The Glass Onion, And I Do Love It!

I spent last week visiting the work folks in Charleston. Let me tell you, Charleston is a huge foodie place. Either that, or they all flock to work at the same company I do! My coworkers know all the great spots in town.

This is why I didn't even try to figure out places to eat. I don't know my way around Charleston and I figured I'd rely on the experts to recommend meals. Funny thing was, they all suggested Glass Onion for lunch one afternoon and then felt bad that I'd eaten there three times on my training trip.

Oh, man. You can't ever feel bad about eating at the Glass Onion. There's a reason I ate there three times and it's more than just the fact that it was convenient to the hotel : )

In fact, I'm friends with them on Facebook and check their website frequently to see if I can try and recreate dishes here in Colorado. I need Glass Onion love every once in a while (psst, they post recipes on their blog).

So far, I've had the Country Captain, the Crispy Braised Pork Belly with Grits and Greens (my first taste of greens and they were amazing!), the Crispy Pork (a different dish from the pork belly) with Grits and Local Beets, and one of their fish entrees that came with green beans and oyster mushrooms. And that's just the main dishes! I've also had their bibb wedge with homemade buttermilk dressing, the fries with bearnaise sauce, the best pickles ever, boatloads of their sweet tea, and some kind of amazing pie my first night there last December that was heaven in a slice.

Glass Onion is a local favorite in Charleston and they've been praised far and wide. I'm glad my HP folks brought me there again. I'd happily go stuff my face at the Onion every time I return to town, too!

I don't have any pics, but you'll have to trust me that this place is freaking fabulous!

Cake and pie. Oh, my!

I've been terribly bad about updating this blog. Truth is, though I've been cooking, I've been distracted. Life seems to be going back to normal now that the wedding is over. My friend took some great pics at the wedding, including some shots of the wedding cake and the groom's pies from the fabulous Shamane over at Shamane's Bake Shoppe in Boulder.

Mike, a total pie fanatic, was super excited about the prospect of having his favorite pastry in place of a traditional groom's cake. He ended up choosing cherry, apple, and maple pecan. I didn't get to have any at the reception, but the folks at Spice of Life sent us home with leftovers (awesome!).

Our cake was chocolate candied orange on the bottom (with buttercream and chocolate ganache -- if I'm not mistaken) and the top two tiers were citron raspberry (lemon curd and raspberry with white cake). Sooo awesome!

We made it home with the top of the cake and Shamane's actually gives you a cake for your anniversary, so we won't need to freeze the top. Instead, we had champagne and cake yesterday and vegged out with some Fringe.

Everything turned out amazing and I think (I hope) everyone had as great a time as Mike and I did.

Grilled Pizza

We've been playing with pizza lately. I'm a total pizza junkie, by the way, and while delivery is convenient, it gets pricey.

Our first pizza making attempt was actually to replicate one from back home. I miss Deano's and Bisbano's! Anyway, the one I'd been feigning for that particular week was a spicy shrimp pizza -- no one puts shrimp on pizza out here, and if they do, it's not in the combination that we used to get back home -- so we made it ourselves. And it turned out pretty good.

But last night we decided to try grilled pizza. My aunt sent me a dough recipe for grilling and it might be my imagination, but I think it was slightly different than the dough we'd used for our shrimp pizza. I could be wrong, but it seemed less doughy. You can see that we still used one of those foil grill sheets, just in case. (Regular dough recipe came from Food Network Magazine's pizza insert a few months back. The recipe can be found here. I can't find the grilled dough recipe, but suspect that decreasing the water slightly will work to get the same result with any standard pizza dough.)

I rolled mine out really thin -- Mike made his a little thicker, but the crust charred on the bottom, so for grilling, thin seems to be the better way to go. We then topped the pizzas on the foil sheets to make for easier transport to the grill. With the burners on low and the lid down, it took about 5 minutes or so to cook.

All in all, I think our dough needs a little adjustment. The pizza kind of tasted like frozen grocery store pizza and I think adding some flavor to the dough itself may fix that a bit. We've also yet to come up with a sauce recipe so that could be a reason as well. Another note is that while the dough did cook through, I prefer my toppings a bit more cooked than five minutes allowed. Any longer, though, and you end up with blackened crust. Remember to go thin!

Next step in my homemade pizza making process will be making my own giardienara since I've discovered that it's pretty amazing on pizza!

And if you want to add shrimp Deano's style: Buy 1 lb of peeled, deveined popcorn or slightly larger shrimp -- you won't need the whole pound, but you can use the rest on a salad or something. Boil in Zatarain's Crab Boil (comes in a small concentrate bottle -- follow bottle instructions carefully!).

For shrimp pizza, I like pepperoni, onion, spicy Italian sausage, and bell pepper. For regular pizza, I love fresh jalapeno with pepperoni and/or pineapple. But hey, it's pizza! You can do whatever you want with it! I would also recommend trying chicken cooked in crab boil. That would be fantastic on a pizza as well.

Carrot Hummus

Last fall, Mike and I ate at a local restaurant that boasted a vegetarian/non vegetarian menu. The idea was that there were entrees that were totally vegetarian (or even vegan) that you could have as is, or you could add a protein to. I thought it was a really great concept, especially since Mike and I are not vegetarian but have friends who are. That particular night, we also had friends who kept Kosher eating with us (not a lot of acceptable restaurants once you throw both those aspects into the mix, although Boulder is better than other places).

The restaurant, sadly, closed not long after we ate there -- and I didn't even have a chance to go back and try to figure out some of the dishes I wanted to replicate in my kitchen. We ordered an appetizer of various spreads with cheese, veggies, and breads. The restaurant also had a house dip that they served as well. I had thought that there were two variations of hummus, but now I'm not so sure. I do know that they served a carrot hummus that had a distinct cumin flavor.

Having never made hummus on my own, and with great local brands at the stores here, there's really no need to, but I thought that the carrot hummus would have to be my first shot. I found this recipe at a fat free vegan blog and set it aside.

Today, with my sparkly new engagement ring, my various OTC beauty products in hopes of avoiding more expensive actual procedures (teeth whitening!), and very aware that both Mike and I need to eat better (i.e. less cream and cheese!) so that I can lose some weight before trying on wedding dresses, I whipped out the carrot hummus recipe for a healthy attempt at lunch.

Now, the two major changes I made to the recipe were these:

No fresh ginger -- not a bit of it on hand

Cumin, cumin, cumin!

In the end, after fighting with a blender and a magic bullet to get the smooth hummus texture I wanted (note there is no oil in this recipe -- I have a sneaking suspicion that might have helped the blending situation, but not my waistline. I added more lemon and a bit more water to try and help the fight in the end), I spread the mixture over some whole wheat bread, cut up a tomato, added some lettuce and mozzarella and made a hopefully lowfat and healthy sandwich that will tide me over 'til supper.

What that meal will be, I'm not sure. But I can tell you it will include butternut squash and chicken breasts!

