gourmet autumn recipes

since coastal north carolina utterly lacks fall foliage (honestly, nothing) and the weather is still in the mid 80s, true minnesotans at heart need some way of filling that seasonal void, especially since autumn is both of our absolute favorite seasons! thus, we turn to classic homemade fall-time recipes to brighten our morale:


apple pie with lattice crust! decent taste, but could use a tad more pizzazz

zooming in on the cinnamon dusting

mccabe bread recipe: alissa, back as a youngster, had taken a field trip with her first communion class to the mccabe nuns' home and baked bread with them! this recipe is simply delish.

minestrone soup! it called for bay leaves which we didn't have on hand, and the consistency was more comparable to a stew than a soup, but it still tasted great.

mmmm hearty and wholesome, look at all those veggies!

perfect pairing with the bread!

peach butter! as it baked into a thicker viscosity, it gave off the most wonderfully pleasant fragrance of southern peaches, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger

again, perfect pairing with warm homemade bread fresh out of the oven

our peaches yielded a dozen jars! thankfully we will be able to indulge in this delectable spread throughout the upcoming pathetic coastal carolina winter season as well...

august = visitors galore! part 4

part 4 of 4: melissa and katey come to visit!

melissa and katey (aka MMM and KK - long live mayo clinic initial names!), a few of alissa's (ALF) old mayo coworker friends, visited us THE DAY AFTER hurricane earl swept through. it was an intense time of juggling whether or not their flight would even fly in, how extreme earl would actually be, and if we even would have power and electricity for them if they were to arrive. luckily the power did not go out (hallelujah!) and their vacation did not turn out to be as primitive as anticipated. to doubly add to this uncertainty, mike was scheduled to fly out of nc the same afternoon that alissa's friends were supposed to fly in...zoinks! but both flights were on time and went just smoothly. mike flew to mn to visit with family since alissa's friends were here for the same overlapping time period. a wonderful time was had, both in nc and in mn.


katey and melissa! first night in. we tried out the crazy coyote...quite an interesting experience...ask either of these two ladies if you want details...

mad lib! this was our game of choice over their vacay! SO FUN. one could play for hours!

blackbeard!! melissa is a blackbeard fanatic so we toured the beaufort maritime museum and learned more. this guy was a notorious pirate who sailed the 'queen anne's revenge' ship in these waters back in the day. the ship's wreckage is just up the shore from us, in the beaufort inlet, but it is still not fully excavated so it is currently off-limits. this guy was quite a character with his many aliases! in 1718, though, he was captured and decapitated on ocrakoke island, which is inbetween cape hatteras and beaufort.

why there he is, mr. blackbeard himself, shaking melissa's hand!

"the only photo op in the museum," according to its sign. so of course, we had to indulge ourselves!

arrrr, mateys

beaufort is just teeming with historic sites all over the place, including this!

while in beaufort we also visited the old burying ground. cemeteries tell such intricate and untold yet mystifying stories, making them curiously inviting. all the while keeping respect for those who have passed, the headstones and layout all share details just waiting to be read.

"here lies the remains of the sellers killed during the tuscarora indian war, september 1711." although there are no physical headstones, hundreds of skulls lie underneath the ground there.

there is something serene about this

early stonework. they all had their purposes; it was interesting to learn.

western view of the cemetery

walking along the beaufort boardwalk!

cute, quaint beaufort businesses on the water

beaufort boardwalk

beach time. a huge chunk of their time here was spent sunbathing on the beach. the weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time - not one rainy or even cloudy day! labor day weekend is the ultimate end to the tourist season here on the island, and the beaches surely showed it with last-minute beach-goers.

mel and katey attempting to absorb as much vitamin d as they possibly can before they need to return to mn...

shirley joined us to soak up some sun for a bit, also! though she was slightly more interested in gnawing on a partial conch...

happy hour on the beach! yuengling is an east coast beer, comparable to blue moon. the perfect cool beverage to cap a hot day!

sunset on the beach

august = visitors galore! part 3

part 3 of 4: hurricane earl!

