snack time with chickies!

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our chickies are not so little anymore! they are like full on teenagers, complete with feathers and the ability to fly. there they are eating watermelon with eggboy at two weeks old, and the photos with the cucumber were taken just last week, when they were a little over a month old. can you believe how quickly they've grown?! remember when they had just hatched??

here are some things that happened in month one:

-they took lots of little dirt baths

-they ate watermelon, cucumber, pulp from our juicer, and bugs

-we discovered that the free straight run exotic chick that came with our flock might actually be a rooster

-they got to meet mum (their grandma!) who said, on a very hot day, what happens when it gets too hot? do we get chicken nuggets?

-they accidentally got into rat poison that we didn't know was left in our garage from when egggrandma lived here and we freaked out completely and went to the vet who gave us little vitamin k shots to give to all of them and they're all ok now but it was scary.

-eggboy spent a lot of time and got very sweaty converting the old playhouse in our backyard into their coop

-one of them got a little wound so we tied a bandage on her leg and she spent the day inside with me. we split a cucumber. she's ok now.

being a chicken mama is hard work! but it's so worth it just to watch all of them waddle and run around and cuddle with each other and cock their heads all adorably to the side. it's so freaky to watch them grow so quickly and i thought that once they got past their newly hatched ball-of-fluff stage they wouldn't be as cute, but oh man, they're still so cute. they are feathery balls of glee that make me so darn happy i could spit. 

-yeh!

thank you so much to the american egg board for sponsoring this post!!! being a chicken mama has helped me gain a whole new appreciation for the farmers who are a part of this board. eggboy and i are seeing first hand how important it is to make sure our chickies get enough light, safe housing, and nutrients, and i can't even imagine what it would be like to have to care for tons more hens like the farmers on the egg board do. did you know that 208 million eggs are laid each day in america and most of those eggs are laid between 7am and 11am?? i can't wait to have a freshly laid omelette from my hens once they start laying :) to find out more about where eggs come from, check out incredibleegg.org!

 

 

 

oven-fried green tomatoes with garlic and onion yogurt sauce

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our garden is vomiting tomatoes right now and as a result i am vomiting happiness and sorry that's gross i didn't mean to get on the subject of vomiting...

what i mean is, i've been having fresh tomatoes at just about every meal these days and it's glorious. tomatoes in my breakfast salad, tomatoes and basil on toast, tomatoes shoveled into my mouth on a homemade pita that i just can't eat without feeling really really bad for peeta mellark. 

i may be dressed like it's fall, because outside the mosquitos are monsters and the air conditioning inside is blasting hard, but i've been dining like a summer queen because our garden is nailing it this year, if i do say so myself. i guess it helps to be married to a farmer.

i am a winter girl but with tomatoes, i forget about that.

my love for fried green tomatoes began four years ago at the now-closed sel de mer, in williamsburg. i wrote kind of an awkward ode to their fried green tomatoes here. (tl/dr: it was like a green tomato donut and it was perfect in every way.) but because i am such a wimp when it comes to deep frying, today i am showing you an oven fried version-- you can eat about three times as many as the fried kind before you feel all barfy. and with the amount of tomatoes coming out of my garden, i need all the help i can get eating these guys. did i mention i'm having a tomato party tonight? i don't think my guests know it yet, i should probably go warn them...

ooh and there's a sauce! it's oniony and garlicky and kind of like a lighter fresher version of french onion dip. v easy to make and if you have some sumac lying around, i recommend adding a pinch, but it's not necessary.

oven-fried green tomatoes with garlic and onion yogurt sauce

makes 4-6 servings

ingredients

4 large green tomatoes (or 6 smaller ones)

kosher salt and black pepper

3/4 c flour

1 1/2 c panko bread crumbs

1 1/2 tsp sweet paprika

2 large eggs

1/4 c buttermilk

sauce:

4 cloves garlic, smashed

1/2 purple onion, finely chopped

1/2 c plain greek yogurt

kosher salt and black pepper

clues

preheat the oven to 400f and place an oven-frying rack (or metal cooling rack) over a large baking sheet and set it aside.

cut the tomatoes into thick slices and season both sides with salt and pepper.

set up three bowls: one with the flour, one with the panko, paprika, and a pinch of salt and pepper, and one with the eggs and buttermilk (beat them to combine). coat each tomato slice in flour, and then the egg mixture, and then the panko and then place on the oven-frying rack one inch apart. spray the tops with cooking spray and then bake for about 20 minutes, until golden brown. let cool slightly before serving.

to make the sauce, mix together the garlic, onion, and yogurt, and then season to taste with salt and pepper.

enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you so much to edyn for sponsoring this post! these tomatoes and all of the other goodies from my garden were grown with the help of a handy new gadget called the edyn garden sensor, which is a device that sticks in your garden to relay tips and information about moisture, lighting, soil nutrition, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff to your phone. it also tells you when your plants are about to ripen! so you can know in advance when you need to start planning your own tomato party. it works in wifi, so if you're looking to check one of these puppies out, make sure your garden gets wifi or you can use a repeater. if you're a beginning gardener, a full on farmer who wants to geek out (hi, eggboy), or somewhere in between, check it out!

the county fair!