Pasta Salad

I'm a big fan of the idea of pasta salad, but somehow they never seem to deliver. The best I've had is actually a smoked mozzarella pasta salad at Whole Foods. Last night, feeling guilty over my usual cream and cheese laden dishes that have obviously added some heft to both Mike and me -- and with a wedding and a honeymoon to start considering -- I decided we needed something with more veggies for dinner on our first night back.

But I was stumped, until I started leafing through the latest Food Network Magazine and came across the Roasted-Pepper Pasta Salad. I did make some slight changes to it, though, with my pantry options that were available. The recipe called for toasted almonds and bocconcini. I didn't actually have bocconcini, but did have some mozzarella we'd bought for pizza last week. I also added some roasted onions to the mix and substituted farfalle for the mezzi rigatoni.

The combination of roasted garlic and lemon makes a really flavorful "sauce" for the pasta -- one of the biggest complains I usually have. I also loved the roasted peppers. Roasted peppers are so great! I always see the pros roasting them right over the gas flame on the oven ranges on tv. I did try that once and it kind of failed. Oven roasting is super easy, though. It's pretty hard to screw them up. You can use them in dishes like this or you can blend them into heavy cream and cream cheese for a great sauce -- and there I go with the cream and the cheese again!

Ah well. We'll see what kitchen adventures I can cook up over the coming months in order to try and get us into shape. I'm thinking pork roast this evening but not sure what I'll do with it just yet.

The Denver Scene -- The Walnut Room

A couple of weeks ago, I found out that one of my new favorite bands, Nico Vega (new to me as of last summer - check them out and I dare you not to love them) was coming to Denver to play a show. I'd missed them the first time around and was not going to miss them this time.

So I bought tickets and waited. In the meantime, I thought I'd check out some stuff about the venue. It's called The Walnut Room and by their website, I wasn't quite clear on what kind of place this was. They advertise pizza. The receipt said that I could redeem it for a free pitcher with an order. And they have a separate pizzeria on Broadway. I was confused? Mike and I both kind of hoped that we'd be able to get dinner there, though, since the site did seem to indicate that food was served at both locations.

The music venue is located at 3131 Walnut St in Denver. After driving in circles around the place, we finally found it. Something of a gem in the middle of old industrial buildings. I can see where this part of town might be experiencing an overhaul. We had a parking place, though (always a plus), and the venue was really nice.

It's a really nice place. You walk in and there's a bar and a narrow seating area. There's a big patio outside. And there's a roped off sealed room that we couldn't see until the "doors opened" for the show. So we headed out to the patio and hoped it wouldn't rain before we finished eating. Mike ordered a beer and we got the Walnut Room's "Famous" Cheese Pesto Bread and a pizza.

I'm something of a pizza addict. I could eat it a couple of times a week (that way I can have traditional red sauce and pepperoni one night and something different another). We finally settled on The Spicy Hirsch -- Italian sausage and giardiniera. I have to say that this was one of the best pizzas I've had in a while. We polished off the whole thing between the two of us just before the show started. The Cheese Pesto Bread (garlic bread with romano and mozzarella, drizzled with pesto and served with marinara) was pretty awesome as well. I'll have to experiment and make some on my own one day.

When they opened the doors for the show, there was a whole separate room in the place! There were tables and a second bar (so you didn't have to leave the show to get your drinks). It was small and intimate, but that was fine for the show we were seeing.

I would definitely recommend checking out their calendar and seeing if something interests you. The ticket prices are really reasonable (Mike and I got dinner and a show for the price of a fancy restaurant meal).

I really want to go back and I think I'll have to check out their pizzeria soon to try another one of their famous pies! If you go, though, I highly recommend the Spicy Hirsch!

Are You Watching The Cooking Channel?

Have you checked out the new Cooking Channel yet today? I have. I have to say that I'm already a fan. I mean, of course I would be, right?

So far I've watched Chinese Food Made Easy with Ching-He Huang and French Food at Home with Laura Calder. I'm planning on checking out at least one episode of Rachel Allen's Bake as well.

Much as I'd love to park it in front of the tv all day and watch cooking shows, I don't think it'd be all that productive of me, so I'll be checking it out throughout the day and have already bookmarked the blog and the official website (for recipes!).

Alrighty. Hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day. Get out there and cook something great and enjoy the nice weather we're having!

Boulder Popcorn

I'm a popcorn fanatic. I have been for quite some time now. In fact, my whole family is pretty much addicted to the stuff and each of us has our own favorite toppings and our own favorite way of making it. I'm going to do a few popcorn posts for you here with some of my favorite methods, but first I have to point you in the direction of a good kernel. No, a great kernel. No, the BEST kernel!

Forget the prebagged microwave stuff, Boulder Popcorn is the only popcorn I make these days. I discovered them at the Boulder Farmers' Market where they set up each Saturday (and possibly Wednesdays, but I haven't been) showing off their red, blue, and yellow kernels and handing out samples of the fluffy popped product. Yum! I buy the stuff three bags at a time. For a normal person this would probably last quite a while. I have to stock up two or three times during the Farmers' Market season, though, to make sure that I have enough to last through the year.

Now you might be asking how I pop the stuff: the microwave, of course. You can do it stovetop (helps if you have a gas range), but I tend to burn it that way or end up with underpopped corn because I'm impatient.

I did have a fabulous microwave popper, but it's so old that you can't buy the required pieces for it anymore so it's pretty much useless. In the midst of my popcorn desperation, though, Mike came through with a microwave popper that Boulder Popcorn actually advertises (and sells) through their site. So I'm good and set right now!

As for the corn itself, Boulder Popcorn offers three varieties: Kailey's Kernels, Cambria Cream, and Ryder's Red. I like the Mayor's Mix, mixed bags of all three. The taste is just out of this world and I promise that if you try it and then go back to the microwave stuff (or the movie theater stuff) you're going to realize just how cheated you've been all these years. Trust me, I go into withdrawal if I have to start buying grocery store brand now. But that's ok, because Boulder Popcorn ships! And at $4.95 a bag, you get quite a bit of popcorn. I pop up about 1/3 a cup at a time and still have a whole bag and a half left of what Mike got me for Christmas. And since it's a fairly low calorie snack (if you leave off toppings) I sometimes eat it 3-4 times a week.

Give them a try if you're a popcorn lover like I am. You really won't regret it. I promise! If you're in the Boulder area, you can even try it yourself and visit their table at the Farmers' Market on Saturdays.

Shrimp and Grits -- My Way!

I spent a year of my working life putting together cookbooks. I know, I know. I am published. It's weird. But they weren't my recipes. They were collections of Bed and Breakfast recipes. I have copies of each one and, typos and all, I kind of love them. They're home cooked recipes from other people, a treasure trove of new dishes to try.

Anyway, while working on Georgia, I got in some recipes for very popular southern dishes, including Shrimp and Grits. We were looking for an appropriate cover shot so I fixed the dish and Mike took some pictures. They never did end up on the cover of the book, but I guess that's ok because I can use them now (and it'll be the best picture of food you probably ever see on this page!).

