cranberry cornbread parfaits + friday links

today i finally unpacked from my new york trip. i found: smashed halvah, socks i assumed were eaten by the washing machine, a t-shirt from sammy's roumanian that i promptly gave to eggboy, and a whole bunch of clothes that should have been hanging up for the past two weeks. oops! so that's where i'm at. and this weekend i plan on continuing to get my shit together/become a grown-up/not eat any more fried cheesy pickles because i had my first wedding dress fitting yesterday and i don't wanna talk about it/etc. what do you all have planned for the weekend???

here's a recipe for cranberry cornbread parfaits that i did for west elm's blog! it's an easy peasy brunch recipe and a way to use up thanksgiving leftovers, all layered up in a rustic jar of glee. i'll be over on the west elm blog all month with fun thanksgiving brunch recipes, so start your brunch club engines, ladies and gents!!

---

friday links!

i thought i was going crazy because for the first time in months (years?) i recently found myself not wanting to go on pinterest. my feed was acting all pooey! it turns out i'm not the only one that felt that way, and luckily there is a solution for getting your pinterest feed back to normal!!!

 tahini and za'atar made two appearances together this week!! such lovebirds, they are. here they are with brussels sprouts and here they are with squash.

everything bagel cheese. i repeat: everything bagel cheese.

do you guys ever use silicone lids?? i never gave them a second thought, but then gir sent me some of their lids and i've used them 238743896340984 times since. i do not remember life before them.

i'm still working my way through all of the outrageous recipes that exploded onto the internet for jessica's baby shower. there is a list of all of them with links here!

hey, this salad is tossed with bacon fat.

this recipe for banh mi rolls is making my little middle-of-nowhere sandwich life complete.

this remixed version of sufjan's "the human plague" is the prettiest.

a crazy look behind the scenes at parody twitter accounts.

michelle made my funfetti cake and covered it with her perfect (malted!) chocolate frosting and i want to stick my head in it, ostrich-style.

why yes, i *would* like to fry a whole head of cauliflower and then smother it in tahini sauce. like right now.

savory muffins, savory waffles, give me all the savories, plz.  

---

happy weekend, everyone!!!

-yeh!

p.s. there is still time to enter my aloha giveaway!!!

the anatomy of a perfect breakfast in bed + a giveaway

can i tell you something that might make you throw up in your mouth a little bit? i made breakfast in bed for eggboy a lot during harvest. multiple times a week. really elaborate and adorable ones complete with miniature things and cute flatware.

his schedule was all wonky since he had to work into the wee hours of the morning and sleep until 11 or noon. i thought about switching my schedule too, but with the shorter days and less sunlight, i usually needed to wake up at my regular 7:55ish in order to get my ducks in a row and ready to be photographed. so at some point between the hours of when i would wake up and when he would wake up, i'd often decide that it would be fun to do a thing i love most: arrange cute little meals on a cute little tray, just like i used to every year for mum's birthday...

speaking of mum's birthday: it's tomorrow!!!!! yayayayay! i sent her a copy of steph's book that eggboy and i annotated with fun notes pointing out our favorite recipes and pictures. and it's no coincidence that i'm posting this the day before her birthday in case anyone in chicago (hint hint, stoop) is reading this and wants to make her breakfast in bed.

so without further ado...

the anatomy of a perfect breakfast in bed

something sweet: a cookie, a bite of nougat, a shot of cake batter. the best days start with a little something sweet.

carefully packaged liquids: coffee mugs that aren't too full, juice in a jar with a lid, a traveler mug, hell, a juice box. sleepy people are clumsy people. sleepy people in beds are really clumsy people.

extra napkins or a towel: just in case.

condiments and seasonings: to be perfectly honest, my little tabasco bottles and maldon tin and baby bon maman jars are a disproportionately large reason why i love making breakfasts in bed. they give me a cute attack every time i look at them. and they're obviously useful because if you actually think that any mother of mine would eat an unsalted, un-hot-sauced egg, even if it were delivered to her in bed, you are cray.

