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Recipe: rose water lemonade

When it’s hot in the mountains, I tend to get a little nervous. Hot, dry, and windy conditions are what we fear most in the southwestern US. We’ve been keeping an eye on the wildfires along Colorado’s Front Range, but wherever we are the red flag warnings for high fire danger are going up. To avoid the heat, Jeremy and I have been getting out in the mornings and evenings for runs, rides, and hikes around Crested Butte and holing up in the office during midday where it remains comfortably cool (no air conditioning, it’s just an incredibly well-designed house). Every trail or path or dirt road is lined with wildflowers. They are coming along nicely pretty much everywhere.

northern fairy candelabra – i absolutely love these tiny little flowers

prairie smoke

sunset over mount crested butte

lupine on an evening hike

my favorites are the deep purple lupine

western wallflower

As some of you know, I am obsessed with keeping cool in summer (or any time) because I really dislike the heat. That’s why I like the mountains – because it’s cooler. But even the mountains can get those handful of days when the heat feels unbearable. Typically, I’ll cool down by drinking plenty of ice water, but occasionally I love me a fruity and refreshing drink. Last October, Ellen hosted a girls’ weekend down in Colorado Springs and took us to Uchenna for wonderful Ethiopian fare. I sampled the rose water lemonade and it had a remarkable cooling effect on me. My mind has wandered back to that lovely meal several times since, but I’ve been craving the rose water lemonade with the hotter weather.

rose water and lemons

to make rose water lemonade: sugar, rose water, lemons, pinch of salt

My rose water was in the spice section of my local Whole Foods store. If you can’t source rose water where you are, I’m sure you can order it online. I like to start with a simple syrup because it dissolves all of the sugar and mixes the sweetness more evenly in the lemonade. Do this step ahead of time enough so that it can cool to room temperature (or at least lukewarm) when you mix it with the lemon juice. Also, I juiced four large lemons to get a 1 cup yield of juice. That’s just a guideline, it will vary with lemon size, juiciness, and the efficiency of your juicer.

combine sugar and water to make the simple syrup

fresh-squozen lemon juice

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: green onion buttermilk pancakes

Jeremy and I are back in Crested Butte getting our offices up and running, squaring away various details, and meeting many of our wonderful neighbors (including their pups like Ryder, Meatball, Lilly…). We have settled into the new digs enough to finally get out and do a little exploring this past weekend – both around town and on the trails.

gâteau fab, who tells me she gets lots of inspiration from foodgawker

a busking biologist at the farmers market

cb farmers market opening day

which baked goodies to choose?!

Living in two mountain towns allows us to draw the inevitable comparisons. So many similarities and yet so many differences. Whenever we tell locals that we live in Nederland, they always ask about the Frozen Dead Guy (aka “Grandpa”). Thankfully, Crested Butte doesn’t boast a frozen dead guy (we really don’t need two of them), but she makes up for it in titles like Wildflower Capital of Colorado and the Birthplace of Mountain Biking. Because we’re both such wimps about the heat, we’ve been riding or hiking in the mornings and evenings. The peak bloom should be in another month, but we’ve already witnessed several early bloomers and their green precursors blanketing whole mountainsides. Just the other evening I told Jeremy that I felt like I was witnessing the party planning stages of a giant celebration. Crested Butte is magical at every turn.

false hellebore or corn lily

meadows of green and yellow

crimson columbines (the first i’ve spotted this season)

sundown on lush hillslopes

the lupine are getting ready

And speaking of magical, you need to get in on this wondrous savory pancake. I grew up eating scallion pancakes of the Chinese persuasion, but these scallion pancakes are of the western variety. They are buttermilk pancakes with green onions. The first time I had them was at The Pinyon (which is now closed) – two green onion pancakes tucked under fried chicken with a side of syrup. Now that I can’t get them at The Pinyon, I have to make my own. Challenge accepted!

buttermilk, milk, eggs, butter, baking soda, baking powder, salt, green onions, flour

mix the dry ingredients together

slice the green onions

whisk the wet ingredients together (except the butter)

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Recipe: blueberry jam

We’re just a couple weeks away from summer and everyone I know is busy doing stuff. I can’t keep track of who is where and doing what and when anymore (forget about keeping track on Facebook, the only thing in my feed the past few days has been the Red Wedding). We have been working on so many things around here that the local flora has been popping up like a surprise party.

suprise! gold banner

Last year, when I started on my canning kick, I felt like I was in a frenzy to grab up the local peaches and ripe strawberries and ripe local luscious wonderful tomatoes. But when I said (in my head) that I would like to make some blueberry jam, I found that organic blueberries were prohibitively expensive. At $6 a pint, one batch of jam would cost me $36 for the blueberries alone. Screw that, I said to myself. Besides, I had a hundred pounds of tomatoes to can. No blueberry jam.

My friend, Laura, gave me a heads up on a one-day special at Whole Foods Boulder last Friday: $1.99 per pint of organic blueberries. Hello?! I was in town that day. I bought a case. Weekend project: blueberry jam.

you are mine

six pints of blueberries

all you need: sugar, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg, pectin, and blueberries

The first thing to do is squish the blueberries. I tried mashing them with a heavy meat tenderizer and they sort of went zipping out of the bowl. I set the meat tenderizer down and decided to squash them by hand, one by one. The point is to break the skin so the juices release and come into contact with the sugar otherwise the sugar will be too dry and may burn during the jamming process. It’s a good activity for non-skilled associates (children, spouses, other relations, friends, even strangers), but I don’t recommend asking the dog to help. I found it to be rather therapeutic. Also, my fingers didn’t stain (much) because blueberry guts are almost colorless and the skins didn’t seem to release much of their deep color on my hands.

i’m crushing your head (who remembers that skit?!)

mix the sugar with the crushed berries

zest and juice the lemon while the berries boil

**Jump for more butter**