I made shrimp and grits again the other night and they turned out amazing. This time I put my own twist on it. I started with the New Orleans BBQ shrimp recipe you can find here at Homesick Texan, which is based on the recipe from Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook.

New Orleans BBQ shrimp is amazing, but not what you would typically think of as BBQ shrimp. I've had BBQ shrimp, glazed with BBQ sauce and hot off the grill. This isnt' that. This is shrimp sauteed in a wonderfully yummy Worcestershire and butter based sauce. Perfect for serving over grits in my opinion, though you typically find them shell on with crusty bread (as Homesick Texan says to serve them). Since I changed it quite a bit, here's my recipe:

BBQ Shrimp and Grits

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped (yellow or white is fine)

1 lb small, raw shelled shrimp (size doesn't really matter, I think I used popcorn size)

4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (since we're serving over grits, I wanted it more saucy)

1 1/2 tbsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp cayenne (I used more like 1/2 tsp)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp minced fresh garlic

1/2 of 1 lemon, seeded

1/4 pound unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch slices

Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan or skillet. Saute the onion and bell pepper until beginning to cook through. Add the shrimp, Worcestershire sauce, seasonings, garlic, and juice from the lemon to the pan, tossing the sqeezed lemon in the pan with the shrimp.

Cook, stirring, over high heat until the shrimp begin to turn pink (about 2-3 minutes). Reduce heat to medium-low and add the butter one piece at a time. Stir and allow each piece to melt before adding the next. By the time all of the butter has been incorporated in the sauce, your shrimp should be cooked through.

Serve immediately over grits or with crusty bread. Garnish with chopped green onion and parsley if you like (and sprinkle a little Tony's over the top!)

For the Grits, I cooked two servings on quick-cook grits on the stovetop. Once they were finished, I added two tablespoons of butter, about a teaspoon of pepper, and about a cup of grated Tillamook Garlic White Cheddar cheese, stirring it together until all of the cheese had melted.

Pea Shoots

Hey, there. It's been a while. I have to be honest, it's not that I haven't been cooking so much as I haven't been taking pics. And I'm a terrible photographer so it's with that in mind that I'm not snapping images of every dish I make. Sorry.

The warmer weather may actually be finally coming (it's been eight long months of dreary crappy weather so far and I could really use an indication that summer is not going to pass Colorado by!). We planted seed pods and we'll see if this year we can get anything to grow.

My latest obsession thanks to the produce box are sprouts. I've been getting pea shoots and I have to say they are super yummy. I use them in place of regular salad greens with crab or chicken salad. Amazing.

So far these are the only ones I've been able to find to try, though. Sure I can get alfalfa sprouts, but I want the good stuff. I want microgreens: kale and mustard greens and tiny arugula. I want to try it all! I just can't find it. Until I can track them down or try and grow them myself, I'll be buying pea shoots every opportunity Door to Door Organics gives me.

College Eating

When I was in college I didn't eat well. Not surprising, right? My freshman year I had a meal plan, an exorbitant amount of money spent to buy a plastic credit card to be used at on campus eateries. My choices: the cafeteria (did that once and discovered a bowl of cabbage in place of the iceberg on the sad, sad salad bar and never went back), a deli, pizza, Chick-fil-A, burgers, or the other cafeteria that never had staff but always had prepared sandwiches.

My almost daily lunch those days was a tuna fish sandwich, or tuna stuffed tomato (hello, mercury), cherry Coke (because I was in my Pepsi mode and we didn't have Pepsi on campus), and BBQ chips. Healthy. And knowing that I would never, ever use the thing up, I even bought the largest cokes I could since they cost more. Smart college brain usage.

I did have a mini-fridge in my dorm and a closet shelf stocked with SpaghettiO's with Franks and Campbell's Chicken Noodle for the dorm microwave. I rarely left campus to eat. One problem was limited parking and I was definitely not going to lose my spot.

But I always had whole milk in my fridge and I went home every weekend.

In those days, I'd yet to discover Old Tyme Grocery, the FAMOUS sandwich shop (a shame, too, because I would have eaten it at least once a week), but my dad had introduced me to Cedar Grocery, a Lebanese place walking distance from campus, so that was one healthy highlight.

It was the following year, though, that a place called Gallagher's opened up across from my old dorm. By then I was living off campus and no longer walking distance away. In fact, I had no reason to be on that side of campus anymore. I'm not sure what prompted me to head over there, but I did and man I wish it had been there the year before!

This place was fantastic! Home cooked food and a rotating set of choices that changed every day. Veggie sides and a roll all part of your meal. Plate lunches, man! Plate lunches!

I miss plate lunches so much. Do they not do this outside of Louisiana or is it just Colorado that's missing them? I could go for a Gallagher's plate lunch right now. Ugh. Homesick for plate lunches.

Banana Bread!

My family is big on banana bread. The recipe that we use is from the old Fannie Farmer cookbook, whatever edition my grandmother gave my mom way back when (not my edition. I have the anniversary edition without the expanded recipes.) And you don't mess with the recipe. Sure you can add chocolate chips if you're feeling chocolatey, or pecans if your feeling nutty, but the basic recipe stays the same.

When I moved to Colorado in '05, I'd of course heard about the high altitude baking issues. It took a while before I started to notice them in my own cooking, though. I'm superstitious enough to believe that it didn't really start happening until other people started pointing it out as a possible problem, aghast at the fact that I'd yet to experience the issue in my own kitchen.

Suddenly my cupcakes exploded. my cookies turned into crispy flat messes, and my banana bread turned into this dense, dry thing that barely resembled what I remembered. I miss sea level baking!

Over the weekend, faced with four banana bread ripe bananas, I finally decided to try a new recipe. And I vowed to find a recipe that was different enough from my basic Fannie Farmer one that there was a possibility that it might work (and that I wouldn't feel guilty for abandoning the family favorite). I am happy to announce that I succeeded on both counts!

Ree Drummond over at Pioneer Woman posted what turned out to be the most fantastic banana bread I think I've ever baked up! It stayed nice and moist and tasted phenomenal. I did make some tiny adjustments to the baking soda and baking powder - and thank GOD I did, because it baked up dangerously close to the edge of my Bundt pan as it was - but otherwise it worked perfectly even here in Colorado.

I won't repost the recipe, but you can get it off of Ree's website here. We topped it off with melted butter (of course), but here in the pic that's actually Pine Cone Syrup from Zingerman's (a gift from Dad). Amazing stuff!

Produce Delivery

We did get a delivery on Thursday, I just neglected to post. Sleep stuff. Work stuff. Stuff stuff. It's been an interesting week.

