…for schizophrenic spring weather.
On Tuesday, April 22nd, Minneapolis looked like this:
On Saturday, April 28, I took the same walk…in a tank top.
‘Tis the Season…
5
Frugal Friday: Let’s get Saucy
It’s a well-established fact that after months of winter, some Minnesotans will don shorts and t-shirts on the first 40* day that’s even a little sunny. It’s a little embarrassing, I know. But this past winter, especially, has felt endless, with two late-April snow storms. So like the Minnesotan I am, I am typing this outside today, shoeless, jacketless, hatless, as the temperature climbs towards 70*. Did you hear me? Seventy. It always makes me laugh that a 70*-day will bring out white winter legs in Minnesota while it causes Floridians to put on another jacket.
Anyway, in honor of what feels like spring actually coming to stay, we’re totally grilling out tonight. I’ve got bacon and ground beef thawing, because I’ve been totally jonesing for some bbq-bacon cheeseburgers. And because today is a day dedicated to celebrating the return of the sun, I started looking around for some homemade barbecue sauce…I thought I’d share the recipe I’m using with you, as well as a few summer’s-coming sauces that you can make at home on the cheap!
#1. Farmgirl Susan’s Homemade Barbecue Sauce from Farmgirl Fare
image from farmgirlfare.com
Mango Apricot Chutney
Let’s talk chutney.
I started thinking about a fruit chutney when I decided to Indian-ize my goat-cheese-stuffed roast chicken. Goat cheese and fruit go together, well…like this April and snow.
taken just days ago. for real.
Roast Chicken stuffed with Indian-Spiced Goat Cheese
Let me tell you the story of this chicken.
A few months back, I was reading one of my favorite blogs, and as usual was thinking how great a friends the author and I would be…I’m sure of it…even though I would struggle knowing that I was the less funny of the two of us…but how even that would be okay because she’s hilarious and makes great foods and because she too is uncomfortable when things don’t include cheese.
The Exact Place Giveaway Winner…
And the winner is…
Jennifer O’Neill
!!!
Hope you enjoy! We’re excited you can share this with your book club!
“Half-Time” Buns – Classic White Buns
All of this snow has left me not knowing whether I want to laugh or cry.
I almost cried yesterday because, well, a good friend had offered to watch Owen so that I could have an afternoon out, all to myself. In my afternoon of freedom and fun, I had planned to buy these shoes with the cash we got back from using our credit card to pay for Owen’s birth. Baby-pushing shoes. That’s right. Then I was going to follow up this reward purchase with an hour at a coffee shop, reading this book.
I had big plans for my afternoon out. But apparently so did the weather.
Blueberry Pie
Carpé Season, Schmarpé Schmeason, you might be saying to yourself right now.
It’s April. Graying snowbanks are still haughtily sitting atop grass that hasn’t even started to think about growing again, and you’re making blueberry pie? There aren’t even ramps at the markets yet, and you’re filling pies with summer berries?
And my response is yes. I know that it is April and that it is entirely possible that this winter will never end, if the forecast of six inches of snow tomorrow, the 18th, is any indication.
The Exact Place (A Giveaway!)
This past weekend, our friends Sarah and Brad hosted a meet-the-author event for the author of one of our most recent favorite books – The Exact Place. And we happily attended.
Homemade Pizza Rolls
We’re wrapping up Guilty Pleasures Food Week with a classic:
Let me see the Pizza Roll!
This guilty pleasure is brought to you by Eric, who is pizza’s biggest fan. I’m serious. We live in a city with highly diverse restaurant options, yet almost every time we talk about getting take-out, his response is “Wanna get some pizza?”
So, a few weeks ago, when he emailed me the link to these pizza rolls, having written only the word “yumface” in the subject line, I knew they had to be made for our Guilty Pleasures Food Week.
Homemade Cheez-its
Since we’re talking Guilty Pleasure Foods that make us feel better this week, I thought it only right to continue with what is also quickly becoming Snake Week and tell you about the great Snake scare of 1991. Because it’s possible that I’ve never felt worse in my life.
After my debacle with the nature-center snake in kindergarten, I was pretty scarred. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I refused to look at snakes in my science books at school. And once, when my sisters made me a fort to sleep in and used a striped sheet over the top, I woke up screaming from a nightmare about snakes. This is true.
Homemade Cool Ranch Doritos: Guilty-Pleasure Food Week
Welcome, friends, to Guilty-Pleasure Food Week here on Carpé Season. While most of the time, I try to bring you good-for-you, real-food recipes, the recipes you’ll see here this week have very few redeemable qualities about them other than being awesome.
Maybe you’re about to get rocked by the IRS for the freelance work you did last year, so you are downing Skittles like they’re tax deductible. Maybe you simply need some O-Ke-Doke Cheesy popcorn to snarf during commercial breaks of Parks & Rec.
Or maybe, like me, you’re just cognizant of the fact that snakes are real.
What? Snakes? What do snakes have to do with Cool Ranch Doritos?
Well, every guilty pleasure has a story, and I’m about to tell you one that got me started on my go-to guilty pleasure: Cool Ranch Doritos.