Nom

These French Macarons are like no other. Heaven in a box.

Confessions of a Fair Goer Part 2

Finally on my 3rd trip to the fair, during the last 1/2 hour of the visit I picked up some Tom Thumb mini donuts! They were all I had hoped for...

Pickle Overload

This has been my summer of canning. Remember back in July I made freezer jam? I have had several complements on it so jam will be on my list again for 2010. Recently I got my hands on a couple of old school pickle recipes and found some really good looking pickling cucumbers at the Farmer's Market so naturally I made pickles! The jar on the left are dill and the jar on the right are sweet. I have several quarts and numerous pints of dill and 11 pints of sweet. Mmmmm, it's going to be a good winter!

Confessions of a Fair goer

With just the slightest push from Splatgirl, I'm going to confess what unhealthy, deep fried but oh so good food I've been eating at the MN State Fair this year. You see, I am in love with the MN State Fair. I would go there all 10 days if I could and you better believe I would eat most everything in sight. And then pay for it all year long before I did it again. As it stands I already need to work out 8x more than I already do just to work off the 2 days of eating / fair going that I have under my belt. Splatgirl & I are going again this week so watch for more food confessions...

Confession #1 which I'm sure turns Splatgirls stomach...the fish taco. Tilapia with cabbage, a mango salsa and another sauce or two wrapped in a flour tortilla. Delicious but I think I remember it being a bit better last year.

Confession #2 is the jumbo fresh lemonade from the cheese on a stick booth across from the corn roast stand, just the right ratio of sweet / sour / ice. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Summer Jam

This morning I went berry picking so guess what I'll be doing tonight??

Dog Biscuits

Sure! I'll share the dog biscuit recipe, it's not an original of mine. I found it on the www but I can't remember where so I'll list it here.

Pumpkin Cookies
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 C canned pumpkin
1T brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
4 T Crisco
1 egg
1/2 C buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients, cut in the Crisco. Beat egg with buttermilk & pumpkin and then add to dry ingredients. Stir until a soft dough forms. Drop on cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 min at 400º.
Let cool & serve.
I forgot to add the brown sugar but the dogs still like them, they're not too picky.

CSA is Fun

This past Saturday the CSA farm I support had an open house for all the CSA shareholders. I trekked out there with Splatgirl and boy, the people we split our share with. The farm had zucchini bowling and kohlrabi bocce ball set up, we took a tour of the fields on a trailer behind the old tractor, helped weed the peppers and eggplants and ate a potluck lunch. I made deviled eggs but managed to forget them on my way out the door so I've been eating an egg nearly every time I open the fridge. If you would like to see more photos of the farm visit you can go to my Flickr set.

This is a photo of the group weeding the peppers. It went very fast with all the manpower that was there. I'm definitely glad I went and learned more about the farm I get all my delicious vegetables from!

Rotten Tomatoes

I'm pretty sure I know why this happened to these homegrown tomatoes but I want to ask all of you, has this ever happened to your tomatoes?

Cupcake

I was lucky enough to get some time off work during one of the best weeks of the spring/summer thus far. Today I met my friend Splatgirl for an outside lunch at a new local favorite Brasa (delicious!) and then we hightailed it over to a place we had been dying to try, Cupcake. They also have patio seating so we enjoyed our cupcakes and iced drinks outside. Even though we weren't overly impressed with the cupcakes we decided we would go back and try the lunch menu sometime soon.
On a crafting note, I very recently I finished up some super fun projects and listed them for sale in my etsy store.
Sneak peak below :)
As far as knitting goes I've been in a bit of a slump, only cranking out a dishcloth or 2 every so often. I'll get the mojo back sooner or later.

Cracked

Well, it's back to a full work week. I began a new pair of socks Friday afternoon and I'm nearly done with the 1st one so I'll show it to you soon. I'm also planning on finishing a quilt this week so I'll have that to show too. Maybe I post those things here more for myself sort of like a journal, a way to keep track of details. I'm just happy you like to see the stuff :)

Most of my week will be filled with these. Gotta love the hard boiled egg.

Candy Love

I'm always on the lookout for new candy so the best place to find it is usually in the holiday aisles. Today I ducked into Target for a couple of things and found this bag of Wildly Cherry M&M's. I haven't tried any yet but how bad can they be? I hope the M&M company come out with more limited edition flavors. I enjoyed all of the flavors I found about a year ago.