So our latest box contained:

1 avocado (already used in crab salad

Beets with tops (roasted the beets for our Moroccan dinner the other night, still have the greens)

Celery

3 cucumbers (made mango salsa topped cucumber snack one afternoon and used another in our cous cous with the Moroccan dish)

1 green leaf lettuce

1 pound yellow onions

5 bananas

4 Bartlett pears (have used some in Waldorf salads)

3 tomatoes (used them all up in Moroccan dish and cous cous)

4 Gala apples (used some in Waldorf salads)

1 local pea green sprouts (I'm in love with these! We ate them like salad greens, mine with crab)

4 Valencia oranges

So we're doing pretty good on using up this box. My Moroccan feast that I mentioned needs some work -- it was a fish tagine that was ok. I think my choice of fish was the wrong one. The dish really needed a mild fish without much flavor of its own. The veggies with the dish turned out pretty well, though, and I loved using my tagine.

Savory Spice Shop Gets FoodTV Show!

One of my favorite local shops is getting their very own show on FoodTV and it starts tomorrow!

I was stoked to see Savory Spice Shop on Road Tasted With the Neelys just after they opened their Boulder location. In fact, I knew they were coming to town, but didn't even know the store had opened yet. I made my first trip that weekend and came home with loads of stuff. I even sent my dad their way and he mail ordered stuff all the way in Louisiana.

'Cause they rock.

So of course I was super excited to hear that they were getting their own show in Food Network. And since I'm planning to tune in, I figure all of you should know ahead of time so you can as well (all of you, are there any of you out there?).

Anywho, Spice and Easy premieres tomorrow morning (April 24) at 9:30 ET (that's 7:30 for us Mountain folks and 8:30 for my Louisiana friends). Check it out and then head over to the shop (they have a great website you can order from) and buy some stuff! Coincidentally, I'll be using their Harissa powder tonight in my Moroccan supper.

Kale Chips

I view each new produce delivery as a new sort of adventure. I've made limited use of the substitutions, only omitting zucchini (though that worked against me) and the occasional item I haven't yet used up from the previous delivery.

Last week I arranged for an extra delivery -- extra meaning a delivery in our off week. Due to a computer glitch, we ended up with two boxes. There is an abundance of produce in the house right now. Here's what we ended up with:

2 bunches broccoli

2 bunches carrots

1 leek

4 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes

2 mangoes

3 naval oranges

2 romaine lettuce

2 bunches spinach

8 Braeburn apples

2 avocado

6 bananas

8 Danjou pears

2 pints strawberries

1 pound zucchini

1 green chard

And I still had a few items including some fruit and kale from the previous deliver. Plus, Mike's been cooped up at home with tight deadlines. It's been a little strange here lately.

The greens are one item that I'm really not used to cooking or eating. I had some fantastic collards in Sough Carolina and did try to mimic that recipe with little success (I'll keep trying). So far, my favorite thing to do with the greens is saute them with sausage -- just basic Hillshire Farms Polish sausage.

I've been seeing the recipe for kale chips floating around and decide I had to give it a shot when a friend of ours mentioned that she was itching to try it. During our conversation, we both said that we loved to check out Smitten Kitchen for new recipes. Lo and behold, not a few days later, SK posted a recipe for Baked Kale Chips.

Today, with the fridge literally bursting with green leafy veggies, I decided it was time to try kale chips. Um, can I just say that these things are incredible. I had my doubts. Kale chips. As I was tasting my third one, I told Mike I didn't think I'd ever sit down with a bowl of kale chips and dip and replace them for potato chips. Then I ate the rest of the pan!

I followed SK's recipe pretty closely, except for the oil. I'm a bit olive oil nut (thanks, Dad). I'm thinking that this recipe has possibilities far beyond plain grocery store extra virgin. For this batch, I used Olivar de Luna, which I originally purchased at Oliv You & Me in Boulder. I've since seen it at Whole Foods, though. I'm dying for Oliv to get more Merula in stock. I think that would be an excellent oil to use on these chips since it's got a nice, surprisingly spicy bite at the end.

Another variation I'm going to try next time I get kale in is Round Pond's Blood Orange Olive Oil.

So here's my slight variation on Smitten Kitchen's Baked Kale Chips

1 bunch kale (I did use a curly variety)

1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (use a good one)

Sea salt

Preheat oven to 300. Cut the stalk from the center of the kale leaves and then tear or cut into chip sized pieces. Toss half the kale with 3/4 tbsp olive oil and spread over a parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt, to taste -- watch this, I found my first batch to be a bit too salty even for me, and there wasn't much there at all. Bake 20 minutes.

When the kale is done (crispy like a chip) remove from oven and repeat with the remaining half batch.

I dare you not to eat a whole pan by yourself.

Childhood Chili

Throughout my life, I've noticed a strange series of coincidences that sometimes lead me to believe that maybe there is a reason for everything. I don't know.

My brother is a picky eater. Most of us grow out of it with age, I certainly did, but he's still a picky eater. When we were little, there was a tiny little chili stand near our house and this was one of the only things my brother would eat. We all loved the chili. It was fantastic.

Strangely enough, back in those days, my best friend was a neighborhood boy who was one year older than me. When I was five, we moved away, across town and to a new school district. Years later -- seventh grade to be exact -- a new girl moved to town. This girl would become one of my best friends. Turns out, my best friend from that old neighborhood was her cousin. And the chili stand that sadly had closed down long ago, was run by her grandmother and her aunt.

Coincidences!

I've been begging her for that chili recipe for years and she finally shared. Yesterday, I decided it was chili weather, and it was that recipe that I reached for. I started it at noon and by 5:30 the smell in the house was mouthwatering.

Now, I've had many different chilis throughout the year. I even have a whole cookbook of chili variations now. This particular recipe (a play off of my friend's) is the variety I remember from childhood, ground beef and sauce with a thick layer of red grease floating on top. This is Frito pie chili. This is hearty, even the pickiest little boy will eat it smothered in cheese chili. Here's how I made it:

Chili

2 tbsp butter

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound ground beef (I used a chili cut from a local butcher -- probably higher fat)

Chili mix*

Tony's, to taste

1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes

1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce

3 cups water

2 beef bouillon cubes

1 (11.5 ounce) can spicy V-8

Melt the butter in a large, heavy bottom pot (I used my Le Crueset). Drop in the onion and garlic and sweat for just a minute or two. Add in the ground beef and cook until browned. Sprinkle with chili mix and stir to combine. Season with Tony's!Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, and bouillon cubes. Allow to come to a boil before reducing heat. Simmer, covered, for a LONG time. As long as you like, actually. I had all day, so I left it all day.

You'll want to check it occasionally and stir it around to make sure that your liquid isn't cooking off too quickly. I added the V-8 at this point because my liquid had cooked off quite a bit and I wanted something spicier than just tomato sauce. Adjust seasonings as needed, note that the beef bouillon is salty so you might want to go lighter on the salt (in the chili mix below) and the Tony's as a result, or you can cut it with additional water or tomato sauce. The longer you cook this, the thicker it will be.

