midwest

chicago + minneapolis

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thanksgiving came early this year!!! i just returned from my week spent in chicago and minneapolis, spreading all the love and gobbles for jennie-o turkey on the teevee!!!! it was so much fun. when i wasn't in the tv, i got to celebrate stoopie's birthday, eat a butt ton of tacos with some college homies, and have thanksgiving number one with my chicago family. 

since we actually had a massive wedding-related to-do list in chicago (find eggboy a wedding outfit! get me sparkly dancing shoes! convince stoopie that she certainly will not be walking down the aisle in a snowsuit!), our thanksgiving consisted of some unbelievable aleppo cornbread that mum whipped up, one of the easiest turkeys in the whole wide world, and take-out from the restaurant that i absolutely must go to every time i'm home, mizrahi grill. we had turkey and hummus all cuddled up in a bed of pita and it was the tastiest, not to mention the laziest, and i was v down with that, especially considering that thanksgiving number two is coming right up. dessert was our friend marshy's famous lemon cookies, and then later that night, mum made this absurd bar type thing that was pumpkin pie filling topped with yellow cake. it was incredible. sort of like this recipe, but she used a homemade cake because that is how she rolls.

after chicago, i scooted on over to minneapolis, where i made cornbread stuffing on fox (you can watch it here)!!! and then i celebrated my not-barfing-or-potty-mouthing-on-air with a trip to my new favorite store, askov finlayson, and some bison tartare and za'atar cod at spoon & stable. yummmm, what a place. so worth this. 

i mosied on home last night, but not before another quick segment and a bite with the gem that is melissa from the faux martha. <3! holy guacamole, minneapolis is such a great city, especially after having adjusted to *these winters*. i wish i didn't live so far away. maybe one day i'll convince them to build a bullet train from grand forks to the cities.

i hope you all have wonderful weekends everyone!!!! get those thanksgiving menus planned!!!

-yeh!

thank you soooo much to jennie-o for sponsoring this week and this post!!!! all opinions are obvi my own, and i had such a great time being their turkey girl!!! check out their thanksgiving site for recipes, tips, and other holiday goodies :)

also big thank you to shabby apple for my mustard dress!!! i loved wearing it on air, and it did not get one wrinkle despite the fact that i smooshed it into the bottom of my carry-on. perfection!

 

an apple picking party

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fall is here!!! fall is heeeeeere!!!! holy root vegetable, i am so excited. 

clearly i've already gotten into the spirit of things, but here's a scientific fact for you: fall isn't fall until you've picked an apple from a tree. (right??) like, you can eat all the pumpkin spice things you want, but you mustn't forget about the apples. 

in the past, my annual apple orchard trip has coincided with a trip home to illinois, but this year i figured there would probably be some hardcore apple orchards in the middle of all this rural business, so i conducted some research on the best places to go apple picking around grand forks. 20 minutes of failed googling later, eggboy came in from the fields, laughed really hard, and then directed me to the two fairly large apple trees in our backyard. apple picking parties are a thing here explained cathryn. 

oh.

...cool!!!!!

so rather than having our regular brunch club, the ladies and i became the most hipster versions of ourselves, took a picnic out to my backyard, sipped some wine, and picked a ton of apples. it was perfect. we talked weddings and miss america, we ate cheese and more cheese. we took moody photos of handfuls of apples. (good thing one of us had a fresh manicure.)

and then we retreated inside, away from the buttercream-loving bees, put on the sufjan, and stretched our definition of proper caramel apple coatings...

here was our menu:

for noshing // brown sugar challah, jam, baked teddybear camembert with raspberry preserves, and a bunch more cheese

for dessert #1 // sprinkle cake

for dessert #2 // caramel apples with coconut, toasted sesame seeds, sprinkles, sea salt, and smoked sea salt

for sipping // kendall-jackson avant chardonnay

for supper // chicken with apples + chardonnay 

i highly recommend an apple picking party, even if you don't have an apple tree. make friends with someone who does! or grow your own. or trespass. (don't trespass.)

