Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween every one!  We have a new look to our blog as of today.  It was time for a change, after about 2 years into blogging.


No major plans for either of us this Halloween.  Usually we'll at least dress up and go out or hit up a party or two, but this year Dave is out of town.  He's down in Florida for the quarterly Maximized Living seminar.  I am so sad that I missed it this year, but we had a HUGE event finishing up at Revolution that I had to assist in running.  It was a great turnout, packed house, so it was worth it to stick around town for sure.  But I'm disappointed I didn't hop on a plane and get down there for today -- Dave called this afternoon and said he was honored with an award and called up on stage for his outstanding leadership and direction as President for the past year!!!!!  This is a tremendous honor as he was hand picked out of all the presidents from all the schools around the country, AND the ML leaders rarely congradulate students let alone honor them with an award.  I say the first of many!  :)  Sad I missed the big moment, but so excited for Dave at the same time.  Perhaps we'll get a pic up here when he gets home to show it off.


So while I've been home alone this weekend (with the exception of our lovely roommate, Kelly, who is scrambling to get her last-minute costume together right now -- eek!), I've done a little bit of pre-Christmas shopping (for those of you who know why my Secret Friend/Secret Santa is this year, you know why this was the perfect time to do some browsing) and have successfully cleaned our entire bathroom and about half our bedroom.  Needed a break, so thus I am blogging.  My goal is to get it all done before bed tonight.  Then get a restful night's sleep before rising early to pick up Dave at the airport.


Dave got his test scores back from National Boards and bum, bum, bum.... he passed!!  2 sets down, 2 to go!  And he's down to 1 more year of school as of the end of November.  Exciting!!  Can't wait to move, get our office set up, and start saving lives in a new city!


I think that's all the major news for now.  I might pop in a scary movie soon to set the mood while I finish tiddying up.  :D   Don't forget to fall back tonight every one!



-  E

Turkey Meatloaf

Here is one of the most delicious meatloaves we have ever had!  It comes pretty close to Good Earth's signature loaf, but is definitely the best homemade loaf I've ever concocted!  I wanted to share my recipe with everyone, especially those of you in the same boat as us with tons of apples sitting around.  This is a great way to incorporate apples into a savory meal instead of always desserts.  We had plenty to feed the two of us for a couple days.  YUM!


1 tsp coconut oil
1 chopped onion, medium size
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 lb ground turkey
2 tsp fresh thyme (3/4 t dry)
1 1/4 tsp fresh sage (1/2 t dry)
1 1/2 cups peeled and grated apples (I used 2 Haralson and 1 Granny Smith so it wasn't TOO sweet)
1 1/4 c fresh bread crumbs from cinnimon bread or toast (Yummmm yum yum yum!)
1 large egg,lightly beaten
2 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp seasalt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1.)  Heat coconut oil in a small skillet over medium heat.  Add onions and celery and satue 5ish minutes until softened.  Stir in thyme and sage.  Set aside to cool slightly.

2.) In a large bowl, add ground turkey, bread crumbs, onion mixture, grated apple, egg, salt, pepper, mustard and parsley.  Mix well with your hands -- be sure to not squeeze the mixture through your fingers, just roll repeatedly and comb your fingers thru.  Squeezing the meat makes a very tough and dry meatloaf whether it's beef OR turkey.

3.)  Pack into a *greased* 8x4" loaf pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

4.)  GLAZE:
        1 Tbsp Apple Cider vinegar

        1 Tbsp brown sugar

        2 tsp Dijon mustard

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl and brush over the top of the loaf at the 30 minute mark.  Bake for 30 more minutes or until golden brown and juices run clear.

I served it with baked sweet potatoes and that was it.  The glaze definitely  makes this loaf!  Enjoy!

 -  E

Apples Apples Everywhere!

We should start by wishing our brother Andy a very happy birthday!

This was the only picture I could find on the fly of Andy!!  Thought it was funny though, so we're posting it!  This is at Dave's Bachelor Party 2 summers ago.  L to R: Joe, Dad S, Dave, Andy, Mike, Aaron.  These were the winning teams from their golf outing and here they are posing with their prizes: growlers from the KBC!  Enjoy this memory, Andy!  We hope you are having an awesome birthday!!!

 We FINALLY sold Trixie!!  She left us officially on Sunday.  A young couple purchased the Matrix from us Sunday afternoon, after taking it for a spin the Thursday before.  It was their first major car purchase, too, just like it was for us.  We're glad she's in good hands, but will surely miss her!  It was one of the best vehicles we've ever had!  Now we've been using just the one car for this entire week, and let me say it is extremely hard to do when we work at places on opposite ends of the Metro.  So this Sunday we'll be out looking for a clunker -- that's right, looking to BUY a clunker, not sell it.  ;)  We'll just get a crappy little car to get us to and from and junk it whenever it dies.  We'll only need one car in about a year or 2 anyway, so this is the best plan to help us eat up some of our debt and work toward getting our office open!

Last weekend we also took some time to do something fun for a change.  We hit up the biggest apple orchard in the Cities called The Harvest.  It's only a few miles south of our apartment in Jordan.  They had free admission, which is key!  We didn't have much time to phyically go on the tractor and pick our own apples (we had to get back to the apt to sell our car! plus it was super cold and rainy!), but we walked around a bit then went inside the clubhouse to taste.  Okay, so who has ever even HEARD of a Honeycrisp apple??  Better yet tasted one???  SO GOOD!  We'd never heard of that type before.  The University of Minnesota actually created it by cross breading 2 other types, and what resulted was the Honeycrisp.  They taste just like the name -- like a crisp, honey sweet apple!  THE best ever!  So after sampling all the apples, we grabbed a bag of those and also a bag of Haralsons (another breed famous to MN).  We also got to taste some of the other products the apple orchard makes: salsas, sausages, cheese, and CIDER!  Yup, grabbed a half gallon of their cider, too.  On our way out, we also got 2 warm cups of cider, a slice of apple pie and an apple dumpling.  DElicious!  We'll definitely go back next fall and take more time so we can do our own picking!  We're thinking of making our own apple pies this weekend.  Maybe some other apple things...any ideas out there??  Possibly one of our favorite fall soups for dinner Saturday night -- Curried Apple Soup.  If you can think of anything else Apple, send it our way!  We have so many apples sitting around!!

This was the first thing we saw after following the signs to the orchard.  I guess the old barn looked cooler in person, but I wanted to take a picture of it.  Didn't turn out so great on here though.  Oh well.  I just really liked  how the apple looks, where they put the state of MN on there to look like the bite was taken out.

We had to drive up this muddy, mucky road to get to the main grounds.  All along the way, the road was lined with the various breeds of apple trees!  Haralsons are the ones in this picture.

 Driving up the mucky road to the Harvest!

These were all over the place.  This was close to the entrance and it was very kid oriented with all these apple characters and other pictures, stories, etc.

 

A little glimpse of the clubhouse.  This was the bakery section.  It was quite a unique place!

 

Yum!  Pie!

Stay warm everyone!  We hear snow is on the way later this weekend!!

-E