Halloween '10

Halloween 2010 was very low key for us. I've got the emergency line cell phone for work this weekend and Mikey is not feeling well. So no costumes, no bar hopping and no local music like last year.
But, we did some baking and pumpkin carving!
We made some pumpkin bread (with molasses):

With Mikey spending the day on the couch, Hannah came over to take his place on pumpkin carving and dressing the animals up:
This costume suits Kramer perfectly:
Annie actually really likes her costume. She happily obliged to being dressed up.
Our Bella Bug:
and the Feisty Cosmo Bat :
We tried a new pumpkin carving technique thanks to a recommendation from my mom. Instead of cutting the top out, we cut the bottom off and then set the pumpkin on top of a candle. It worked perfectly! No more worrying about the top sitting perfectly on top. Plus is was way easier to clean the seeds out.
Hannah and I carved 3 of the pumpkins today. The other 3 were carved last weekend by me, Hannah and Matt when my fam was up visiting.

We also took a different approach with handing out candy this year. Instead of tormenting the dog (she hates the doorbell), we just put the bowl of candy out on the front steps for the kiddos to help themselves. Our front porch storm door is also out of commission due to the recent temperature changes and/or the old house doing some settling. The frame is warped and so now the door will only shut with quite a bit of force. So, self serve candy worked well this year.

We made the most of our quiet Halloween. Hope you had a good one as well!

October Dinner Club

Dinner Club is back in swing. With summer being so crazy, we took a break but are now back at it. We've had some big changes with our dinner club. We lost 2 couples but have gained a new one. Kaija & Dean are off to Antarctica for a year and Nikki & Henry are finding themselves too busy so they are out. Our new couple is Frank & Erin, but I'll introduce them properly at the end.

Bruce and Nellie hosted this month and the menu was all about Autumn. We were in charge of the appetizer and so we did a cheese & wine tasting. There were four types of cheese: Mobay, Manchego, Gorgonzola & Wasabi Gouda (clockwise starting at the top):

I had wanted to bring sliced pears and grapes but as I pulled the (newly purchased) fruit out of the fridge, I discovered the grapes were molding and the pears were hard as apples. Major bummer. Going to a dinner party with foodies, I thought I'd spice things up a bit by adding some info. about each of the cheeses:

People seemed to like the Marietta Old Vine Zin that we brought to go along with the cheese.

Bruce brought out the first course- 2 Squash Soup and rye bread- and Nellie got us all situated with drinks- High Life: the champagne of beers.
The two different soups had contrasting flavors but as we swirled them together in the bowl, it was the most perfect pairing. This was my favorite item of the night!

The main entree was a Russian potato & whitefish gratin with an apple & green salad:
I've never had whitefish gratin and this was quite good. It was the perfect Autumn meal.

Frank & Erin were in charge of dessert and Erin impressed all of us with her pie making skills. She made a pear pie with a crumble topping and it was garnished with little leaves made from the leftover pie crust:
There were flavors of cardamom, cinnamon and coconut in the pie. It was very unique and very good.
And now, here are the happy dinner clubbers...
The Hosts- Bruce & Nellie:
The newbies- Frank & Erin (Frank works at UMD and he & Nellie used to work in the same department):
and us:
Once again, dinner club was a great time. We really enjoyed the great conversation and lots of laughter. We can't wait to host at our house in December!!

Gorgeous Fall

It has been the most perfect fall season this year! With summer like temps and vibrant leaves hanging on the trees a little longer than normal, it has been the perfect fall. There is something about this time of year that makes me feel reflective and calm. It is by far my favorite time of year.

And the best part of fall this year? My sister Hannah is finally in Duluth for college!!
We've been having a lot of fun together taking walks, baking, and just hanging out. I get to see her almost every day as she works in the same building as me at UMD, we have a workout date every Friday and she comes over most Sundays to do laundry and bake. It has been wonderful! We attended the Chester Bowl Fall Festival (above) and both bought some new winter gear. I got a new alpaca hat and she got some finger-less gloves. It feels great to have her close.

Another new thing about fall is Mikey's new job at the Whole Foods Coop.
His new gig is being the Deli Manager and so far he really likes it. It is much less stressful and we get some good grocery perks. With his new schedule, we are finding ourselves cooking more at home. We now have to make lunch for both of us and are both home at night for dinner. So, we are now planning a menu for the week. Yikes... sounds way too grown up:)

So what have we been eating?? Well, it was Mikey's birthday at the end of September and we kept it pretty low key. We made a big salad with homemade croutons to tide us over while a beef brisket smoked on the grill:

We also had some mashed potatoes with our CSA potatoes. Sadly, I neglected to take photos of the meat & potatoes. I did however remember to get a photo of Mikey's birthday "cake"- Key Lime Pie with vanilla whipped cream:
Neither of us are big fans of birthday cake, so I make Key Lime Pie once a year for Mikey's birthday.

This past week we've been on a seafood kick. We had some free frozen baguettes (Coop perks!), breaded frozen walleye from the summer fishing trip, a tomato from our CSA delivery and Schmidt's bacon in the freezer. So, with the purchase of some salad greens, we were able to make Walleye BLT's!!!!
The Fudala 'rents must try this asap!!

With the remaining salad greens, we made another big salad with cucumbers, tomatoes & onions (all from our CSA). I wanted some protein to add to the salad for some holding power and came up with the idea of crab cakes:
We also made some homemade tarter salad dressing. This was the best salad ever! So simple yet so satisfying. I usually default to wanting smoked salmon on my salads so this was a great change of pace.

So there you have it- our fall season is off to a great start!