a week after lauren and andrew visited, we were amidst prepping the house for wave three of visitors when hurricane earl threatened to strike our coast. earl was a strong category 4 hurricane when our town here ordered a mandatory evacuation late the night before it was to sweep through. since we live literally on a huge sand bar island, there is only one bridge as access. we didn't want to take our chances in becoming stranded so we evacuated inland. earl did eventually weaken into a category 2, thank goodness, so the most damage we encountered on our property were branches scattered all over the lawn (those up north more, near cape hatteras, experienced more damage than us as they are even moreso on a delicate sandbar that reaches out further into the atlantic). even so, we took all precautionary steps necessary in case earl had remained stronger and/or were to have made landfall: we quickly hurricane-proofed our house, moved any and all outside belongings inside, strapped down various possessions, double-checked our insurance coverage, and gathered items for a hurricane emergency kit in case we were to have come back to the island afterward with no power or electricity. being the sand bar that it is, emerald isle is prone to flooding so even if we were to have hunkered down like we later on realized we could have (and like we wanted to all along - what's cooler than hunkering down in a storm?!?!), our cars still would have been jeopardized by possible flash storm surge. at least next time we know what to expect and we will definitely be riding the next hurricane out if it is anything like earl!

this has been the most active hurricane season in a while, but luckily none have yet made landfall while we have been here. hurricane season in the atlantic extends from june 1st through november 30th. fun facts: the last hurricane to have made landfall in north carolina was hurricane ophelia (category 1) back in 2005. hurricane isabel was the most recent category 5 hurricane that swept through our coast in 2003. it is tradition to write messages to the looming hurricane on the boards used to board up windows - we saw several messages to earl referencing isabel.


sunrise a few mornings before earl hit. beautiful!

shirley taking a quick break from her daily beach walk to bask in the morning sun rays

"pink sky at night, sailor's delight; pink sky at morning, sailor's warning" is the old maritime way of gauging the weather. it proved true! this is capturing pink sky above our house the night before earl brushed past us.

early prepping stages - getting all water bottles clean and ready

our hurricane 2010 emergency kit! we are fully prepared. we also filled up both bathtubs fully with water in the event plumbing was out due to earl - excellent tip to know. we didn't know what to expect - can you blame us? we are northerners at heart; give us a blizzard anytime and we know what to do as we're so used to it! some friends have humorously commented on how we are forever plagued with bad weather, considering our wedding occurred the day after a major mn blizzard...and now we live on prime hurricane coast!

hurricane early during its category 4 stage. note where hatteras is - emerald isle is just below hatteras

earl the night before. we are the red pin!

our beach entrance the morning before. red flag designates no swimming due to hazardous rip currents caused by earl

ocean waves, the morning before. getting big!

upon evacuating inland, we spotted numerous red cross disaster relief vehicles all ready to go

shirley's temporary bed on the hotel cot

hey! she snuck into our bed!

strange, strange message on some sketch van in the parking lot...

what earl was turning out to be as the night progressed. we are the green pin.

aftermath: dozens and dozens of tires washed up on our shore from hurricane earl. what happened was that these tires were a part of an artificial reef program back in the 1970s for a reef just off the beach. they were apparently used for fish habitats and to produce attractive fishing grounds

close-up of the washed up reef tires

august = visitors galore! part 2

part 2 of 4: lauren and andrew visit!

alissa's good friend lauren came the very next week, just a couple days after mike's family left. andrew, one of mike's good friends, also came to visit overlapping lauren's stay so we had a full house. shirley even got bumped from her room, but she took it as an upgrade since she got to be in the master bedroom!

laur and liss posing in front of "the big blue"

view of one of the *few* sunny days while laur was here.

but oh, we made very sure we were beachgoers, rain or shine!

dinner at the "ice house" and kicking back a yummy raspberry coastal brew, yum. we spy a wall of torrential downpour!!

what could lauren possibly be hiding underneath that seashell mask?? the world will never know...

enjoying happy hour on the beach!

our message in a bottle photo op. there's really a message in there.

shirley LOVED lauren, as you can see here...she kept hiding her chew toys in laur's shoes!

hittin' up the emerald club with LAUREN'S FOLLOWERS hahaha

andrew and mike came to the e-club, too! these two could totally pass as twins. in fact, our wedding photographer accidentally took pictures of andrew for a bit because she mistook him as the groom!

pelicans! [insert jurassic park theme song]