use real butter

I live in a snowglobe! It’s snowing beautiful, white flakes outside right now and for once - for once it’s falling vertically instead of flying past on its way to Kansas. Lovely. Really lovely.

looking up valley this morning

Folks may be sick of seeing pictures of the weather around here, but for me, weather is an integral part of nature and I love it - love to read it, study it, feel it. Weather is beautiful to me. If you don’t understand and respect the weather, you really have no business climbing in the mountains.

good on ya, cali!
California’s Supreme Court just declared a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Thank you! It is not an issue of gay rights, but civil rights.

Recovery is slow this time around, but I’m staying patient (this is rare). Thoughts of sushi and berries and salads flit around in my mind nearly 24/7. I am having trouble eating solid foods at the moment, but I know it will pass and I have a list of new restaurants I want to try as soon as it does! I’m craving authentic Asian food, which means I will probably have to venture into Denver. *sigh* Any favorite recommendations from the locals? The operative word here is authentic.

I made a habit of bringing baked goods to oncology each time I got chemo’d (except the first time). It’s a cheery set up for what is to most, a depressing situation: a giant room with huge windows and all of the infusion stations lined up along the walls - facing the center. In the middle of the room is the nurses’ station which is open and inviting. All of the nurses are situated at their computers to face us because they need to make sure we don’t keel over and die :) There was a communal kitchenesque area where folks could go to grab a snack, coffee, tea, etc. I had brought chocolate chip banana bread, sour cream coffee cake, raspberry cream cheese cookies, and lemon petits fours.

butter, sugar, eggs - that’s a good start

For my last chemo, I wanted to bring something chocolaty because (most) people love chocolate and I really adore my nurses - one is a tele skier! Something with chocolate… Something with sour cream… Something rich and moist…

i cannae resist a cake recipe that calls for sour cream

I had a hard time finding a recipe that fit the bill and received rave reviews to boot. I ended up trying one from a book that contains my favorite tea cake recipe. Ideally, I was looking for a rich, dense, moist chocolate bundt cake made with sour cream that has bittersweet overtones without being overly sweet. If you have one of those, send it my way.

the dry ingredients

This cake calls for raspberries to be folded into the batter, which I thought was a nice touch. I think raspberries and chocolate go together like beans and cornbread.

gently folded

into the happy pan we go

Another reason I wanted to try this cake was because it didn’t require layering and complicated frosting. I love making layered cakes, but there are times when you just want a one-pan recipe that comes out beautifully on its own - no cutting, no stacking, no crumb coats.

an easy ganache glaze

simple

I made two of these cakes. The first was to test for edibility and shooting. I made Jeremy try it. He liked it. I gave several slices to my neighbors and they liked it. I sent the rest to Jeremy’s graduate students, and they scraped the cake saver clean. I guess it’s fine, but it didn’t have that dense and rich texture I was seeking. The crumb itself is slightly on the dry side, but the chocolate chips and raspberries give it pockets of moisture. It is chocolaty without being too sweet. I don’t think this is the go-to chocolaty, dense, moist, cake I was looking for. The search goes on…

dotted with chocolate chips and raspberries

Anniversary Chocolate and Raspberry Cake with Chocolate Glaze
modified from Easiest and Best Coffee Cakes and Quick Breads by Renny Darling

1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
2 tsps vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
6 tbsps cocoa
2 tsps baking powder (1/2 tsp for 8500 ft.)
1/2 tsp baking soda (1/4 tsp for 8500 ft.)
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
3/4 cup raspberries

glaze*
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
2 tbsps butter
2 tbsps light corn syrup

Preheat oven to 325F. Cream together butter and sugar until light and creamy. Beat in eggs until blended. Beat in sour cream and vanilla until blended. Combine and add the remaining ingredients (except for the raspberries) and beat until blended. Stir in the raspberries. Spread batter evenly into a greased 10-inch springform pan and bake for about 55 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean from the center. Allow to cool in pan.

Make the glaze: Melt chocolate. Heat butter and corn syrup together until bubbly, and stir into chocolate until blended. Allow to cool for 10 minutes or until slightly thickened. When the cake is cool, remove it from the pan and spread the top and sides with the glaze.

*Jen’s glaze: I didn’t use this glaze recipe. Instead, I heated (don’t boil) 5 ounces of heavy cream and poured it over 5 ounces of chopped chocolate. Let the cream sit for a minute and then stir until smooth and pour over the cake.

At the start of my hapless journey into Cancerland, I received an enormous influx of packages from mostly friends and some family. There were so many that we filled half of a room with cardboard boxes and all of the associated packing material that would make me apeshit on an ordinary day. The packages were awesome - stuffed with food, books, hats, DVDs, cards, handmade crafts, knitting… One of the best things I got was a pair of flannel pajama bottoms from Sam. As soon as they were washed, I put them on and felt the warm fuzzies of being loved, being thought of. Then I felt like complete crap because it was the start of chemo #1. I wore those pj bottoms throughout each miserable start of my chemo rounds because they took away that little bit of suckage for me. I lived in them for about 5 days at a time until I could resume being upright, stand up long enough to shower, and put some pants on. That’s when I knew I was coming out of the Feeling Like Utter Shit Phase.

