use real butter

Recipe: blackberry macarons

What a weekend! We had some pretty crazy (read: extremely high) winds in Colorado Saturday night, clocking as much as 115 mph at Breckenridge. Based on our 6+ years in this house, we gauged it probably gusted to 90 mph here… and this wasn’t even the worst wind storm we’ve experienced. We watched in moderately alarmed curiosity (before the power went out) as the front wall of our great room flexed with each gust. Of course, it would have to be the weekend that my in-laws were visiting, but thankfully the guest room is on the ground floor. Our bedroom is on the third floor and so we endured 8 hours of the Northridge earthquake. Kaweah slept (happily) through the whole thing. Ah well, there’s always a price for paradise.

Aside from the windstorm, we took my ILs into Boulder for some shopping and dining. We enjoyed a beautiful family dinner at The Kitchen one evening and introduced them to The Pinyon and Chef Theo.

the kitchen: rabbit leg confit

the kitchen: alaskan halibut

the kitchen: apple doughnuts

the pinyon: butternut ravioli, brussels sprouts, mushrooms in brown butter sauce

Before the winds went cuckoo, we did have some really beautiful clouds set up over the house last week. Even if I didn’t have some background in atmospheric science, I would still be 100% completely enamored with our Colorado skies. Who needs television?

wave cloud at sunset over my house

still there long after sunset

And now, I’m happy to be home to work on long-term projects and resume a much-needed routine! No more travel or house guests for over a month! All of the local ski hills are either open or opening within the next week. My list of recipes to try is growing almost as fast as the list of things we need to fix and do around our neglected house. Speaking of recipes, I came across these macs that I made earlier this year. Even though blackberry season is over, you can use frozen blackberries for the curd and the buttercream. I find frozen organic blackberries to have decent sweetness and flavor.

sugar + red + blue = purple sugar

whipped whites with purple sugar

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Recipe: paseo cuban roast pork sandwich

I have this thing for sandwiches… but you already knew that! Last year when I was in Seattle for my friends’ wedding, my other friends took me to stand in line at Paseo, home of the best sandwich in the world. With a title like that, it’s only a matter of time before my grubby little hands get a hold of said sandwich.

the cuban roast pork from paseo

That was some sandwich. A juicy, drippy, savory, heady, tangy, spicy mess nestled between toasted bread. It’s one of those deals where you eat it and you have to continue eating it lest you wind up wearing it. Best sandwich in the world? I’m not sure about that. Damn good sandwich? YES. HELL YES. Obviously, the next step was to try to reproduce it myself… I searched online and took a chance on some random recipe because I honestly had little clue where to start.

orange juice, rum, olive oil, salt, pepper, limes, garlic, oregano, pork shoulder

mince the garlic and oregano; juice the lime

The recipe called for mango juice and orange juice, but I live in the sticks. There was no mango juice to be had, so I doubled the orange juice and called it good. The magical pork shoulder is then marinated for at least 3 hours, although overnight is recommended. I went for 24 hours. Why not?

mix the marinade together

place the pork and marinade in the baggy together

When the pork was done soaking, I gave it a pan-sear on each side to brown up some flavor before placing it in a baking dish with the marinade and baked it for a couple of hours. Actually, the recipe has a total baking time of 2+ hours, but I let mine bake for four because the connective tissue just wasn’t breaking down to my liking. I’m picky like that.

pan-seared goodness

braise it

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Recipe: chinese sweet red bean rice balls

a great start to any day

If you’ve been reading this blog for longer than six months, you can probably deduce that it snows here in Colorado. Ever heard of Vail? Breckenridge? Beaver Creek? Right on. For some reason, every stinking time it snows, a local will invariably tweet, “I can’t believe it’s snowing again!” Dear Incredulous Persons of Colorado, it’s going to do that (you know, the snowing thing). That’s why I live here. And we did get a lovely 7 inches of snow on our deck overnight. On days when there is fresh snow and NO wind, you’d best get out there into the wild blue awesome pronto because it just doesn’t get better than that.

it was snowing and sunny at the same time

jeremy looks toward mount audubon

time to peel off the skins and head down

from 10,600+ feet

But it *did* get better. We have a good friend visiting from out of town on business. When Aaron’s work was done, we joined him in the afternoon to do a little exploring around downtown Boulder. We grabbed some nibbles at happy hour, then visited Boxcar Coffee to kill a little time before moving on to The Pinyon for an excellent dinner. I finally tried the Pnyn Burger and now I have a crush on it. Kaweah was overjoyed when she discovered we had brought home yet another house guest.

serving up cowboy coffee

jeremy’s latte

the pinyon makes a damn fine burger

Our weather created a little excitement for Aaron seeing as he lives in mono-seasonal Southern California (okay, okay – they really do have TWO seasons). We’re hitting 11°F overnight and all of our trees are blanketed in white as if they had forgotten to take off their Halloween costumes. My food cravings are strongly coupled with the weather. As you can imagine, all I can think of are stews and soups. But not all of them are savory. My favorite traditional Chinese dessert is a boiled pillow of mochi dough filled with sweet red bean paste.

sweet rice flour, red bean paste, brown sugar, ginger

i actually prefer this glutinous rice flour

Grandma knew it was my favorite and she made these sweet rice balls from time to time when I was a little kid. I’d come home from pre-school or kindergarten, change into my play clothes, and then sit on the counter next to her while she worked the dough into these bite-sized pastries. I’d sneak a little sweet red bean paste. Sometimes we were silent while she worked and I watched. Other times we talked about silly things that were important to a 4-year old. Then I’d forget about the sweet rice balls after: lunch, our walk around the neighborhood together, my nap, Kris coming home from elementary school, and dinner with the whole family. I’d forget until Grandma brought out these steaming bowls of sweet soup with soft white rice balls floating in them. I preferred the red bean paste filling. Kris liked the black sesame paste filling. Grandma made both.

mix the flour and water together

the dough should be silky and not sticky

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