Before Valentine's Day I found this bag of exclusive green candies, apparently the "new color of love" :) This bag has already met its fate.

Besides M&M's, the other night we found a small bag of chocolate Skittles. I wasn't able to get any photos since Kyle ripped the bag open faster than you can say Skittle and then I completely forgot about it later on. The flavors were chocolate brownie, s'mores, and a bunch of others I can't remember.
Have any of you found any new candies?

Vegetarians Need Not Read...

This afternoon I made this beef soup. It was good but I think it could be a bit better - maybe with a bit more salt or letting it simmer a little more or possible adding some barley or something to thicken it just a little. I only got a photo of the veggies and meat before roasting due to our extremely short days and my refusal to use a flash.

Enough Said

State Fair

What have I been busy doing? Going to the MN State Fair of course! I managed to head over to the Fair twice this year, about 2 times less than I would have liked to go although I'm thankful for the time I did spend there. Does this mean I can go 6 times next year? ;-)
I've posted the few photos I took this year on my Flickr page. Enjoy!

WFDW

Considering I haven't eaten a home cooked meal in quite some time (shame on me) this picnic style dinner qualifies for a What's for Dinner Wednesday meal in my book. So let's take it from the top: A hot dog on a potato bun with mustard, ketchup & celery salt. Cooked in the microwave since I didn't want to start the grill for one piece of meat. You see, Kyle has been training intensely for a mountain bike race he's in at the end of the month so we've been consuming our meals at separate times. OK, back to the plate. Watermelon. A personal size seedless. Very good, although I'm sure it's not as good as the melons Splatgirl has been picking up. I'm pretty certain mine doesn't contain crack or any other illegal substance. ;-) And last on the plate is my very favorite tuna salad. Simply made with white albacore tuna, large ring noodles (not overcooked - very important), white onion, celery and lots of hard boiled egg. Oh! And I'm a Miracle Whip girl. Which way do you swing? Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip...I know this is a touchy subject for some.

Hot Dog on a Hot Day

What should we eat for lunch on the hottest day of the summer thus far? Chicago dogs of course. I think the temperature reached 99 this afternoon but I haven't heard an official reading. That's pretty darn hot for MN even though it happens a few times each season.

Kyle & I ventured out to Uncle Franky's this afternoon and greeting us at the door was this super duper cool hot dog handle. And check out the little piggy too, very clever indeed.

And of course I had to photograph the dog itself. I think after this summer I'll have a nice collage of chicago dog and pedicure photos.

The King of all Chicago Dogs

Tonight we went to the Twins game and all day today I just knew what I'd be getting to eat. It was all I had hoped for and more. It took me 2 innings to finish it. Mmmm. Too bad the Twins lost.

Summer Snack

One of my favorite summer eats is a Chicago Dog. Last week when I was vacationing around the cities, I stopped in to a local Home Depot of all places, for a Chicago dog lunch. Mmmm summer.

Gourmet M & M's Part II

I tried a second bag of fancy special edition M & M's this week, the creme d'orange. I've come to a general conclusion about all the special edition flavors. They are all good in small doses, a bit too rich otherwise. You don't get the "I'll have a hand full" satisfaction that you get with plain or peanut. I liked the creme d'orange because they were plump with white chocolate and the orange flavor was just enough. Again, small doses. You can't beat the colors of those puppies either.

The Perfect Day

Yesterday I arranged for someone else to see my patients and I headed Southwest to my friend Splatgirl's. It was sooo nice relaxing and knitting and chatting without having to hop up every 20 minutes to change laundry or answer the phone or wash dishes. We even watched this weeks LOST again...can you even believe what's happening on that island??

Mast is such a calm dog, he was able to stay still long enough for me to get some up the snout photos, Casey never sits still long enough for that.

I knit a little bit on my Sock Hop sock and ate my dessert of choice, Tiramisu.

And here's proof that I actually worked on Casey's sweater as well. I've actually reached the raglan decreases on the front so soon I'll be starting the sleeves and it'll all be downhill from there right? M-Ah came to explore and rub her scent all over it...Casey hasn't noticed yet. Thanks for a fabulous day Splatgirl!