things that don't take too long to make: do you know how awful it is to be mid-breakfast-in-bed-prep and have the person you're making it for wake up and walk into the kitchen? mega awful.

things that aren't too noisy to make: this is an obvious one. be mindful of kitchen timers, blenders, coffee grinders, and those god-awful microwave beeps.

in this breakfast in bed, we have: grape ricotta focaccia (recipe coming soon!), an egg, dala horse cookies, tabasco, maldon salt, yogurt with nuts and honey, green juice, a nell & mary napkin, a little gold spoon, and obviously coffee.

that tray, plate, bowl, and jar are all part of a special breakfast in bed set from pacific merchants, and guess what-- i'm giving one away!!!! yayayayayayayyyyy! to enter this giveaway, leave a comment with your ultimate breakfast in bed! (open to u.s. residents only.) update: this giveaway is now closed.

-yeh!

grape crepes with brie and bacon

sugar beet harvest starts at midnight tomorrow, my pops gets in tonight for a quick little visit, and we have just passed the three month mark until our wedding!! here is what this calm before the storm looks like:

a very very large pile of laundry, removed from the bed in our guest room and plopped somewhere else, so my dad can sleep there.

lots of wedding post-it notes taped above my desk that read things like "sprinkles, [personalized] egg cups (?), local whiskey"

 the most delicious wash of cloudy light falling so perfectly into the kitchen on our newly swept floors interrupted only by the tick of the toaster (because there actually is a literal storm coming...)

all of these storms are going to be great storms.

mark my word, i am quite excited for sugar beet harvest this year. last year was unfathomably crazy because it was my first one, i was working hours that were completely opposite of eggboy's, and some of the fields were wayyy far away. like canada far away. but now i'm a seasoned vet, and the fields with the beets are just down the road, so if i want to bring eggboy some pumpkin loaf or go say hello, i can do that easy peasy. and as for the wedding, lots of the big decisions have been made, so now i'm working on really fun things like: what color sprinkles should we have our guests chuck at us as we recess down the aisle? and would my bridesmen like whiskey or gin in their welcome basket? and are shoes with panda faces on them at all ok to get married in???

and obvi can't wait for my pops to get here! we're gonna book it to the one n only and i'll probably make him go on a tractor ride and take a bite out of a sugar beet. weeeee!!!!!

so this all calls for cake! of the pan variety. but make it dainty, so: crepe. and because whenever i ask eggboy what i should make next, he responds with a rhyme (see: saskatoon macaroon), let's make a grape crepe.

these crepes are salty, sweet, bacon fatty, and earthy. they're gooey, crispy, fluffy, and bursty (or whatever the texture of grapes is). and they contain all of the major food groups except for vegetables. you could throw a caramelized onion in there though, that would be good. you know what else would be good would be to infuse the milk with rosemary or something cool like that before adding it to the batter.

---

grape crepes with brie and bacon

makes 6

ingredients

12 strips thick cut bacon

1 c flour

2 tb sugar

3/4 c milk or buttermilk

1/2 c water

2 large eggs

butter

6 oz brie, thinly sliced

1 1/2 c california grapes, halved

clues

crisp up your bacon and reserve the fat. set the bacon aside while you make the crepe batter.

let the fat cool slightly, measure out 3 tablespoons of it, and whisk it with the, flour, sugar, buttermilk, water, and eggs. you could also do this in a blender. cover the batter and refrigerate for 1 hour.

heat some butter in a skillet over medium high heat. add 1/2 cup of the batter and tilt the pan so that you get a large even circle. cook for a few minutes until the top is set. place brie, 2 slices of bacon, and 1/4 cup of grapes in the center, cook for a minute or two so that the brie starts to melt, and then fold the two sides of the crepe in towards the center. serve immediately or keep it in the oven (set on warm) until ready to serve.

repeat with remaining batter, adding more butter to the pan as needed, and enjoy!

---

-yeh!!!

this post is sponsored by grapes from california. all opinions are my own! brie provided by president, linens provided by stitch new york.

an apple picking party

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!