Well… I got pants on! I can’t say I’m quite over the hump because my condition vs. time resembles a fourth degree polynomial, but the most debilitating symptoms have passed and I only have an infection or two to get through now. It feels good to not feel bad. Which brings me to Barbara’s LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow Event, today - May 13, LiveSTRONG day. I even got off my lazy bum and submitted lemon petits fours last month, so you can certainly hop over to Winos and Foodies for a looksee. There were nearly 200 entries that Barbara rounded up from food bloggers around the world in support of LiveSTRONG day. It’s quite remarkable, as is Barbara. Please do check it out: Part 1, Part 2.

I am actually wearing pants, not shorts, because this is what the Atmosphere delivered to our doorstep this morning:

nothing surprises me anymore

Not quite the weather that puts you in the mood for a cold noodle dish, but that’s what you’re getting because we know Spring will eventually make its way over there, or rather here…

iron-man noodles

These are the noodles I use, because these are the noodles my mom always uses for this recipe. I don’t know why they are called iron-man, but I doubt they have anything to do with the triathlon. I think I’ve also seen them eloquently referred to as flour stick noodles. Ever been to Engrish.com? Hi-larious. Sometimes I love being Chinese.

cukes, eggs, preserved mustard green, carrots, sprouts

I checked a cookbook I have on Chinese noodles to see if this recipe had a name. As I suspected, it resembles all of the cold noodle recipes, yet isn’t any of them. Apparently the Chinese have had a lot of time on their hands to mix and match a bazillion ingredients with cold noodles. It’s not a bad idea, really. It just requires a lot of chopping. My family typically serves the noodles with carrots, cucumber, preserved mustard green, bean sprouts, chicken, and egg.

turn the eggs into egg sheet

The egg sheet made an appearance before in my version of mu shu pork. Beat the eggs in a bowl, pour into a hot, oiled pan. Let cook as one giant egg pancake. Flip once. Remove from heat. Cut into strips.

making the peanut sauce

I use creamy peanut butter for the peanut sauce. One time I only had chunky peanut butter available and I wasn’t a fan of that texture. The trick to the peanut sauce is to add a little bit of boiling water at a time to the peanut butter and patiently stir it in. It separates at first and looks like hell, but it comes together if you stick with it.

adding sesame oil

When the peanut sauce reaches the consistency of your liking (usually something pourable), then you can add the seasonings like sesame oil, soy sauce, and vinegar. I usually set any spicy sauces (like chili-garlic or chili-black bean) on the side for people to add individually.

serve up the chopped ingredients

For a vegetarian version of this dish, replace the chicken breast with dried tofu. It is just as delicious and you get to skip a step (boiling the chicken breasts).

set some noodles in a bowl

When all of the ingredients are ready, each person grabs a handful of noodles to place in their bowl or on their plate. Then they top their noodles with their desired combination of goodies from the Big Bowl/Plate of Goodies. Pour a little (or a lot of) peanut sauce over everything, then mix it up and eat!

a party in my bowl

Chinese Cold Noodles

1 lb. iron man noodles, cooked, drained and cooled
1/2 lb chicken breast, boiled and juilienned
3 eggs, cooked into egg sheet and julienned
2 cups cucumber, julienned
2 cups carrots, shredded
2 cups bean sprouts, washed
1-2 cups preserved mustard green, shredded or julienned
1 cup creamy peanut butter
~1 cup boiling water
sesame oil
soy sauce
red wine vinegar

To make the peanut sauce: Place peanut butter in a medium bowl. Pour 1/4 cup boiling water into the bowl and carefully stir the water into the peanut butter. Continue stirring until incorporated. Add another 1/4 cup of water and repeat until creamy (pourable) consistency is reached. Add 1-2 tbsp sesame oil, 1-2 tbsp soy sauce and 1-2 tbsp of vinegar to taste. Mix well.

Place a mound of noodles in a bowl or on a plate. Top with carrots, cucumber, mustard green, egg, sprouts, and chicken. Pour peanut sauce over the noodles and eat.

I have a small 8-hour window where two of my three anti-nausea meds from yesterday’s chemo are still doing their good things (along with those awesome steroids which end today) and I don’t take the bad delirium-inducing, drugged out of my mind, anti-nausea med until this afternoon… So I am managing to squeeze in another post before all systems go down.

We sent our Mother’s Day packages earlier this week because Jeremy is bad at those things and I tend to plan ahead. I actually dislike just about any holiday that Hallmark shoves down our throats, because my preference is to send random tokens of love on any day, not on some designated Day of Guilt. And tokens they are because both of our mothers can pretty much afford whatever they want (and we generally cannot afford what they want). It would be just as silly for me to endeavor to shop for high-end jewelry for my mother as it would be for her to shop for an avalanche beacon or ice axe for me. I’m not a “I spent this much money on your present” type of person anyway. Gift-giving ought to be personal, from the heart.