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it's happened. i've suddenly found myself knee-deep in county fair culture and i don't see myself ever coming back. and i don't think i need to because there are multiple county fairs every weekend during the summer in minnesota and north dakota. multiple! is that normal? are you not technically a county unless you throw a fair every summer with fried food and creeptastic rides and 4-h ponies?

i'm really tempted to spend an entire summer only going to county fairs on my weekends for a statewide county fair tour. i think i would learn a lot. even just from going to this one, i witnessed my first cow competition, met the biggest bunnies i've ever seen in my life, and learned all about cat diabetes from a presentation by a kid who is sure to be a future veterinarian of america. there was also an actual hay growing competition! 

this whole time i thought that fairs were just about the fried food, but i've been proven wrong. 

i can't wait until i get to go to the state fair, where there is all of this fried madness and, rumor has it, an entire barn where you can watch animals giving birth. i meannnnnnn....whoa.

how was your weekend??

-yeh!

p.s. read all about what i ate at the county fair in last week's grub street diet!

pictured: bag // dress

chocolate mint cake with mint buttercream frosting

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whoops! i lied. i told you i was giving you three fresh mint recipes this week but actually i'm giving you four. so go ahead, smooch everyone, because you're gonna have really good breath.

eggboy and i are off on a road trip to chicago for one really quick second before wheat harvest starts. we're gonna eat car snacks and listen to the third plate on tape and hopefully not have to stop at too many gas station potties along the way, and when we arrive, we are going to eat many many tacos!

we're gonna miss macaroni, but they'll get to have some quality grandma and grandpa time :)

have a great weekend, everybody!

this cake is a nice rich chocolatey moist thing that's been infused with fresh mint leaves and frosted all ombré-like, making it the cool kid in school. the frosting also has mint in it! it is double mint. like the gum, but better.

chocolate mint cake with buttercream frosting

makes one 2-layer 8-inch cake

ingredients

cake:

about 8 fresh mint leaves

1 1/4 c whole milk

1 3/4 c sugar

1 3/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 c flavorless oil, like canola

1 tb vanilla extract

2 large eggs

3/4 c boiling water

frosting:

about 8 fresh mint leaves

2 c unsalted butter

4 c powdered sugar

a good pinch of salt

assembly:

green food coloring

 

clues

cake: 

preheat oven to 350.

grease two 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment.

muddle the fresh mint leaves in a saucepan and pour in the milk. bring to a simmer over medium heat, and keep it at a low simmer (lowering the level of the heat as needed), stirring often, for 15 minutes. remove it from the heat, strain out the mint leaves, and measure out 1 cup of milk. set it aside to cool slightly. discard the remaining milk and mint leaves. 

in a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients. in a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, vanilla, and eggs. (make sure that the milk has cooled enough so that it doesn't cook the eggs!) whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and then stir in the boiling water. pour into cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at 28 minutes.

let cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then turn the cakes onto a lightly greased cooling rack.

frosting:

muddle the fresh mint leaves in a saucepan and add the butter. melt the butter and heat over medium low for 15 minutes, stirring. strain out the mint leaves and then add the butter to a large bowl. place the bowl in an ice bath and use an electric mixer to beat it until it becomes pale and fluffy. beat in the sugar and salt.

assembly:

once your cakes are fully cooled, level them. place one layer on a cake board, spread a thick layer of frosting on top, and then place the other layer on top of that. use an offset spatula to frost a thin layer of frosting all over for a crumb coat. place the cake in the freezer or refrigerator so that the crumb coat firms up. divide the remaining frosting into five bowls and color four of them with green food coloring, increasing the amount of coloring for each bowl, so the colors get darker and darker. Fill a piping bag fitted with a large round tip with the white frosting and pipe around the top edge of the cake. Once you’ve made a complete rotation, squeeze out all of the remaining frosting from the bag and then fill it with the lightest green and pipe directly next to the frosting that you just piped on. Repeat until you’ve covered the whole cake. Use a bench scraper to scrape off all of the excess frosting and create smooth edges. Scrape off the bench scraper each time you scrape down the cake. (for some helpful cake decorating tips, go here.)

enjoy!

-yeh!

this post features wooden measuring cups, measuring spoons, a mixing spoon, and a spatula from one of my most favorite makers, polder's old world market. it is a family-owned company that makes some of the most beautiful handmade wooden kitchen utensils that i've ever used. i've had these goodies for months now and i use them nearly every day. they are the sponsors of this post and from now until the end of the month, they are offering 25% off of all orders with the code yeh25! thanks so much, polder's!!!

also pictured in this post: cake stand // mixing bowl // saucepan