learning how and where to eat locally in the twin cities

Garden Update- Planting Begins

Posted on May 14, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Well, spring is really here! It might have made a jump in to summer (93 today) but I’m not going to complain, it feels amazing! I didn’t make it in last week to say hello because The Hubs and I were finally able to get in the yard and start prepping and planting. This is what most of our nights after work looked like.

Oh yeah, and we built a shed! It’s a snap together, kit we picked up, took a solid afternoon. It’s going to come in handy storing garden supplies this summer. It kind of makes me want to paint our house to match. This picture would be even better if the lilacs were in bloom and I’d moved the pooper scooper…

As far as the actual garden goes, we got the main plot cleared, tilled, composted, and planted. We’re trying onions, lettuce and chard in a few little rows.

Next to that, we’ll have 6 squash; zucchini and butternut. We used our mini flower pots to remember where the seeds are. We’ll take them off once things start to sprout.

Last we’ll have cucumbers for pickling.

Oh, and those tomato seeds we started a couple of weeks ago, well look at them now!

These babies will go in the ground pretty soon. We’ve been placing them out in the sun during the day now that it’s warm. There are 9 plants of each type of tomato so we’ll be able to pick out the best of the best when they’re ready to plant. We still have to plant the smaller plant on the other side of the yard, plus all the pots on the patio. Hopefully we’ll finish it all up this weekend.

Oh yea! I’m also going to volunteer at the farmer’s market this weekend! I’m really excited to help but even more excited for it to be starting back up again. I’ll be picking up some goodies for sure!

Kegerator

Posted on April 30, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Well, after a good two week hiatus, I’m back to the grind. With two weekends away from home and a couple of days out of the office, I’m feeling a little behind. This will be my only post this week but it’s a good one. Just before I left for the first trip, The Hubs finished his kegerator for the dining room. We currently have two beers on tap, 5 gallons each. On the left an IPA made with Simcoe Hops (his) and on the right a multi grain, Amber Ale (hers).

It’s been perfection having this guy set up in the house. It’s hard to say no to a beer after a long day when it’s right off the tap. It’s also hard to keep track of how much you’ve had when you can re-fill once you pass the half way point….

Slow Start

Posted on April 17, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

I know I’ve been beating a dead horse around here, but it’s still not really spring yet. We tried to get a start on our gardening and planted some tomato seeds inside. I’m hoping we get some more sun, even if it doesn’t get warmer, so they get a chance to sprout. Technically, we’re supposed to plant our root veggies like onions and potatoes this weekend but unless something changes drastically, I don’t see that happening.

In other news, I’ve got a couple of busy travel weeks happening, so I won’t be around here very much for the next two weeks. I’ll try and pop in but regular posting probably won’t resume until the week of the 29th. Talk to you soon!!

Storable Crackers

Posted on April 10, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

A couple of weekends ago I tried my hand at making some homemade crackers to store in the new pantry. I used a recipe from my go to book, Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it by Karen Solomon. The recipe has different flavor options as well as instructions to use the same base recipe to make breadsticks if you’d like.

I was able to use the food processor to mix up the dough. First, I did a quick mix of my dry ingredients: flour, sugar, salt and pepper.

After a couple of pulses, I added in an egg and a bit of water.

I pulsed the ingredients until the dough formed large crumbs but would hold together when pinched.

From there, I created a large ball of dough on a floured cutting board.

Next, I cut the dough ball in half and rolled the dough into 12 x 12 squares (roughly) per the instructions. From there they took a quick pass in the refrigerator for about half an hour.

After the 30 minutes, the recipe instructed me to roll the dough out into 1/4″ – 1/8″ thick sheets. Well, to roll it out into the 12 x 12 squares, they were already a little less than 1/4″ so instead of wadding the dough back up and re-rolling, I went ahead and started cutting out my crackers. I used my trusty ruler to cut out 1″ x 1″ squares, salted the tops and pierced each square with my fork.

From there, they went right into the oven for about 10 minutes. The came out slightly browned and puffed up just a bit.

They were a bit heartier than your average Saltine or Ritz cracker. They almost reminded me of a savory shortbread. They were filling enough that you only needed a handful to get your fix. The only downside with these guys is that they only keep for about a week. We still had about half to get through when they started to go a little stale on us. I think next time around I’ll keep half on hand and freeze the other half. According to the book you can keep them frozen for a few months before you have to worry about them.

In other news. We woke up to a inch or two of snow this morning and we’re supposed to get anywhere from 6-10 inches by the end of the day tomorrow. Blerg.

Garden Plans 2013

Posted on April 8, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Well, we have a winter storm watch/warning later this week with accumulating snow, awesome. In spite of the lack of spring, we’ve finally gotten our full garden planned out. We’re expanding a little on to our patio with the herbs and trying to grow some new veggies on both sides of the yard. We cut out the summer squash and switched some for Butternut squash. We’re also trying a couple different varieties of potatoes, the basic white and some cool blue potatoes, both of which will be in the large garbage cans like last year. We’re going to give salad greens and swiss chard a try too.

