the snowpack is. If you wind up postholing and cussing a lot, then put the skis and skins on. Ski the (safe) slopes to your heart’s content then ski out until you hit mixed terrain. Put the skis on the pack and hike to the bike. Ride on out. In June. Awesome.

the snow was firm enough for walking

alpine lakes starting to thaw

breaking for lunch

jeremy skiing out

and you end the day with sunset like this

that tranforms into rosy hues in minutes

After a long day of (fun) exertion and exposure to the elements, I’m lucky if I can find the energy to dial for take out. But this past week I threw together a pasta dish on a lark that Jeremy loved so much he asked if we could have it again. It’s relatively easy to make, so we had it for dinner.

olive oil, pepper, fettuccine, pesto, salt, garlic, butter, tomatoes, shrimp

prep the tomatoes for roasting with some olive oil, salt, and pepper

roasted

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