Serve with Fritos and top with any variation of the following:

Shredded cheddar cheese

Chopped red onion

Sliced jalapenos (pickled)

Sour Cream

Avocado -- yes, that's right, avocado. I love it!

*The recipe called for mixed chili seasoning packets. I didn't actually have any so I made up my own. You can play with this and change it up as you like:

My on the fly chili mix:

1 1/2 tbsp Chili powder

1 tsp Ancho chile powder

2 tbsp Cumin

1 tsp Salt

1 1/2 tsp Cayenne

Pinch garlic powder

Pinch onion powder

Now if I can just figure out Dennis's vegetarian chili at Cafe Foods, I'll be a happy girl!

Hazel Dell Mushrooms

Just one of the many vendors at our Boulder Farmers' Market is the Hazel Dell Mushroom Farm, located in nearby Loveland.

I tend to increase my ingredient list one item at a time and mushrooms are a recent and growing addition. When I was doing my training in Charleston, I ate frequently at The Glass Onion and one of their dishes was a local fish with green beans and oyster mushrooms. Those mushrooms were by far one of the most amazing things I have ever tasted. Sure, I've had mushrooms, but these were meaty and flavorful and all around wonderful!

But I've been having trouble finding them for myself. I did run across some dried at Whole Foods, but I knew the mushroom man at the Farmers' Market would be my best shot.

Finally, victory! They were cheap and abundant and I came home with a whole bag of oysters mixed with shiitakes on Saturday. We ate some of them sauteed in butter and white wine, garlic, and parsley and served over this fantastic local spinach (also an FM purchase).

I still have some left and am trying to figure out how I'm going to cook them next. I'm thinking Hazel Dell will see a lot of me this Farmers' Market season!

Culinary School of the Rockies Bake Sale

Saturday was not only the opening day of the Boulder Farmers' Market, it was also the Culinary School of the Rockies Bake Sale day. I arrived shortly after 12 to find they were already selling out of things! Not to fear, they were constantly baking and restocking items.

Most of what I made it home with was eaten before the day was out. Oh my GOD! I got some truly amazing pastries and cookies. You'll have to satisfy yourself with the picture of the remainders. Sorry, I can't share the actual cookies. They're too good.

They had fresh breads, brioche, fruit tarts, Easter cupcakes, Easter egg cake pops, fleur de sel caramels (salted caramel, so good!), strawberry French macarons, traditional coconut macaroons (monstrously sized, I might add), meringues, alfajores (the most spectacularly buttery sandwich cookie with ooey gooey caramel in the center), marshmallows, and much, much more. It was a bake sale to die for!

Farmers' Markets

It's Farmers' Market season here in Colorado and such a relief. I love the Farmers' Markets. I think it comes from trips to the different ones back home. Any fruit or veggie stand, truck selling watermelons, and tamale stand (inside joke) that we passed as kids was a guaranteed family stop. As I got older I continued the trend.

When I was in college, I was lucky enough to be in a town that had a devoted farmers' market shop year round. It was set up with an indoor outdoor location so tarps were set down on cold afternoons, and you kind of had to get there on produce delivery day -- the day before produce delivery day was the worst for selection, obviously. They also had a section of locally made pickles, jams, and everything else you can imagine. I miss it.

So when farmers' market season hits here in Colorado, I get super excited. There's a bevy of them to choose from and if you plan it right, you can probably do just about all of your shopping this way, just by hitting the various markets throughout the week.

Here are a few dates and locations in my immediate area, for those who are interested, and I'll be posting some more about my opening weekend trip throughout this week.

Boulder Farmer's Market: 13th Street between Arapahoe and Canyon -- Saturdays, April 3 - November 6 -- Wednesdays, May 5 - October 6

Longmont Farmers' Market: Boulder County Fairgrounds -- Saturdays, May 1 - October 30

Louisville Farmers' Market: Walnut and Front Streets at Steinbaugh Pavilion -- Saturdays, June 5 - October 18

Lafayette Farmers' Market: Festival Plaza -- Thursdays 4pm - dusk (can't find exact dates just yet)

For more, you can also check the Colorado Farmers' Market Association page here.

Latest Delivery

Produce box came yesterday and here's what was inside:

Avocado

Baby carrots

Yams

Cucumber

Fennel

Garlic

Kale

Bananas

Green Bell Peppers

Strawberries

Fuji Apples

Mangoes

Red Leaf Lettuce

Now with the bevy of good stuff I'm hoping to bring home from the Farmers' Market tomorrow, we'll be stocked up for the next few weeks and eating healthy-ish!

Produce Box Recap

It's Thursday and that means a new produce delivery here! Yay! I thought I'd take a look at how the previous box ended up being used, since I know I haven't been posting every meal here. And I'm curious to see it all written out.

Avocado -- chopped salad with imitation crab

Carrots -- chopped salads, noodle stir fry

Red Onions -- with spinach, pork chops with potatoes, and with rainbow chard

2 Eggplant -- eggplant ricotta crostini, caponata, and pasta with eggplant puree sauce

Rainbow Chard -- side dish with pork chops and potatoes

Yukon Gold Potatoes -- pork chops and potatoes

Bananas -- eaten as is

Murcott Tangerines -- eaten as is

Braeburn Apples -- with peanut butter

Romaine Lettuce -- chopped salads

Spinach -- braised with chicken and served over saffron rice

Valencia Oranges -- eaten as is

Not too shabby, but I think I can do better.

Salad Days

The sun is out and the temps are getting warm enough (on certain days) for me to turn off the heater. Yay! It's a sign that winter is finally ending.

I have food issues during the winter. I love food. All the time. But for some reason when the snow is falling, I get this urge to consume everything edible in the house. Inevitably, I get the craving for salad, but it's hard to get excited about salad when it's freezing cold outside.

Spring and summer mean going back to lighter meals for me and being ok about it! Yay, again!

I'm a big fan of salads. I could eat salad all the time as long as I have a variety of things to put on it. I poach salad ideas from everywhere and love to find new recipes. Plus, with my winter overeating, it's definitely necessary to get into some low-cal/healthy eating habits. Salads are kind of happy food, too. I mean, they make me happy.

My parents can attest to the fact that as a kid salad bars were always a favorite of mine. But the salads usually took the form of ranch soup, drowning in so much dressing all of the nutritional value was trumped by the buttermilk concoction. I like a well dressed salad, but I've gotten much better. I've also gleaned some salad dressing tips and tricks from cookbooks and restaurants (prepare your salad in a BIG bowl that you can toss it in and then you can use less dressing).

I haven't gotten over my need for lots of cheese in the salads, though. Love the cheese.

Anywho, I'm going to try and post some of my favorite salad links here for you. Sometimes it's easier to follow a recipe than to try and get inspired by your fridge leftovers and pantry staples.

Here's a super easy one for grilling season (and it has an AMAZING flavor that you just wouldn't believe). It's Sam Zien's recipe for Grilled Hearts of Romaine. Easy and tasty (and there's video instructions with it).

