How was your weekend?
We spent ours mostly at home, doing nothing in particular but enjoying some football, baking, and catching up with some good friends we donโt see nearly enough. In other words, whatโs not to love?
Some of my favorite snaps from the weekend:
Friday morning sunrise โ so vibrant!
And I think Friday deserves a candy cane mocha from Dunn Bros. ๐
Why yes, I do love turkey. (This is what itโs like to purchase turkey products for our annual Thanksgiving presentation with the Governor of Minnesota โ an event scheduled for Monday morning!)
My Friday evening happy hour at home included this new white blend I tried from France, Cote Est โ affordable and delicious!
Skipping to Saturday night, Teacher Man and I went out for an early celebratory drink at The Tavern at Wild Marsh, after both the Iowa Hawkeyes and Minnesota Gophers won their respective football games. (Iowa is now 11-0, which is a HUGE deal for Teacher Man, a lifelong Hawkeyes fan.) The drink above is a very delectable blackberry mojito martini, made with mint-infused rum. I am definitely going to try to recreate this at home.
(Side note on football โ good thing we celebrated Saturday as the Minnesota Vikings did not fare so well against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. Ouch!)
We returned home and Teacher Man donned his apron to make chili, a specialty of his. I added cornbread and we had a complete, hearty meal โ plus leftovers to help during what will be an busy early part of the week.
After supper, we sat down with Joe and Earl the pug to watch the original Star Wars movie, which was quite fun to revisit! And we realized Earl the Pug can look suspiciously like Jabba the Hutt. ๐
Sunday morning brought about these bad boys โฆ oh my word were these absolutely fantastic! Itโs a โCranberry Orange Breakfast Bunsโ recipe from blogger Smitten Kitchen. I made the dough on Saturday, put together the rolls, and then let them sit in the refrigerator until commencing with the baking on Sunday morning.
I love how this recipe makes 12 rolls โ no more than that, which is plenty for my household of three people. (Well, two really, considering Joe doesnโt eat this kind of stuff, usually. I know I know โ he has no idea what he is missing.)
Funny story on the dough: I put in a packet of quick rise yeast, only to realize two hours later that it was past its expiration date and definitely was NOT rising quickly. So after a Google search on how to fix yeast that isnโt working, I put the dough in the oven, over a pan full of boiling water, and that definitely did the trick. It took about double the amount of rising time than the original recipe called for, but I did get the dough to rise. #Winning!
Weโre heading into Turkey Week, which will bound to be busy with media calls for me โ along with the aforementioned Governorโs presentation. But, I promise to be back on Tuesday with a terrific turkey leftovers soup recipe you will want to check out.
And if you are a farm/ag blogger, I hope you will consider signing up for Christmas in the Country 2015 gift exchange โ you have until November 30 to do so. Click here for all the details.
See you Tuesday!
Lara