Last Sunday, my friend Karen over at Savory Table threw a lovely party for our friend Yvette, Muy Bueno Cookbook, in celebration of her recently published cookbook. Lots of local bloggers were there along with an impressive array of food. We brought our cookbooks for Yvette to sign and enjoyed a lovely afternoon of friendship and celebration.
Why don’t you join the party through our photos.
Larry and Bev, our blogging friends from Tennessee, have been threatening to head to the Wild West for over a year now, and their long awaited visit finally became reality. Their 4,000 mile journey included a stop to the Denver area and I must say, it was a pleasure to finally meet “the breakfast king” in person, his lovely wife Bev and dogs Sweetie Pie and Coco. And just as I imagined, a fun, gracious and lovely bunch they were. We truly felt as if we had known them as close friends for years.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. And what a perfect way to celebrate was to be invited to tour the Blue Bell Ice Cream plant here in Denver. Barb over at Creative Culinary, Karen at Savoury Table and I were pampered with a private tasting of products along with an education about the company which was founded in Brenham, Texas in 1907.
Chicago Hot Dog Sauce in a bottle. My friend Rob over at Sticky Brand Sauces has done it again. This time he’s brought us an invention called ChiDawgo Sauce. Packed inside this bottle you’ll find every single ingredient to turn your hot dog into that famous Chicago-style flavor. Pickled sport peppers, yellow mustard, onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, dill pickle; tomato, and celery salt. But wait, what about the poppy seed bun? Aside from having to purchase truck load quantities from restaurant suppliers, we can’t find them here in Denver. So Rob has even added the poppy seeds into this bottle of bliss. Devilishly clever if you ask me!
I love a Parade…
And the crowd went wild with appreciation when the fire trucks drove by…
Wishing everyone lots of hot dogs, hamburgers, pasta salads and watermelon
So Proud To Be An American
We’ve been doing a little “branding” here on The Ranch. As you can see, I’ve got a whole new look and feel.
I’ll certainly miss my bright vivid orange and green Mango leaf design, but let’s face it, I’m not sitting around on a beach overlooking the ocean in Hawaii sucking down umbrella’d cocktails while snacking on ceviche.
The fact of the matter is, I live in Colorado. I’m sitting around in Highlands Ranch, with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop. We snack on meat and potatoes and suck down sip red wine. Even though it’s not officially a “Ranch”, the land our town sits on was in fact once a large working cattle ranch…that was long before Denver urban sprawl claimed the land.
We live close to the Historic Highlands Ranch Mansion which once headquartered prominent Denver families and complete with windmills, barns, and bunkers provided a compound to run a working cattle ranch. You might remember, this very house was featured in the television mini-series “Centennial”, a story about pioneers heading west and settling along the Front Range of Colorado. If you’re interested you can read about our History at this web site. Or here.
I’ve renamed my blog “Cooking…On the Ranch”. The URL www.highlansranchfoodie.com remains the same.
This is a slice of dry-cured hot Italian sausage, dripping in a marshmallow cream sauce. Sweet, spicy, salty, chewy, sticky…a surprisingly delicious experience. Made by North Denver Sausage Company.
How much do you know about REAL dry-cured sausage? For one, it’s famously difficult to make, one salumiere called it “the pinnacle of the art of meat” And it’s increasingly hard to find. A field trip this past weekend to North Denver Sausage left me “encased” in new knowledge about an old fashioned process. Let’s take a look.
Weber Gas Grill
February 4, 2012, 7:46 a.m.
Highlands Ranch, CO
26 inches and still snowing
I think we’ll cook indoors today…soup anyone?
For the holiday, I smuggled a car load of groceries across the state line and cooked Thanksgiving dinner in Kansas for my family. We were there for five days and not once did I open my laptop nor grab my camera to snap a single photo. I regret not taking any photos, but please follow along via some older images.
The Lime Truck preparing Sriracha Lime Remoulade
On Saturday, Kirsten from My Kitchen In The Rockies, Karen from Eat Drink and Wash Up and yours truly headed into the city to chase after a battalion of Food Trucks that rolled into Denver for a leg of prime time Food Network’s series, The Great Food Truck Race.
The Great Food Truck Race is a Food Network series where seven teams representing some of the country’s best food trucks hit the road to cook their way across America. Each week the teams that sell the most food race on to the next episode. The losing team drives home. In the end one food truck will remain and the team behind the wheel and the grill of that truck will win the grand prize.