Enjoy!

Treppeda's

Saturday evening, we had the extreme pleasure of eating out at Niwot's Treppeda's with Mike's friends from The Cove. Niwot is a tiny little town just north of Boulder -- I actually worked in the area for about a year (less because the office relocated there partway through my employment), so I knew the area but not this particular restaurant.

It's like a little piece of Italian elegance hidden out there!

We started the evening at the bar with appetizers and drinks. There was an olive and smoked meat tray, bruschetta and marinated tomatoes, fresh bread from a local bakery, and calamari with made to order marinara.

Joe, one of The Cove posse told us that all of the ingredients are organic and they can tell you where everything comes from. This movement has definitely hit the Boulder eating scene hard and is a concern for some folks -- seeing as how all of these guys worked on a film about ocean preservation and pollution (essentially) it is important to them to know where the seafood comes from (there's an ap for that!).

After catching up and hanging out, we eventually moved on to our table (this restaurant is tiny folks so I would plan on getting there early or plan on partaking of the wine menu at the bar while you wait).

I had the Risotta Capesante e Zucca -- risotto with butternut squash and scallops. It was to die for. Creamy and sweet with three giant scallops resting in the center. Yum! Mike had the duck. I'm not normally a duck fan, but this was amazing.

Sorry no pics for you guys. I'm working on my photography skills -- I'm not sure the effort will be worth it since I've been a pretty sad case with a camera all my life (I used to decapitate people in pics regularly, when they were standing still. Go figure!).

Anyway, if you're in the Boulder/Niwot area, I'd definitely suggest checking out this place. It's intimate and the food is great. And on the Saturday that we were there, there was live music as well.

Crostini Weekend!

Crostini, if you haven't had them (and I bet you have) are little toasted pieces of bread topped with yummy goodness. Really, you can make them with just about anything you have on hand. They make great snacks, appetizers, or, in our case tonight, dinner.

Yesterday I baked up my second loaf of No Knead Bread (you might recall the first loaf, posted here). This time around, I went for roasted garlic and Asiago cheese. I followed the basic instructions and let the dough sit overnight. The following morning, I roasted a whole bulb of garlic. I then added the freshly roasted cloves to the risen dough (I just pressed them into the loaf). Then I sprinkled grated Asiago over the whole thing and plopped it into my heated Le Crueset to bake. 45 minutes later, Mike ventured downstairs for a taste of the fresh baked loaf.

I'll admit, since we were planning on eating out with Mike's Cove friends, I'd planned on wrapping the loaf for tonight (still working on my timing so I have a fresh loaf with my meals). But since I couldn't let him have first bite without diving in myself, I made a half batch of the Walnut Pesto recipe posted by Smitten Kitchen here.

This was my first time trying the pesto and it was fantastic! We sliced up a little bit of a leftover brie wheel to go along with it and had a tasty and elegant snack. This particular bread method results in a really crusty bread that I find is perfect for crostini. Trust me, we'll be doing this again as a fairly inexpensive appetizer when we have company.

Tonight, I'm continuing the crostini trend with Anne Burrell's recipe for Grilled Eggplant and Ricotta Crostini (using one of the eggplants from my produce delivery). I'm also going to attempt my first Caponata (our friend's mom makes a great one -- I don't have her recipe yet, so I'm playing with one I found this week. We'll see how it turns out.) I'm hoping it'll be a bit of a lighter meal considering how much I've indulged lately (more posts on that to come!).

Produce Delivery

Yesterday was Produce Delivery Day! Yay! Here's what we got:

Avocado

Carrots

Red Onions

Eggplant

Rainbow Chard

Yukon Gold Potatoes

Banana

Murcott Tangerines

Braeburn Apples

Romaine Lettuce

Spinach

Valencia Oranges

I already have some things I'm thinking about making with this stuff. I'm totally loving eggplant right now. I have a crostini recipe that I may try (started a loaf of no-knead bread today for this). I'll keep you posted.

I did some interesting things with last week's box as well. The fruit we usually just eat. The beets got roasted for salads. I also made quite a few chopped salads this week (more on that later). The avocados went into salad and on these yummy burgers Mike made (mine had Pig Stand on it -- yum!). And then the spinach and the leeks both got turned into creamy dishes. I haven't perfected the creamed spinach, but if I can find a link for the leeks, I'll share it with you in a few days.

Lentil Soup

I mentioned that I was making my lentil soup the other night since it was so nasty out: soup warms my soul, and my toes. It makes me happy : )

Mike is always complaining that he can't stand certain food items. Inevitably, they'll be items that I'm experimenting with or am currently in love with. He always says he doesn't like lentils and then when he sits down with a bowl of my soup, he has to admit that mine are ok (and then he goes back for seconds).

Lentils are yummy. Embrace them! I love getting lentil soup at the Indian buffet and the Moroccan restaurant. I've made a lentil and italian sausage soup that is to die for. But my favorite is lentil vegetable soup.

I buy these big bags of red lentils (or whatever color they have at the time) at the Pacific Ocean Market -- cheap!-- or from the bins at Whole Foods. One bag is good for at least 4 pots of soup, depending on how much I'm making. We had company Sunday so I used up 2 cups, but for just me and Mike, 1 cup gives us leftovers for the week.

So without further adieu, my lentil soup recipe (and it's really kind of versatile, so feel free to play).

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

2 celery sticks, chopped

2-3 medium carrots, chopped

1 can diced tomatoes

1 cup lentils

4-5 cups chicken broth

2 bay leaves

Thyme

Salt and pepper

Heat your olive oil in a big, heavy-bottomed soup pot. Add in your onion and garlic and saute until tender (you don't want to burn your garlic so you can wait until the onion is almost cooked through to add it if you prefer). Next add your celery and carrots. I let them cook in the oil for just a couple of minutes to get them started, but you don't really need to. Add your tomatoes (just a standard sized can), lentils, broth, and bay leaves and season with thyme, salt, and pepper. Bring the soup to a boil and then lower heat. Cover and simmer until the lentils are cooked through (I let mine go for an hour, usually, but it probably takes less time than that).

Serve with crusty bread. You can also add a dollop of sour cream to your bowl, if you like.

Piece of Mind Cost Me $18

Baking can be great fun or great frustration in my kitchen. On a good day, I can zip through a few recipes no big deal, happy as a clam and full of dough and batter. On a bad day, I cuss like a freaking sailor. Yesterday was a cussing day.

It was in part rainy and snowy, making for an exhausting drag-yourself-around-the-house-like-a-zombie day; it was really hard to get out of bed even after a full night's sleep.

So I decided it was a soup day. And you need bread with soup. Need it. But the only thing I really had time to make was a quick bread. I've been meaning to try and replicate these scones I had at this little coffee shop in Charleston, and have been looking for a test recipe. They were sun-dried tomato and basil scones. And there was cheese in there, too, but I can't recall what kind.