It’s hard to believe some of my Facebook friends have already been out in their yards with full garden beds sprouting. I’m definitely a little jealous about that. We’ll keep doing what we can in the meantime, we start our tomatoes in doors this week and are ordering the remaining seeds we need this week. We’re supposed to get up to 50 this weekend, cross your fingers for me that it sticks around this time!

Sheep go to heaven, Goats go to hell

Posted on April 3, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Title reference? Anyone? Get it? Super cheesy, I know.
Anyway, we started the grill back up tonight! We grilled some lamb loin (sheep) and had some mixed greens on the side with Singing Hills Goat Dairy Feta.

Obviously, it’s been a long day. I’ll come back on Friday with a garden plan to share and hopefully better jokes.

Raspberry Bushes

Posted on April 1, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Happy April Fool’s! Did you guys pull any good pranks today? I’m not very good at keeping a straight face in situations like that. I usually end up giggling and telling someone what I was going to do instead. I’d make a horrible con-man.

Anywho, this weekend we had a quick blast of warm weather, up into the 50′s! We took the warm up as an opportunity to get out and thin out our raspberry bushes before they started to bud and it got to late. They got pretty overgrown last year and hard to harvest. Here’s what we were looking at Friday afternoon when we got started.

A few snags and scratches later, this is where we ended up.

We trimmed one day and then went back and tied them to supports the next day. Here’s the video we used as a guide. We have a different variety of raspberries than those in the video but it was pretty much the same process.

The only difference is our berries are ever bearing so our good stalks had some dried little branches we popped off where new buds were forming. I’m hoping the thinning we did will make them easier to pick and help promote growth of some new stalks for the next year. Getting out and doing some gardening got me itching to get back to the back yard garden too! I’m working up a new plan that I’ll share with you later this week!

Voo Doo Doughnut Ale

Posted on March 27, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

You might remember from my quick Portland trip re-cap from last summer. One of the photos I shared was the Maple Bacon Glazed Doughnut from VooDoo Doughnuts. Not only did I fall in love with their amazing flavor combo for breakfast, I also fell in love with their Maple Bacon Ale from Rogue Brewery. I was pretty bummed when we got home and we couldn’t find it at home.

Well last week, Rogue released a new VooDoo inspired flavor; Chocolate Peanut Butter and Banana Ale. They have a limited run of it at our local liquor store and we picked up a couple of bottles and I cracked one open tonight for dessert. I had really high hopes for this guy but unfortunately, it fell a bit short. It smelled wonderful! All the flavors were coming through and I got excited for that first sip. It was not too sweet, definitely chocolate-y and a little banana-y but it was lacking in the peanut butter department. It’s kind of a strange thing to say when talking about a beer. It’s definitely worth checking out. If you don’t have it locally, you can find it online at the Rogue website. They have both the new Chocolate Peanut Butter and Banana Ale and last years Bacon Maple Ale.

Winter Market

Posted on March 25, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

This past Saturday, a friend and I went to a Winter Market put on by Fulton Farmers Market (kind of a mouthful). It was housed in the greenhouses at Bachman’s in South Minneapolis. They had a great turnout. I think the combination of a sunny day and a city itching for spring had everyone eager to get out of the house and pick up some treats.

They had a mix of canned goods, meats, cheese, honey, jewelry, and crafts for sale. A couple of food vendors were there too if you needed a croissant for breakfast or falafel for lunch. I was really hoping there would be a little bit of early, fresh produce but it’s still just a little to early for that. Stupid snow.

I picked up some fresh Feta (from Singing Hills Dairy) for sprinkling over salads this week and some Raspberry Pepper Jelly (from Hazelwood Creek Farms) that I might eat with some cream cheese and crackers later this week. Yum!

Spring Recipes

Posted on March 20, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Happy First Day of Spring from sunny, Minneapolis! It’s a balmy 18 degrees, with a cool breeze making it feel -7, UGH! Everyone I know is itching for it to warm up. It’s just been too long since we’ve seen anything green. I rounded up a few spring recipes to send out some warm vibes and encourage spring to hurry up and get here.

*please note, all photos below are from their respective sites*
**also note, this is kind of a random meal but I wish this was all fresh and available right now**

We’ll start things off with a refreshing drink from the ladies of Spoon Fork Bacon

Follow that up with Asparagus & Pea Soup from Tartelette, to warm ourselves back up

We’ll keep it green for another moment here and follow up the soup with a Pea Salad with Radish and Feta Cheese from Epicurious

Photo By: Brian Leatart

For our main dish, we’ll dig into Mustard Crusted Pork with Farro and Carrot Salad from the folks at Bon Appetit. Did I mention sweatpants are encouraged for dinner attire?