Foodies..Minnesota Style

Perhaps no one thinks about Minnesota when you think fine cuisine.  I bet though, if you've ever past through our great state, you will have gotten a fond appreciation for good and hearty comfort food and perhaps a liking for a salad, that really is not a salad, but rather a desert. These are the foods I will be making for my Minnesota Foodie feast tonight. In reality, these, short of the soup, are not dishes I make very much at all, but evoke memories from childhood and still make appearances at family gatherings and potlucks. I have not begun cooking yet, but here is the menu so far. A few more items might slip in if something pops into my head. There will be no Lutefisk. That was one food that could have stayed in Norway. DD#1 took her friend for a Juicy Lucy the other day, so I will not be making those scrumptious burgers either, but I kind of want one now. 

First, and so stereotypically Minnesota it could not NOT be on the menu. I am speaking about Tator Tot Hotdish. Don't let any web writer or travel blogger fool you into saying "hotdish" is pronounced "hoddish". I've never heard it called hoddish in my life, except perhaps if it was a guy asking for another scoop while still having a bite of the last helping in his mouth. Minnesota is one of the highest educated states, and we speak proper grammar, and while we may add colorful and quaint expressions to our sentences, you know, we say hot-dish  as it is phonetically meant to be said. Geesh! 

I had to get that of my chest. I had a lot of suggestions to make the green pistachios and pineapple salad, all the rave at every Lutheran  church funeral spread. I don't like it, and don't like to prepare things I don't like to eat, so passing on that in favor of a more recent Minnesota "salad" creation, the Snickers Salad. This delicious concoction of sweet, salty, and tart combines crisp, preferably a tarter apple, pieces of a Snicker candy bars, and dry roasted salted peanuts, mixed together and liberally bound with a tub of Cool Whip. Yes, I did call it a Snicker salad. For it to be really Minnesotan, I suppose we should use a Pearson's Nut Goodie, but I like Snickers better. 

For a starter, I will have cups of cream of wild rice soup. I couldn't find any in the grocery store, but if I was so fortunate to have foraged a few morel mushrooms, they would have made the soup over the top. I have a cheat recipe that starts with a box of long grain and wild rice mix, but the real Minnesota chef's will be buying the raw rice, washing it several times and soaking it the night before, 

Desert will be a pan of brownies. No Minnesota picnic spread, family gathering, church dinner, or weekend at the lake is complete without a pan of brownies. Or are brownies just a salad, in a pan? I am not sure now. Apparently Minnesota cuisine is so foodie worthy, Movoto made a video of the oh so cool people on the west coast tasting Minnesota dishes. I think overall, it was a thumbs up. I'll let you know tomorrow what our English friend's verdict was. 

Minnesota Gift Basket Explained

Silly me for not realizing the winner of my anniversary giveaway had two blogs, and she posted about her prize on Blog #2.  I hadn't wanted to ruin the surprise so didn't explain, but now I can come clean.  The basket was a tribute to Minnesota.  Now we are proud to say Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes.  Actually there are 15,291 lakes larger than 10 acres.  The spit of a pond I have in my back yard park and those like it do not count!

Minnesota is the State of Hockey.  Never mind how few Stanley Cup's have been brought home here. We do have the Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, MN. "Check" it out; bad pun intended. The t-shirt should make for interesting conversations in the UK from which the winner, Frugally Challenged/Trundling through Life lives.  Here is her assessment of the prize. I think the animal is supposed to be some sort of cat-it has always been a mystery to me exactly what it is. Maybe it is a bear?  I like this logo because it highlights our lakes, rivers, and streams, north woods, and our north star.  Minnesota, as the French voyageurs used to say is "L'etoile du nord." 

Next I included 3M Post-It Notes and Scotch tape.  A business staple close to my part of Minnesota, I couldn't even estimate how many family and friends have been employed by them over the decades.  Their products are good quality, and rumor has it, Post It Notes were the result of some sort of error in another product development.  I've heard multiple versions, so won't commit in writing to tell the tale. 

General Mills, originally a cereal and grain company, now is buying and merging with other companies like crazy.  I included treat size versions from their head quarters in Golden Valley, MN. General Mills also has a philanthropic arm, so I have been to many events they hold for non profit organizations, and have worked with them when they were a funder of programs I directed in my past work. They are big and a multi million if not billion conglomerate, but try to do good work with some of their profits. 3M as well as most Minnesota  companies do a lot of charitable giving through a a foundation arm.

Then my favorite items in the basket, Pearson Salted Nut Rolls and Dunn Brothers coffee.  The coffee speaks for itself, and I posted a few weeks back about  telecommuting while perched in a Dunn Brothers coffee house. The Pearson Candy Company was a family owned business making delicious and unique candies for generations.  I would have loved to have sent a Nut Goodie, but worried the chocolate covering would have been a mess, so stuck with the Salted Nut Rolls, nougat, covered in caramel, coated in peanuts; a salty sweet wonder. Scout troops, school classrooms, and 4-H clubs have all been on tours of the Pearson plant, leaving with goodie bags of treats.  DH once worked in wholesale candy distribution and Pearson often sponsored events-one when I was pregnant with DD#1 and had ridiculous sugar cravings. I think I devoured a pound of Pearson mint patties that afternoon.

