Under a Red Roof

Making It

March 20, 2020 in Cooking + Baking by Colleen | Permalink

A left-handed mug from a potter in New Mexico, whose name I have long forgotten. I say left-handed because, if you’ll note the curve on the bottom when the handle is on the left and the flat side opposite. I, a lefty (explains a bit, eh?), never noticed it, and was puzzled (and even chuckled) every time a righty used it and spilled drink on him or herself. Then a friend (Hi Brooke!!) put two and two together. It’s pretty much MY mug now, though I do explain and give the option to guests.

How are you feeling? Healthy, I sincerely hope. I am well, with a mild case of paranoia. Is the scratch in my throat COVID-19? Wait, I just sneezed or sniffled or dry-coughed or whatever. No, seriously. Is this IT?

So we are drinking steaming beverages in fine mugs (see above), for comfort and joy. If we’ve got it, we’ve got it. Though it’s been a full week since making contact with another human, besides yards away on Juniper jaunts, and quite literally spraying mail & packages with disinfectant, rendering me hopeful. That said, some people are asymptomatic for 10-14 days. So there’s still time for this bugger to make itself known. Ugh.

What to do in the meantime? Cook and eat, of course! Pray. For every single one of us. Every chance I get. Sweat out my anxiety with a morning workout plus the aforementioned twice daily Juniper jaunt. Read magazines, books, blogs, a cereal box. Watch movies and home shows and whatever strikes our fancy on HBO and PBS and Netflix (more on that later). Put NPR on for the essentials and turn off before becoming demoralized. Find great solace in music. All kinds. Yesterday we went Texas style with a jammin’ ZZ Top (La Grange!!) and Stevie Ray Vaughan (Lenny!!) marathon. Hot damn.

As for the eating, I’ve made: roasted red pepper and tomato soup; jalapeno and cheddar spoonbread served with Boulder breakfast sausage; blueberry coffeecake; walnut and blue cheese crackers; curried cauliflower soup; blue cheese salad dressing atop a lovely tossed salad; peanut butter cup and birthday sprinkle ice cream – complete with cake batter (pasteurized eggs) and frosting! Double hot damn.

I realize I’m full on What I Ate at the moment. Sore-ee, not sorry. It all photographs nicely and our local exterior landscape has been pretty uninspiring, as in brown, very brown. I do see some tufts of greening grass and crocus peeking their heads above ground, and maybe a tulip or two, the eternal hope of spring. So maybe something other than nibbles will grace this space soon.

In the meantime, much love and good health to you and yours.

Six Days

March 4, 2020 in Cooking + Baking, Friendship, Loving by Colleen | Permalink

A new coat for Juniper, in one of my favorite colors (teal!) and with a useless and utterly adorable faux fur hood. I feel sort of lame buying her such things, but our girl’s genetics did not prepare her for our weather, and so I must or watch her shiver.

A couple of Greg’s favorite eats: red chile and chocolate cake! I also tried my hand at pupusas because 1. I never had, and 2. They are filled with cheese. A duh if ever there was. I also like them because they are far easier than homemade corn tortillas. I know my way around the kitchen, but dang, do I have a difficult time keeping them from sticking.

I made his favorites, not just because I love him, which would be enough, but also because my best love had hernia surgery last week. He deserved extra special treatment!

It was a nice role reversal, with me the one waiting and hoping and uttering every little prayer the surgery would be as uncomplicated as the doctor had foreseen. Thankfully, it was.

He was and remains a good patient, utterly silly while the drugs wore off, rejoicing in the complex flavors of ginger ale and saltines (the best ever), wielding them like precious metals, giggling (and grimacing – ouch my tummy hurts!) and making me do the same. It only took a few days before he could walk at his normal pace on our Juniper jaunts, but he’s still got a way to go in terms of pain. Please think good thoughts for him.

Makings for a rhubarb apple crisp on our regularly scheduled dessert day (Sunday). As I peeled the apple in one long go, I thought of how I marveled at adults who could do the same when I was a child, how it seemed so impossible to keep the peeler going, going, going. How lovely it is to learn and grow and mature, the impossible made simple and everyday. Life is a wonder…

Sunday Supper

February 23, 2020 in Cooking + Baking, Gardening + Nature, Inspiring by Colleen | Permalink

Our very orchestrated Sunday supper. If you hadn’t noticed, I really love to cook, but I prefer a big bang for my buck in the kitchen. I don’t generally want to painstakingly create meals that will be gone in minutes.

That being said, I also like a little adventure and own cookbooks galore. Some of the recipes are of the painstaking, slow Sunday Supper ilk. I was feeling a strong pull toward my Teutonic roots and have a glorious German cookbook by Alfons Schuhbeck in need of a little mileage. So, I stuffed chicken breasts with ham and cheddar and topped them with a butter laden sherry wine sauce. The potato salad came from the same book, but it is sadly missing radishes because two grocers were out of them and dried tarragon! What the?

The bright colored salad is the closest I could get without the aforementioned tarragon to a carrot salad we rather enjoy at Uwe’s, one of our favorite local places.

And the cake, oh good grief! It is Christina Tosi’s Apple Pie Cake from Milk. Talk about laborious. So very many steps! Such deliciousness, though. My stars.