The recipe I found called for dried basil rather than fresh (note to self: try fresh next time around) and grated Asiago cheese (I think either a milder cheese like mozzarella or a full-blown Cheddar would be better).

I mixed everything according to standard scone instructions (and another note: make sure you choose a bowl big enough to work your hands around in. I think I bruised up my knuckles using one that was too small. Mixing scones any other way than with your hands really doesn't work.) and rolled the dough into a round. I usually prefer to make drop scones, but the recipe was for a round so I followed instructions.

I preheated my oven and baked the things at the maximum time. When I pulled them out, I thought they looked a bit undercooked but told myself it was just the cheese melting. Nope. After they cooled and I pulled them apart, it was clear that the scones were half raw inside.

So I heated the oven and popped them back in.

Meanwhile, I had also made my first batch of cheese biscuits (crackers more than biscuits, really) and wasn't very happy with how they came out. They had the right consistency but pretty much fell apart when I tried to remove them from my very greased baking sheet.

At this point, you can imagine I was getting pretty annoyed. For a while now, I've been questioning whether our oven is heating to the correct temperature. Yesterday proved to be my breaking point. I decided that if it the oven was in fact running off temperature, it might be a big part of the frustration with these recipes. So, out of extreme exasperation, I finally broke down and found an oven thermometer at WilliamsSonoma.com, called the store to confirm they carried it, and drove over there to pick it up.

$19.52 later (that's with tax), I discovered that the oven I was using has indeed been heating to about 25 degrees lower than the setting. Good to know! I doubt our landlord will pay to have the ovens calibrated, but at least now I know how to set the freaking thing so that I can bake correctly.

Personally, I think it was money well spent. In reality, I guess I don't have to use the thing more than twice here, but it'll certainly come in handy if we move.

And the scones did finally bake and my subsequent cheese biscuit batches came out much better. So after all that I had a yummy snack and bread to go along with my soup (which thankfully proved not to be frustrating at all).

If you're interested, here's the thermometer I bought. Pretty inexpensive and it clips right to the oven rack.

Bread!

Ever since I read Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In, I've been dying to try the No Knead Bread method that came out in 2006. Here's the NY Times article that started it all. I'm likening it to the slow-cooker method. You know, you put all of your ingredients in the slow cooker, leave to go to work and when you come home you have dinner ready. That's a bit what this bread method is like.

First, you have to plan a day ahead of time to make it. I started mine around lunchtime with the intention of having it baked and ready for dinner the following evening (I had made some semi-clam chowder and we had at least one leftover meal left out of it).

It really couldn't have been easier. I mixed my bread, salt, and yeast and then added the water per the instructions. I also tossed in a couple of teaspoons of fresh chopped rosemary. I then wrapped the bowl in plastic wrap and left it.

Now, I think that although my recipe worked, I have a sneaking suspicion that my kitchen is way too cold to actually allow the chemicals to all work their magic. I found a tip online where the person heats her oven to 350 for one minute and then turns it off, placing the bread into the warmed oven to rise.

The instructions for the following day are to roll the dough into a ball and leave under a towel to rise for two hours. I left mine for an hour and a half with no real results. The tip did say that eventually even bread left in a cold kitchen will rise, but I stuck mine in the oven for 30 min and then proceeded with the baking instructions and it worked fine.

After plopping the dough into the hot Crueset pot, I sprinkled about 1/4-1/2 cup flaked Parmesan over the top. And voila! 45 minutes later we had bread.

Mike walked in the door about 30 minutes after that and promptly ate half the loaf. We had more with the soup and it was fantastic!

So here's my recipe adapted from the NY Times adaptation:

Rosemary Parmesan No Knead Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons fresh chopped rosemary

1/4-1/2 cup Parmesan flakes

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups (that's 1 cup and 10 tablespoons since my measuring cup didn't have eighths) water and chopped rosemary, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth -- I used plain dinner napkins) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. I sprinkled my Parmesan over the dough at this point, trying to get all of it on the surface of the dough and not the heated pot. Cover the pot with the lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes (I only allowed mine 15 since it was already a bit browned from the melted cheese and I didn't want to burn that), until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

The way I see it, the possibilities with this recipe are endless. I'm going to do some research on how to make sweet loaves (Erway mentioned a couple that were baked in her book), but I'm thinking of doing roasted garlic next -- roasting the garlic and then mixing them in on the second day. Kalamata olives are also a possibility. Man, just thinking about it is making me hungry and I've already come up with a few more to try as well!

Beet Salad

My semi-healthy dinner after the cupcake class: roasted beet salad with blood oranges, red onions, and (here comes the unhealthy part) blue cheese. I then drizzled 2 teaspoons of orange olive oil and 2 teaspoons of sherry vinegar over the whole thing and topped it off with some cracked black pepper. Yum!

Here's my beet roasting method -- you can do as many or as few as you like. Mike doesn't really like the red ones so I actually sometimes do just one at a time if I don't have any yellow ones to share with him:

Preheat oven to 425.

Trim the greens off, leaving about 1-inch of stem attached (or none, I only use them for holding the beets while I peel and cut them later). Save the greens for later -- you can cook them the same as any other greens. I wash them and cut them before storing them in a paper towel lined Ziploc bag or Tupperware container.

Cut any dangling root off the bottom of the beets and then wrap the beets in a foil pouch. Be careful to fold up the ends of the foil securely (you don't want to wrap the beets tightly, but you don't want any of the red beet juice to be able to spill out of your foil or it will make a terrible mess).

Place the pouch on a sheet pan and bake the beets for 1 hour 15 minutes. You want the beets to be soft enough that a knife will slide right in an out.

Let the beets cool for a few minutes and then you can use a paper towel to slide the skin right off.

Slice and serve as you like.

BBQ in Boulder!

Yes it is quite a feat. For some reason, amidst the bevy of restaurant choices we have locally, we've not had much in the way of BBQ restaurants until now. And it's amazing!

As you know, the plan on Sunday was to attend the Oscar party being held in honor of The Cove and Precious. Our understanding was that Mike, as an editor on The Cove, and I, as his plus one, were getting into the party free. We were wrong. The day of, we discovered that the plus ones for The Cove team actually had to buy tickets at the door to attend. Can we say complete communication breakdown? Most of the team was actually in LA, so there were only a very few who could attend and we ended up not going at all.

Sadly, I don't think anyone from the team was actually there when it was announced that The Cove had won the Oscar for Best Documentary.

Anywho, it's not like the dress and shoes can't be used for another occasion. But being broke made it a bit hard to swallow that expense!

We decided that we still wanted to go eat to celebrate. I'd picked up a copy of the latest Denver/Boulder Dining Out guide and noticed that The Rib House, a Longmont BBQ place that I'd been meaning to try for ages, had opened a location in Boulder. Actually, I'm way behind the times because they opened the Boulder location in April of last year. Yikes!