I could not put together a Minnesota gift basket without Spam.  Spam is a pork something product, meat like stuff, made by Hormel, hailing from the great city of Austin, MN. It is the butt of jokes regularly, but has a tremendous following in Hawaii, I've heard. DH's mom used to make pizza burgers with Spam and my mom stocked up if it was really cheap and used it for a pantry staple for when times were very tight.  If it came out for dinner, that was our clue that dad's construction work was being reduced, or he was between projects, and shoeing horses as his only income. Surprisingly, I would not call economical at all anymore, but in the 70's it was the frugal "meat." 

Finally, the basket contained Minnesota cultivated wild rice.  Wild rice is very different than other white rice varieties.  It is nutty, and hearty and delicious cooked along with white rice, through must cook longer, as a grain in bread and stuffing, and just on its own. this is not your Uncle Ben's wild rice. I usually soak mine for a few hours to soften the shafts and then cook along with long grain white rice, in a mix of water and chicken broth. Wild rice is a Minnesota American Indian staple, and still harvested traditionally this same way.  This video will help get a taste for how it is harvested. I love the music, so much a part of Minnesota history, the glorious and the sad.  

More Gifts of Veggies

Fall came back to Minnesota.  Not 80 degrees today, it is sweater weather.  I received another bounty of garden produce from a coworkers brother who is a tenant farmer in the rural Twin Cities area, growing for selling at farmers market.  With the end of the season approaching, apparently he has more than he thinks will sell, and happy to share his surplus.  It won't be hard to get our 5 a day in this week.  I'm so pleased, but does anyone know what sort of pepper this is, and importantly, how hot is it?  Once I know that, I am in need of ideas of what to do with them.  Do they fry up and mellow in flavor like bell peppers?  Do they freeze well?  Should I stuff them with cheese like jalapeno poppers or Chille Relleno?

They are absolutely stunning in color, but I have a fear that steam will be coming out my families ears if I don't prepare them well.  In my care package was also some more tomatoes, onions, and a bulb of garlic.  I could see pico de gallo in my future.  Underneath the skinny peppers are a slew of red and green bell peppers as well.  Regardless of what I end up doing, I better set some time aside this coming weekend  for baking.  Now that it is cooler, I can give a thank you to my generous "gifters" with some fresh baked pumpkin bread.   

Early Fall in the River valley

Today is the first full day of fall.  We have had some quite chilly mornings, mixed with wonderful sun, slowly heating up the air.  It was a little hazardous vision wise on my drive to work but I was stopped and able to take a couple quick photos of the fog coming off the Mississippi.  Pardon the dash board.  I could live year round in these kind of temperatures.  The fog has such allure, particularly seeing it over a river when you can't tell where the land, water, or sky meet. 

I was loaded, over loaded in fact at work, so couldn't so much as get a walk around the building.  I made up for it at home, and Kota, my darling dog, even scored two walks-one before dinner, and a second just a bit ago, in the dark.    I got dinner started, some simple rice, beans, and cheese with tortilla, and headed for walk one. Once back, the girls and I went to town on the makeshift tex-mex, eating out on the deck rather than inside.  I polished off the remaining premixed margarita's, hiding in my fridge for just such a dinner happy hour.  Walk two required a flashlight as there wasn't so much as a star to help guide us on the path. 

We met loads of other dogs and owners both times. It is so hard keeping indoors on these warmer fall nights in Minnesota.  We are anticipating another 80 degree high on Wednesday, but know we must brace for the 30-40 degree swing south, potentially coming in the same week. While I raved about my dream to relocate to the UK, this is the season, and kind of weather, that draws folks into my part of Minnesota.  Sadly, after fall lures them in, winter freezes the feet to the ground.  I'm a long way from retirement, but I think I might have a seasonal living plan for when I do.  Minnesota gets dibs on September -early November.  


Just a foggy haze on the other side of the bridge



You can see the fog rising up from the river

I want to thank all of you that have given my site a read or two.  On Sunday I hit my first milestone and went over 1,000 page views.  Now granted, I probably might be a fair share of those even with trying to not track my own.  While I read blogs that have thousands of views a day,  sharing my ideas and thoughts with any of you readers has been a wonderful outlet for the random things going through my head.  Trying to adjust to a new framework, and see life with a realistic, but open minded lens to other perspectives and writing about it has been more difficult than I thought.  Trying to not sound whiny, insensitive, dull, or self indulgent is a challenge.  I hope my posts get better, lighter, and are infused with more fun.  As I move into the next phase, I intend to bring in a little content with some research behind it.  Comments and ideas are appreciated.  For those who found me, and came back more than once, and those that did so from outside the US, let me know what's working, or what maybe isn't.  Thanks again.