Our fab shed dolled up with icicles and wild bee house!

Making Tracks

February 19, 2020 in Cooking + Baking, Eating, Exploring by Colleen | Permalink

Yesterday’s perfect snow globe morning…

I finally felted my acorns! Aren’t they adorable?

Oh, the food I’ve made, as of late. Thank goodness we have a dog to walk and a daily workout routine, or we’d be in serious trouble. We’re currently jamming on Jericho’s Morning Meltdown 100. I’m feeling stronger and stronger.

Back to the eats! I am a massive fan of the library, and especially the cookbook section, checking out some little lovely nearly every visit. I don’t always cook from them, often just wanting to ogle food photos and take an armchair vacation to some beautiful locale.

The Hummus Bling Bling is from Eat. Cook. L.A., seriously the best hummus I’ve ever had. For a loooong time, I couldn’t eat hummus, or any dried bean concoction for that matter, suffering massive intestinal distress. But then I read The Plant Paradox and learned that pressure cooking (for at least 7.5 minutes) destroys the lectins that made me wanna die. So I can eat hummus again, and the Anasazi beans I bought in New Mexico (pictured below). Celebrate good times….

My first time making mole. Boy howdy, what was I waiting for?! It is the stuff of magic. We slathered it on chicken and whisked giant dollops into hot chocolate. Oh, yeah!!

Homemade chile con queso, queso, queso. How do I love thee. With chicharones and Siete (ocho, nueve, diez…) cassava chips, for when I’m not feeling corny.

Spoon bread with a mushroom, sour cream, and parmesan concoction. Also from Eat. Cook. L.A. Mighty-mighty.

I’ve dabbled in bread baking for a long time, mostly turning out the no-knead or some boule variety. They were consistently delicious, but I frequently tired of the massive air bubble directly where I wanted to make a sandwich. So I tried the Italian from America’s Test Kitchen Bread Illistrated. Wow! It’s everything I want in something sandwich and toast-able. Yes, ma’am.

The Italian bread calls for 8 oz of beer. Since I am not much of a beer drinker, and especially not at eight in the a.m., I decided to use the remaining 4 oz to make beer bread as an accompaniment to the Brazilian Coconut Shrimp Soup I was planning for lunch. Delicious!

Here’s the recipe for the soup. So easy! Double or triple, if you like.

1 14 oz can coconut milk

1/2 pound cleaned shrimp

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 jalapeno, diced

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

salt, to taste

Put everything in a saucepan and cook until the shrimp is cooked through, basically to your liking. Take a little taste, add salt until it’s right. Seriously, that’s it. Add a cilantro garnish, if you have it, but it’s lovely without it.

Just cuz I love her…

Nothing Fancy

January 3, 2020 in Celebrating, Cooking + Baking by Colleen | Permalink

Happy 2020! I hope your holiday celebrations were as lively and enjoyable as ours. This was our not-so-fancy Christmas dinner: pan roasted chicken thighs, roasted asparagus, sliced cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy. No pie and lots of movie watching and puzzle making! It was the best day.

Fear not about the pie, however, as we spent Boxing Day with the local cousins (yay!), and our contribution was a ham, homemade fudge (walnut & cranberry pecan), homemade maple cream liqueur (scroll down for the recipe), spiced wine, and a bourbon pecan pie. You know, all the essential food groups.

It was a grand day of eating, chatting, D & D (our party continues to slay), more eating, a little drinking, and watching a couple episodes of The Mandalorian. We are actually in the know on a current event! Ha. That Baby Yoda is adorable.

We were also up late enough with weather fine enough for a midnight stroll (Juniper was ecstatic to be out so late, little cutie) to witness the annual AdAmAn display on top of Pike’s Peak. It only took three years! If you don’t know about it, it’s a group of climbers who endure a freezing hike the two days prior to New Year’s and set off fireworks at the stroke of midnight.

Greg and I are not generally keen on fireworks in a been-there-done-that kind of way, but this display really is something, illuminating the peak in spectacular fashion! Here’s looking forward to next year…

And to yesterday’s lunch – a zucchini, apple, dried cranberry, and feta salad, with a little apple cider vinegar reduction dressing. The tops! All the basic holiday food groups were a bit excessive, so we are doing a much needed reset. The body brims with gratitude.

And if you are any kind of maple fan, you will be grateful for this recipe! Our friend Alex is Canadian and gave us this delicious Maple Cream Liqueur from Cabot Trail. We absolutely love it, but it isn’t available in the United States. Sadly, there isn’t anything quite like it here, and as I scoured the internet for recipes, came up blank. So I did a bit of tinkering and ended up making a version I actually feel is superior. It is SO easy, too.

Maple Cream Liqueur

1 cup pure maple syrup

1 cup gold rum (I like Bacardi), whiskey would also be wonderful

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 teaspoons cocoa powder

Mix maple, your booze of choice, and the cocoa powder in a mixer or with a hand blender until smooth. I tried to do this with a whisk, but the cocoa powder is super finicky and kept floating on top. Add the whipping cream and mix on low just until combined. You don’t want to make it frothy. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and serve over ice or in your favorite cup of coffee. I have no idea how long this keeps because it’s too good to not want to drink. Enjoy!!