Puttin' Up Preserves

Summer hasn't given up the ghost. Not in Colorado, anyway. The nights are cool and fresh but by four o'clock the mercury is pushing the high nineties. Before autumn rolls in for real, I invited some friends for my 5th annual preserves party. It is always so much fun to cook for people I love, reconnect after hectic summers, and share what we preserved.

I cooked all day and here's what I came up with: white peach and plum prosecco sangria, beet chickpea cakes with tzatziki, cherry tomato crostini with ricotta and basil, triple cream Brie and aged Gouda with plum cardamon conserve and peach jam, Moroccan spiced olives, and blackberry tartlets with vanilla mascarpone cream. My friends brought a bunch of other dishes and we ate like queens.

Look at all this summer bounty! Homegrown lemon squashes, jam from Kathy's jam company Modern Gingham, roasted coffee from Hannah's coffeeshop Copper Door Coffee Roasters, espresso dark chocolate toffee, Thai-spiced pickled carrots, peach-red pepper relish, and my peach marmalade and plum jam. It is so fun to gather up the loot at the end of the night.

I just adore party leftovers--especially this party!

Friday night

School started a few weeks ago for both the boys and me. We have all been exhausted by the time Friday rolls around. In the past few months, cooking has taken a back seat. I still haven't felt 100% like myself, and with low energy and everyday lessons in letting go, dinner is usually Daniel stopping by Trader Joe's on the way home from work. But this weekend I actually felt like cooking. Between two or three rather elaborate meals and an all-day cook-a-thon for the preserves party, I just about did myself in. But I love cooking. I absolutely love it.

One of the best meals of the weekend was our classic Friday night pizza and a movie. I put together my friend Kirstin's yummy kale salad but added rosemary walnuts instead of pine nuts. For the pizza, I made sourdough crust with sliced fingerling potatoes, rosemary, chili, shallots, bacon, and goat cheese (and of course pepperoni for the boys). I've never used my sourdough starter for pizza dough before, but I will definitely do it again. 

Thank goodness for weekends, for a few moments to catch our breath. The kids read for hours. They turn the sandbox into a mud pit. Eventually they start bickering so Daniel hauls out the bikes or we go on a hike. This weekend we went bouldering together at a rock climbing gym and that was really fun. We do chores and repairs and laundry. Maybe we see friends. We go to church--well, not lately, but that's another story. We breathe. We unwind. God created Sabbath for a reason.

Camping in the Collegiate Peaks

When I was a little girl, we had this wonderful series of National Geographic encyclopedia books that my grandmother bought for us. They had titles like Cats: Little Tigers in Your House. That was a favorite. It dovetailed nicely with the whole cat-language creation. The other book I loved was called Camping Adventure. I used to pore over that book, admiring all the photographs of long underwear and compact cooking pots and towering mountains. It had pictures of children toasting marshmallows over an open fire, tall dark trees yawning behind them. They went swimming in icy alpine lakes and hiked wildflower-draped mountains. (I have a feeling the photos were taken in Colorado.) 

At the time, that kind of rugged landscape looked like Mars to me. I don't remember ever camping as a kid. My Dad would crack us up with stories of entire summers spent camping with his family but it was clear he was pretty much over camping by the time he went off to college. (Despite his claims that he detests camping, I think he actually loved our camping road-trip to the Grand Canyon a few years back.)

But back to that book. My favorite photo spread was one of all the camping gear laid out in a neat grid. It thrilled the part of me that loves nature and adventure but it also appealed to my domestic side. I've always loved books that talk about wind-dried laundry or cleaning out cupboards. Nerdy, I know. But there is something so satisfying about admiring a freshly-scrubbed floor or having just the precise thing you need and nothing extra. Camping brings out the organizer and the adventurer in me, and despite my customary melt-down before every camping trip, I do love it.

When our friends Heath and Amanda invited us along on their Labor Day camping trip, we packed up the Pathfinder and hit the road. The Green Kitchen, a hand-me-down from Daniel's parents, is still going strong. It is a dream to take along on camping trips!