This was really brought home to me after Kris passed away, leaving a 4.5 year-old son and a 10-day old baby girl. You can just imagine the presents that poured into that house on every possible occasion from family, friends, and even mere acquaintances. It made us both cringe: all of the extravagant, over-the-top, minimal-attention-span, Wall-Mart toys piling up as if a dump truck had just paid a visit. Ben literally ran from one toy to the next in such a frenzy that he developed little to no personal attachment or value to any of it. I started out making presents for the kids, but my talents are limited and how many hats, blankets, quilts, space-ship and flower pillows can you make before they get old? Eventually in the interest of time and sanity, we started to shop around for gifts - especially after my diagnosis. We wanted to select fun and educational toys to promote creative engineering juices, curiosity about nature, ties to their mother’s Chinese culture, problem solving skills. And of course, each of them has their very own plush black lab toy… a Kaweah. I must admit that we are tempted every time we pass the Mars Rover Lego set - not for the kids, but for us! Obviously, the best gift I could give those kids is the gift of time and attention, but that’s not really possible for a myriad of reasons.

My mom actually yelled at me and Kris anytime we sent gifts. She’s funny that way. She loved what we sent (flowers, whatever), but she hated the thought of us spending money on her. Her instructions were explicit, “Just send me a card and I will be happy.” When I sent her large matted photographs of backcountry wildflowers I had taken, she scolded me for the cost of materials and shipping! But then she delighted in selecting a frame and deciding on where to hang it in their house.

I have to admit that MIL is much easier to select gifts for because she has more hobbies that I can relate to like crafts and baking rather than… one of my mom’s favorites: finances. Oh, but my folks do a ton of entertaining - they are after all, excellent cooks. Ever since their retirement a few years ago it has been non-stop Wine-and-Dine groups, cocktail parties, travel, luncheons, yacht club functions… And they even complain to me about how busy they are! As long as they’re happy - they busted their asses in their prime years for this. So this year I hit upon something that had about a 70% chance of being 1) small enough to pass under the “cost” radar and 2) something she’d never get for herself and 3) delightful enough for her to use.

cute decorative chopsticks

The ones I got for my mom were less flowery and cute, and more elegant like the wood, darker colored, textured chopsticks. I got an email from her this morning (while I was wired from my steroids at 4 am) thanking me for the “adorable” chopsticks with no reprimand. She can’t wait to entertain with them. Score!

And before I let this recipe languish in my archives… This potato salad made a guest appearance alongside the grilled turkey burgers I posted earlier.

i start with yukon gold potatoes

Most potato salads are either mayonnaise-y or vinegar/oily. Jeremy is a fan of neither. Well, there is some (gross) back story to this. My guy has an aversion to mayonnaise and it’s because of his childhood. When he was a youngin’, he would microwave a slice of bologna until it curled into a bowl, fill it with mayonnaise, and it eat. Ewwwwww. I can understand the mayonnaise aversion, can’t you? Adult supervision has its place.

green onions and diced ham

I like to buy a slice or two of 1/2-inch thick smoked ham to dice up for my salad. There are many flavors available and I’m fine with all of them (honey, black forest, smoked, Virginia smoked). I think my favorite is probably country ham - you know, the kind from Virginia that is so salty you get your entire year’s sodium allowance in one serving? Yeah, that one! I’ve never had a chance to try it with the potato salad though…

chop some boiled eggs

dump everything in a big bowl

Back to Jeremy’s mayonnaise-aversion, I found a happy compromise between the two types of salads which also answered my desire to reduce the amount of fat. I use a teensy bit of mayonnaise and sub out the rest with non-fat plain yogurt. The yogurt is tangier, which we both prefer and I like to up that tangy with a dash of vinegar and then salt and pepper to taste.

mix it together

It’s such a simple recipe, but Jeremy loves it and I don’t have to worry as much about the fat-to-my-ass danger when I eat it. Perfect summer-time accompaniment for grilling, burgers, or sandwiches (mmmm, love the sandwiches).

synonymous with summer

Potato Salad

2 lbs yukon gold potatoes
4 eggs, hard-boiled, peeled and chopped
1/2 - 1 cup green onions, minced
1 cup boiled ham, diced
1-2 tbsp mayonnaise (to taste)
1-2 cups non-fat plain yogurt (to taste)
1-2 tsp vinegar, white (to taste)
salt to taste
pepper to taste

*I know, all of the quantities are so hand wavy, but it’s really a matter of your own preference, so start on the low end and add as you see fit.

Set a large pot of water over high heat to boil. Peel the potatoes unless you prefer the skins on (then wash them thoroughly). Cut the potatoes into large bite-size chunks and place them in the boiling pot of water. Cook until potatoes are soft, but not mushy. Drain. Place the potatoes, egg, green onions, and ham in a large mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking. Refrigerate if not serving immediately.