Limited Provisions at Little House in the Rockies Spells New Recipes

A business conference in Denver earlier in the week put me just an hour and 45 minutes from Little House in the Rockies, so I scooted over here for a few days to enjoy the peace, quiet, mountain views, cool temps and low humidity. There’s an ‘excessive heat’ warning in Houston right now and tomorrow’s heat index is predicted to be 106° (the ‘feels like’ temp), but here at 9,997 feet in Jefferson Colorado, it’s a cool 62° (today’s high), and this morning’s low was 35°. The humidity is 25%. In other words: glorious!

These few days are an R&R retreat for me, with time to read, watch birds, take photos, reflect, recharge and ponder life’s mysteries.

It’s such a gift to come here and become one with the landscape and the quiet. It’s also a time to indulge my penchant for recipe creation.

Limiting My Provisions

I tend to overshop for groceries because I don’t want to be without an essential ingredient, but when you’re solo, that’s a recipe (pun intended) for waste. So I was very restrained when I stopped at the Safeway on the way out to the mountains and limited my provisions to just a few. I posted it in the Glover Gardens Facebook (please follow if you don’t already!):

Here’s what I bought: smoked salmon, a cucumber, a peach, grape tomatoes, arugula, crackers, and avocado, a red onion, two banana, bananas, an apple, a jalapeño, pickles, oat milk, coffee, eggs, and jalapeño, flavored, and Alouette jalapeno-flavored spreadable cheese.

I didn’t have any dishes in mind, but I felt that a fresh things and a couple of proteins plus the all-important coffee would give me a reasonable starting point, and there are always a few staples in the fridge, freezer and pantry.

Creativity Begins with a Salad So Simple It Doesn’t Need a Recipe

I had so much fun creating dishes! The first night was just a simple salad complemented by crackers, since I didn’t arrive until almost dinnertime.

The salad is arugula, avocado, grape tomatoes, cucumber, red onion and smoked salmon, dressed with olive oil and serrano-honey balsamic vinegar and a liberal amount of freshly cracked pepper. The crackers are sea-salt flavored and have a bit of the jalapeño-flavored spreadable cheese on them with very thin slices of fresh jalapeño. Accompanied by a light, buttery chardonnay, and the mountain view in the distance, it made for a very satisfying meal.

But Wait, There’s More!

A throw-down salad is one thing, but a whole new recipe is quite another. The other dishes the mountains and limited provisions inspired me to create during this trip were:

• Avocado Egg Salad
• Puff Pastry Egg Cups with Jalapeno and Smoked Salmon
• Smoked Salmon and Jalapeño Fettuccine for Two (or One, Twice)

Recipes coming soon!

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