We just got this old-timey percolator and it's awesome! By some miracle, our blistered and bruised Coleman stove keeps chugging along.

Five minutes peace: That's about all the Dads got before the kids attacked.

After a delicious lunch (that purple cauliflower!), we set off on a gorgeous hike on the Colorado Trail. Heath got up at the crack of dawn both days to run 15-18 mile legs of the trail. Yes, you heard that right. He RAN 15-18 miles each morning. He is training to run the entire 500-mile Colorado Trail next summer. Amanda is quite the trail runner, too. She sprinted up the mountain while the rest of us took our time and admired the stunning views.



Back at camp, we gobbled some delicious appetizers, and Heath and Amanda checked out the Go-Pro footage of his run.

It would appear Heath is prepared.


Gourmet camping food is the best. Mmm.


The retro popcorn popper was a huge hit.


This is what happens when your child takes the photo.

Amanda made a delicious peach and blackberry camp cake in her new Dutch oven. Everyone loved it.

After biking and hiking all day, the kiddos were exhausted. We bundled them into bed and sat by the crackling fire. The clouds rolled away and there it was, a wash of stars and the Milky Way.

We came home restored.

Fried chicken and biscuits

Behind the scenes of last weekend's supper club, there was a lot of brining, marinating, and pickling going on in our house. For the fried chicken recipe, I turned to Ruth Reichl and Edna Lewis, two of my favorite food writers. Shaking off the anxiety of influence, I tackled biscuits. I've just gone ahead and accepted the fact they'll never turn out as perfect as my mom's. I don't even try to use her recipe. It's a very intuitive affair and I don't have her touch. That said, these cream biscuits are pretty fabulous. They're my go-to biscuit recipe--easy-peasy and very tasty, even if they're not as good as Mom's.

Gourmet Supper Club: Picnic

It was our turn to host and we chose the theme Picnic. It seemed like the perfect party to wind down a busy summer. We headed over to our local park and set up in the shade of these gorgeous trees. Jack and Owen made lemonade for their friends and the grown-ups sipped Pimm's cups. I've always wanted to serve Pimm's at a picnic, English-style. They were delicious, stuffed with mint, oranges, apples and cucumbers. So refreshing. We played badminton and baseball and sat around chatting on blankets. I got my baby fix. We seriously need to do this more often.


On the menu: deviled eggs, a cheese tray with rosemary cashews and balsamic fig jam, watermelon tomato gazpacho, buttermilk fried chicken, dill pickles, cream biscuits, and peach jam. For dessert: peach whisky hand pies. Are you drooling?





So fun!

Peach jam

Summer in Colorado means Palisade peaches. Every time I go to the farmer's market, there's a new round of lush globes piled up and waiting. I love the names: Cresthaven, Elberta, Coralstar, Redhaven. There's even one called Fat Lady (the last harvest of the season). Last week I bought a big box of Cresthavens and hauled out all the jamming equipment. Our kitchen smelled incredible, there was sticky juice everywhere, and just before the fruit flies launched a full-scale invasion, I turned twenty pounds of peaches into 32 jars of jam. It is so incredibly satisfying to go from this...



To this...

And finally this...

One twenty-pound box of peaches = two batches of peach jam and one batch of peach-lemon marmalade. Not to mention a very sticky kitchen. Oh, how I love admiring all my jars crammed with bright sunshiny sweetness, shored up for a drab winter day.

Mom's birthday

We were so excited to have Mom, Dad, and Katie here for the last day of school and Mom's birthday. Mom is the sweetest mom and grandma in the world. She's patient, fun, wise, and kind. Whenever she's around, you'll hear music. Either she's singing a song as she washes the dishes or she's playing some gorgeous piece on the piano. (My neighbors asked who was playing the piano so beautifully.) She brings sunshine and light into every situation. When she's with you, she makes you feel like the most important person in the world. She's a great listener, always sees the best in everyone, and gives wise advice. We are so blessed to have her in our lives!

Happy Birthday, Mom! We love you!