-yeh!

thanks so much to kendall-jackson avant for sponsoring this post!!!! all opinions are my own!

apple & honey muffins

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alright so as of right now, my rosh hashanah menu consists of:

challah

more challah

tacos

and these apple and honey muffins (when i imagined myself getting all sticky from balancing a jar of honey and slicing an apple in the cramped little cab of a tractor, i got all squirmy...)

do i need to have a vegetable? i should probably have a vegetable. who has easily transportable autumn-y vegetable recipe suggestions??

and maybe i'll try to stuff some matzo balls down the nozzle of our big tall thermos.

i've never been the biggest fan of honey cake. either that, or by the time dessert rolls around i'm just so stuffed with brisket and challah that i could give zero shits about what the dessert table looks like. guilt came over me this year though when i realized that i've been treating a cake--a cake!--with such little love and respect. so i fiddled with it, failed a bunch, read five thousand recipes, pulled knowledge that i learned from my homemade funfetti® process, and came up with a honey cake that i am proud to call a friend.

this is a no-pressure, low-commitment honey cake that is actually a muffin, so you can get away with eating it at breakfast, lunch, or whenever you want. you do not need to wait until after brisket. you can load the sucker up with cream cheese, yogurt, buttercream, or any other dairy product of your affection and be 100% kosher about it. and you can even toss it around a tractor as your fiancé chisel plows and you let your challah digest. the texture is on the pleasingly denser side and the honey doesn't overpower. apples keep it *moist* and just a teensy bit of whiskey in the batter adds a yummy little zing while leaving you more than enough to sip on while you celebrate. 

apple + honey muffins

makes 12-16

ingredients

2 c all-purpose flour

1 c sugar

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

a pinch of cardamom

2 large eggs

1/3 c vegetable oil

1/2 c honey

2 tb whiskey

1/4 c hot coffee

1 large apple, chopped

clues

preheat oven to 350, and line and grease a muffin tin. 

in a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients. in a large bowl, combine eggs, oil, honey, and whiskey. whisk in the dry ingredients and then whisk in the coffee. fold in the chopped apple and then scoop into your muffin tin.

bake until golden brown and a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean. begin checking for doneness at about 20 minutes.

let cool and enjoy!

i like sprinkling them with powdered sugar or plopping a nice blob of yogurt on top. 

 

-yeh!

ingredients for this recipe were provided by minnesota grown, which makes it easier for minnesota ladies (like me!) and gents to support their local farmers! thanks, minnesota grown!!!

p.s. the winner of last week's giveaway has been notified! 

farm supper + friday links + a giveaway winner

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last weekend i made challah, hummus, and israeli salad for 130 people at the oldest farm in the red river valley. it was so much fun! i toughed out the bugs, used tomatoes and cukes from the garden across the road, and didn't even get too sheepish when i had to go in front of everyone and take a bow (curtsy?) for my hummus. the rest of the menu featured delicious goodies made by chefs from some of my favorite fargo restaurants. working alongside them to prep and plate all of our dishes was one of the coolest things ever. it felt good plating things that were going to be eaten immediately by real live strangers and not just scraped into a tupperware container to be picked at later by eggboy, like most of my blog recipes. maybe one day i'll have my own 130-person supper at our farm. every course would be cake.

friday links!!

my soundtrack this week has been the new karen o album. her voice always reminds me of the fall because of that time i listened to the where the wild things are soundtrack over and over and over and that was during the fall.

i would like a handful of these salt and vinegar roasted chickpeas please.

fried pork + salad = you have broken even with healthiness, you have nothing to worry about, it's math.

eggboy wanted you to know that the three paragraphs i have written here on avocado toast detail exactly how i make my toast on an almost-daily basis. i didn't b.s. you at all, scout's honor.

three things that speak for themselves: coconut macaroon filled peaches, spiked pistachio cupcake milkshakes, and tim tam slam macarons. i mean...?!?!!!

there is a serious amount of beauty happening up in here.

our friends up in winterfell made a new yummy thing!

i want drawing skills like demetria.

and the winner of last week's giveaway is...ms. melissa king! step right up, sista!

happy weekend everyone!!!

does anyone have anything fun planned?? i'll be having an apple picking party and then rooting hard for miss illinois in miss america this weekend!

-yeh!!!