So we celebrated with illegal ribs. Yep, that's what they call them: Tracy's Famous Illegal Ribs. And they are literally fall off the bone, juicy, tender, amazing, yumminess. We also ordered a sampler platter with brisket and pork. The table was literally covered in food (and all for less than the price of my one ticket to hobnob with the rich and... rich). We had chipotle potato salad, baked beans, and The Rib House's famous Cheesy Corn bake. Yum!

All of the meats are hickory smoked, long and slow, which gives them a great tender, juiciness -- exactly the way bbq should be -- and all of the sauces are served on the side. We opted for the XXXHot (as they say, tangy hot BBQ) and the Fire, a sweet sauce packed with heat.

I'm not sure the above photo actually conveys the true massiveness of those ribs. My stomach is growling just thinking about them!

To finish it off, we had one of Rib House's huge brownies topped with a cheesecake frosting. And the best part: we came home with leftovers!

I've been told that The Rib House will have live music on Saturdays starting this spring, as well as a beer garden. This is going to be pretty amazing considering they're only one block up 13th from the Boulder Farmer's Market location (which starts in April).

Needless to say, The Rib House will be seeing much more of us in the future!

For menus and location information, visit www.theribhouse.com

Produce Delivery

Every other week I get a new box of mixed produce from Door to Door Organics. They're my grocery fairies (sorry guys, is there a more manly word I could use here? The delivery person is always a guy.).

Signing up for the delivery has helped me to get a little more creative in the kitchen and I'm hoping it'll eventually help my diet as well.

I have to admit here that I am not the healthiest person out there. Don't expect any sort of diet friendly trends on this blog. Inevitably, even if I have weeks where I have posts regarding seemingly healthy eating habits in my house, there will be chips, tons of butter, and real olive oil hiding in there somewhere, even if I don't tell you about it.

I have tried to lose weight. And have been successful at it. It's clear to me that I can't actually be trusted to make my own food decisions, though, because after I got off of the stringent eat-what-we-tell-you-for-each-meal diet plan, I gained the weight back. Seeing as how realistically I can't spend a lifetime on a diet like this (some folks can and more power to you, I just don't have the mental capabilities to do it long term, nor do I think I can actually do it again), I will have to figure out how to take care of myself at some point. It hasn't happened just yet.

But I think my produce delivery is a step in the right direction for me. I've definitely worked to incorporate each of the delivered items into our meals so that I'm not wasting anything, which means that we're eating a wider variety of fruits and veggies now. And it's really fun.

Here's what came in Thursday's delivery:

Avocado

Beets with tops

Celery

Red onions

Baby bunched carrots

Cucumber

Leeks

Romaine lettuce

Blood Oranges

Brauburn apples

Spinach

Bananas

Gold nugget tangerines

Roma tomatoes

Cupcakes!

After reading Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In, I was inspired to look up cooking classes in my area. I knew that Williams Sonoma offered various classes, but I had also found various places while working on the cookbooks last year (doing research for a book that never came to fruition).

So I did some googling and found the classes at The Culinary School of the Rockies in Boulder. Lo and behold, they were holding a cupcake class that still had an opening.

Mike and I briefly discussed it and decided that I should go ahead and spend the cash to take the course. After all, one of my biggest complaints out here is the fact that high altitude baking is so difficult. Cupcakes had become my nemesis in the kitchen and I was seriously ready to throw in the cupcake pan and send my cupcake cookbook to my little sister at sea level.

So I was hoping to walk away from this class with a working knowledge of baking adjustments for high altitude. Sadly, it turns out there is no tried and true method that holds for every recipe. It sounds as though it's really trial and error. But, I did come home with a packet of cupcake recipes already adjusted for high altitude and a recommendation for a book that should help with some of the common issues occurring in my kitchen.

And it was fun!

It was a four hour class and we baked seven different kinds of cupcakes. We paired up in teams of two and each made one variation. My team chose a St. Patrick's Day cupcake with Bailey's Irish Cream. There were six recipes, though, and seven teams, so with our instructor's suggestion, we actually made a chocolate raspberry cupcake with raspberry buttercream frosting. And they turned out fantastic. No explosions, no volcanos, no dense hockey pucks. They're cupcakes!

I also came home with at least one of each different cupcake made today, and a ziploc baggie full of my leftover frosting (which is awesome because you really need a stand mixer to make it and I don't have one yet. Holding the hand mixer for the time required to make the meringue and then add all the butter would be exhausting. I'm determined enough to do it at some point, however, until I can get a stand mixer for my kitchen.)

I have to say, this was definitely a fun way to spend a Saturday. Maybe one of these days I can get Mike to attend one of the classes with me.

I'm thinking that the recipes I came home with can be used as a reference for adjusting some of the recipes in the book that I own. And I've already got a variation I want to figure out on my own -- Tres Leches. I've been dying for some!

Fractal Veggies

So I mentioned that I signed up for produce delivery and it really is fantastic. Door to Door Organics delivers all over Colorado and offers bi-weekly or weekly delivery. They also let you choose the size of the box and whether you want all veggies, all fruits, or a combination. They deliver in other areas as well, so if you're interested, I'd definitely recommend checking them out.

I opted for bi-weekly delivery, so I get an email every other week listing the produce that's set for that box. I can go in and make changes according to preference (so if I don't want broccoli one week, I can sub out for something else). You can also set preferences so if you really HATE broccoli, you never have to get it.

I'm a spur of the moment shopper and was buying organic milk from a local dairy at our Whole Foods. But every time I had to go buy a new bottle, I found myself doing some heavy Whole Foods shopping -- good for them but not so good for my budget. I thought that signing up for produce delivery (and milk delivery actually) would help keep me from spending so much money at the store. And it really has. Plus it's helped me to add more fruits and veggies to our meals. I get a different variety every other week and it's made me use some things that I normally wouldn't have purchased for myself.

I'm such a dork that it's like getting a gift every other week. And I love trying to figure out new ways to prepare the stuff that I get. Some of it I've never even tried before, like this funny looking member of the broccoli/cauliflower family.

I didn't find many recipes for romanesco, but seeing as how it's supposed to be so similar to broccoli and cauliflower, I figured the preparation must be the same. Part of me was remiss to actually prepare it since it was so cool looking!

I ended up making smothered pork chops with brown rice, and the romanesco to go alongside.

I cut it up like I would broccoli and steamed it. Since I prefer my broccoli more mushy than crunchy, I figured this would work for the romanesco as well. After I steamed it, I placed it in a baking dish and sprinkled minced garlic over the top with a little fresh lemon juice. I baked the romanesco in a 350 degree oven until the garlic was cooked (I probably should have put the garlic in when I steamed the romanesco, but it was a bit of an afterthought). Then I sprinkled Italian bread crumbs and Parmesan over the top and turned up the broiler for about 5-10 minutes to brown the bread crumbs and melt the Parmesan.

The romanesco was a bit sweeter than broccoli. Given the choice, I'd definitely try it again. Not really sure when I'll come across it again, though. It definitely lightened up the smothered pork chop dinner.