This is my absolute FAVORITE way to eat ketchup!

Mix a couple teaspoons of Savory Spice Shop’s Red Rocks Hickory Smoke Seasoning in ketchup and let your taste buds thank you.

I was honored to be invited by Art in the Age to a Pre-Pohibition era tasting preview of ROOT at Boulder’s Bitter Bar. I had never heard of this spirit and was quite intrigued after reading that what we know as the non-alcoholic beverage root beer actually shares historical roots with a delicious spirit that has been re-created and is now available in Colorado: ROOT.

The Bitter Bar’s illustrious mixologist Mark Stoddard created some noteworthy cocktails featuring ROOT that I am eager to return and try over and over and over…

The evening started with a taste of ROOT on its own and my root beer-loving taste buds were pleased. I love the flavor of root beer, but, being someone who does not drink soda, never drink it. Not to sound like an alcoholic, but, I am so glad that ROOT, a fine spirit, now can fill that flavor-space in my life. (big smile here!)

After the first taste of ROOT on its own, came Stoddard’s creation of ROOT, fresh lime, mint, and ginger beer. Perfect.

Next came his ROOT, yellow chartreuse, spiced cranberry compote, and maple bitters. Perfect again.

(The Happy Noodle was serving us some ROOT-inspired delicious food with these drinks, by the way…)

Then came ROOT with rye whiskey served over and allspice dram and local apple cider ice cube. Genius. Make ice cubes with apple cider. I am going to do this really soon. Probably as soon as I buy my first bottle of ROOT, which is likely to be tonight or tomorrow at Liquor Mart.

And the cream of the crop was probably the BEST root beer float I’ve ever had (or ROOT float?)

ROOT over Fernet Branca ice cream, topped with fresh grated nutmeg. I’d like to serve this at Thanksgiving.

Now, ROOT is a certified organic natural spirit of 80 proof. This will explain why my photos are a bit blurry. It was an eventful, fun, thirst-quenching evening.

If you’d like to try ROOT, served by a professional mixologist, head on over to The Bitter Bar and taste some of Mark’s creations. You can also get some ideas to inspire your own creations on the ROOT website: Art in the Age.

Enjoy responsibly, of course.

I wish I had a dozen of these. I picked up some mini cupcakes from Tee & Cakes for dessert last week after guiding a food tour, and I swear, these were the best cupcakes ever. One little dreamy dessert is a salted caramel chocolate cupcake and the other is what I’m going to call a maple pumpkin best-tasting-dessert-ever cupcake.

Tee & Cakes is the place to buy specialty cakes and cupcakes in Boulder. They’ve been featured on TV for their famous bacon topped maple cupcakes with chocolate frosting- a Boulder dessert staple that I have not tried (since I don’t eat bacon!).

But, I really enjoy ending food tours at Tee & Cakes because, not only are our guests incredibly pleased with their dessert, but I often take the opportunity to bring some cupcakes home if I do not feel like baking dessert. It’s a real win-win for everyone!

Naan! It is so good. I still haven’t been to India, but the best naan I’ve had was in the Indian neighborhoods of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Now I’ll be making a delicious version here at home, thanks to my Rustic Bread Class at the Culinary School of the Rockies.

As you can see from all of my naan balls, this recipe makes a lot of naan. I just froze whatever I wasn’t eating and plan to re-heat it at 250 on a pizza stone. Easy.

Ingredients:

• 25 oz. all purpose flour
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 TB sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 TB Kala Jeera seeds
• 8 oz. warm milk (100-115 degrees)
• 3 oz ghee, melted
• 7.5 oz plain yogurt
• 1 egg
• extra ghee

First of all, you might need to get yourself over to Savory Spice Shop to buy some Kala Jeera seeds. Mail order them if you need to. Savory Spice Shop has everything!

Start by mixing the warm milk and yeast in a bowl and let it sit and foam for 10 minutes or so.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, melted ghee, egg, yogurt, and kala jeera seeds. Then, add the yeast mixture into this and knead (in your KitchenAid mixer) into a pliable dough that isn’t too sticky. Let this stand and double in size.

I refrigerated mine over night because that is what we did in class. I let it come back to room temperature the next day, divided it up, and rolled it into golfball sized dough balls. Cover the dough balls with a damp towel and get your oven HOT! 500 degrees hot! Make sure you have your pizza stone on the bottom rack and remove other racks to give you room to maneuver.

Roll out the dough balls on a lightly floured surface to approximately 1/8 inch thick.

I like to make an assembly line- as 2 or 3 are baking on the stone, I’m rolling out another 2 or 3 for the next batch. After a few minutes on one side, they’ll start to poof out. Flip them and wait another couple minutes for them to be perfectly done.

Brush the tops with melted ghee and sprinkle with sea salt. This is a real show-stopper.

I served my naan with Bazaar Jaisey Aloo. Enjoy.