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!