The Smells of Fall

Fall has descended on Minnesota. Cool weather, rain, leaves turning colors, pulling out the sweaters … and making homemade applesauce!

Backyard apples simmering with spices

I scored a bunch of backyard apples from a coworker this week. Back in the day, when I was rather domestic, I’d go to the orchard for a bushel apples. I would cook them up and my family would enjoy all sorts of apple delights for months and months.

I don’t remember the last time I made homemade applesauce … oh the smell of the spices simmering with those apples is intoxicating. What do you like about fall?

My Interim Hobby While it Snows

We had a nice change from snow today, rain.  Since I can’t ride my motorcycle because of the weather, I did a few other things in the kitchen.

I made some Apple Quinoa Muffins. I found the recipe at Cooking Quinoa which is a whole blog dedicated to recipes using quinoa. I made a few substitutions like using raw cane sugar, cranberries, cinnamon, and oat flour but they still turned out yummy! Here’s a picture.

Apple Quinoa Mufffins!

Then I made Spring Rolls. No particular recipe. I filled the rice wraps with cabbage, bean sprouts, carrots, romaine lettuce and green onions. They were very tasty too! We had a very spicy sauce and a sweet and sour too. Nom, nom, nom.

Spring Roll

Here’s to hoping the weather changes soon!

P.S. I awoke Monday to this weather report for the next couple of days.

Will it ever end??

Weather image source

Belated Birthday Dinner with my Son

My son’s birthday is the day before mine in November. We finally were able to go out to eat all together Saturday night after last week’s delay of game with 16 inches of snow!!

We went to Osaka Seafood Steakhouse. It is a fun restaurant where they cook on a hibachi grill at your table. The chef was amazing twirling, slicing, and cooking our food. He cut up a bunch of veggies and started launching them to us as we tried to catch them! He also shot Sake in our mouths and counted to see how long we would last – I think my son lasted the longest. The chef made a volcano out of an onion by stacking the rings and filling it with Sake then lighting it on fire! The cooking show was amazing and the food was fabulous. I had the lobster, shrimp, and scallops with fried rice and a huge pile of veggies. Nom, nom, nom.

There were three of us at our table celebrating a birthday. At the end of dinner the disco lights start flashing, “Happy, happy birthday!” blares over the intercom, and they bring out these headpieces for us to wear as they bang on drums! And a plate of fried bananas drenched in chocolate topped with whipped cream was served. Tummy-lious!

Ha-ha! Here’s me in the mask they brought out.

After all that food I better plan on getting back into exercising and eating healthy!