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Recipe: crunchy kale salad

Our evening walks with Kaweah are getting later and later because we try to avoid taking her out when the sun is still up. She overheats easily. Thankfully, as soon as the sun drops low, the air begins to cool quickly in the mountains. You can feel the delicious streams of cool air flowing around your ankles as you hike the neighborhood trails. Wildflowers are full speed ahead and the once new spring-green aspen leaves have turned to a soothing deep, dark green.

the blur is kaweah’s wagging tail

indian paintbrush and yarrow

happily taking a rest in a field of clover

I reached down to give Kaweah a pat on the ribs as we left the trail to return to the house. Her fur was cool to the touch. She was clearly happy, lazily wagging her tail as she sniffed every.single.plant on the side of the road. I pressed my palm to my arm and was delighted that my skin felt COLD.

c’mon, let’s go!

well, there’s always time for a belly rub

Thank goodness for the evening cooldowns around here, or else I would have lost my marbles back in April. We’ve been on a busy rotation of salads because the last thing I want in summer is to cook and then eat a hot, heavy meal. I want fresh, crunchy, green things! This means I’m always on the lookout for something new. When my pal, Denise, and I checked out the Native Foods Boulder soft opening in late May, we ordered strategically so we could get as big a sampling of the menu as possible. Native Foods is a popular vegan restaurant, not because it is vegan, but because they serve some great food. That said, I am not a fan of faux meats or faux cheeses (faux food isn’t my thing). But, I absolutely fell in love with their crunchy kale salad and immediately went home and made it for Jeremy.

all you need: kale and cabbages

avocado, apple, almonds, and black currants

tahini, orange juice, maple syrup, olive oil, (not pictured: salt, lemon juice)

The salad is chock full of healthy goodies and unlike lettuce, it doesn’t wilt much if you make a large batch to enjoy over the course of a few days. That’s because it has hearty greens like kale and cabbage. The rest of the ingredients are either neutral or sweet. If you are seeking a tangy, salty salad – this is not it. But it’s a fantastic, hearty salad that is satisfying without being overly heavy.

trim the kale leaves from the stalks

shred the kale

add shredded cabbage to the bowl

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: vietnamese bun bo xao

Stormy weather. I love it! I like watching the clouds roil overhead as they blot out the sun. Usually, I’m on the lookout for lightning, because it’s one of those elusive, dangerous, exciting, and beautiful things – both to capture with my camera and to witness with my eyes. However, I’m never one to pass up a good show of mammatus clouds. They’re more common down on the Great Plains (Boulder/Denver and parts east) where atmospheric instability is pretty common in summer. Mammata are common up here in the mountains too, but they don’t get a chance to develop as much nor are they as long-lived as they are down on the flats. But we’ve been getting some stormy days and nice displays.

gone in seconds

dissipating mammata and a nice vertical draft over the continental divide

and right over my hizouse!!

Some of you might be aware that I’ve been doing a lot of sandwich research of late. A LOT of sandwich research. Last week I asked some gal pals if they wanted to grab non-sandwich fare for lunch… I had a hankering for Vietnamese food – particularly the rice noodle salad. And so we did and it was great, but… how hard can it be to make this at home? Not that hard at all, it turns out.

bun (bún): rice noodles

I did a little snooping about on the interwebs and found this lovely video (with Aussie accents – bonus!) on how to make Vietnamese bun bo xao (beef noodle stir-fry). When I went to Asian Seafood Market in Boulder, I asked Maria if the rice vermicelli package was the right one to make bun. She grimaced and said, “That too skinny!” and snatched the package from my hand, disappeared down the aisles, and returned with the right kind – a thicker rice noodle. “Use this for bun!” So don’t get the skinniest vermicelli, but rather the noodles that look about 1/16th of an inch in diameter (reference a ruler if you don’t know what I’m talking about because super skinny noodles will kinda suck).

While I was digging around among the bags of herbs in the back of the store, I happened upon what looked like Vietnamese mint. I didn’t know for sure though, because the video was the first I had ever heard of it. I brought it to Maria and asked if this was Vietnamese mint. She smiled and said yes, she likes to use it in salads and soups. She opened the bag and tore a leaf off for me to smell. “You put this with noodles!”

(left to right) basil, mint, vietnamese mint, thai basil

vietnamese mint up close

I know that Pacific Ocean Market (in Broomfield) and H Mart (in Aurora) carry fresh perilla – which is also called sesame leaves or shiso leaves – but I didn’t have the time to drive out that far. I asked Maria if she had shiso leaves. A sharp “no!” was the response. Then I asked if it was okay for me to substitute basil for shiso in the bun bo xao. She squinted her eyes at me and said yes, use basil – why would you use shiso? Great, I was all set.

sliced beef, bean sprouts, herbs, cucumbers, lemongrass, garlic, onion, rice noodles, fish sauce

minced lemongrass, sliced onion, minced garlic, sprouts, sliced cukes, beef (flank steak)

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: thai shrimp salad

Oh hai! Yours truly popped up on the Scientific American blog last week in a little interview. Thank you, Claire Cusick, for the interview. It was great fun!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m utterly disgusted with Spring. It’s bad enough that we suffered the driest March on record (i.e. no awesome spring snowstorm tracks), but that April thinks it’s May, short-changing us another month of proper spring storms. Much in the way undergraduates are far too eager to bare all at the slightest sign of Spring, so too the flower blossoms down in Boulder.

lilacs

magnolia

crab apple (?) blossoms

We were supposed to get a big dump this weekend – an upslope event dropping up to a couple of feet on my head. I could hardly contain my excitement. Then Friday, the meteorologists were all “ix nay on the snowfall totals”. We went from expecting 2 feet to maybe getting 3 inches, if we were lucky. I guess we were lucky, because Saturday night the snow really started to come down, right around dinner time.

jeremy grillin’ and chillin’

But it wasn’t meant to be. We planned on a ski tour and wound up hiking instead. Familiar patches of dirt, mud, and forest understory looked like gaping holes in a ratty blanket of snow. I guess this is it. And even though I truly love all of the seasons, I’m a tad miffed at Summer for being such a pushy stupidhead. There, I said it.

snowing on us, but barely any snow underfoot

I can deal with summer, I just don’t want to deal with summer for half of the year. If that were the case, I’d still be living in Southern California with its seasons: hot and hotter. Before this itty bitty storm, we had a string of warm, sunny days. I know most people outside of Colorado think “snow” when they think of Colorado, but that’s only half of the awesome. Colorado gets 300 days of sunshine a year. That’s a lot. That’s why Colorado kicks your state in the ‘nads. Ha ha ha! I’m kidding! Okay, not really. But warm weather makes me crave fruit, slushies, sandwiches, sushi, and salads.

salad: shrimp, red onion, shallots, mint, cilantro, sprouts, lettuce, lemon grass, cucumber, carrots

dressing: lime, garlic, ginger, thai bird chiles, sugar, fish sauce

We recently revamped my office with some new IKEA furniture. [Hellooooo hip organization with cute Swedish names!] During my reorganization, I found an old recipe notebook and began flipping through the pages. Most of the recipes are archived here on use real butter, but this Thai shrimp salad never made it. I had to fix that…

pouring lime juice into the saucepan to make the dressing

chop the vegetables and herbs

**Jump for more butter**