Homemade pretzels

Pretzels must be a hot food trend right now, because I've been seeing them everywhere -- in cooking magazines, on fast-food menus, at the grocery store bakery.  I took a few days off of work earlier this fall and decided to try a pretzel recipe I found in the latest issue of Hy-Vee's Seasons magazine.

I was surprised by how easy this recipe is. I mixed and kneaded the dough in my Kitchenaid mixer.  (Thanks again to my parents & sister for giving me the mixer for my birthday!)  The dough rose beautifully.  The hardest part was rolling out the pretzels. I don't have enough counter space to roll out the dough in long ropes.  So my pretzels puffed up quite a bit in the oven and ended up looking more like pretzel rolls than knots.

My hubby got the bright idea to turn the pretzels into hamburger buns. He made blue-cheese mushroom burgers (with Maytag blue cheese).  So good!

You can find the Hy-Vee Seasons pretzel recipe here: https://www.hy-vee.com/seasons/recipe.aspx?r=8778.

Have you ever made homemade pretzels?  Do you have any tips for shaping the pretzels?  I'm definitely going to try this again, now that I know how easy it really is.

Crumb topped apple pie

A few weeks back, my mom and I rode on the annual Boland, Iowa, bike ride and we were treated to pie at the finish. I picked the crumb topped apple pie and loved it so much I wanted to make it at home.

Pie after our Boland bike ride

I clipped a recipe for crumb topped apple pie from Taste of Home a couple years ago. I loved the back story behind the pie: The 80 year old pie baker from West Des Moines makes dozens of apple pies each fall for her son's business clients. Sounds like her recipe is a keeper!

My apple pie didn't turn out as pretty as the recipe photo, but it tastes terrific. I used MacIntosh apples from Center Grove Orchard near Cambridge, Iowa.

Click here for a link to the recipe, if you want to give it a try: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Crumb-Topped-Apple-Pie

Osage artisan festival

Last weekend, I drove up to my hometown in northern Iowa to visit my mom and stepdad.  My mom suggested that we drive to nearby Osage and check out the town's fall artisan festival.  We didn't know what to expect.  We thought we'd find a few food booths and a couple pumpkins to buy.  But boy, were we surprised by what we saw!  The main street was lined with food and craft vendors. Visitors were walking up and down the street, in and out of stores, wearing their knee-high leather boots and drinking pumpkin lattes. My mom and I had no idea it was such a big event!

I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I've been told it's kind of a "no-no" to take photos at a craft fair. The vendors don't want other people stealing their project ideas -- although maybe that's not as big of an issue nowadays with Pinterest and all.

Anyhow, I took a photo of the "Autumn" sign above, because I wanted to buy it but didn't have the cash.  (Again, we had no idea that it was a craft fair, so I didn't budget for it. If I go again next year, I'll save up some spending money!)  I also thought this jack o' latern chair was adorable.

Here's one of the parking lots full of vendors.  There were four of these vendor lots, if I recall correctly.

There was a taco truck that had a huge line of people, and the food looked wonderful.  But my stepdad wanted to stop at one of his favorite Osage restaurants, Teluwat.  The place was packed, but we managed to snag a table by sharing it with a group of really nice women, one of whom told us that she had more than 30 grandkids and four great-grandkids! She was adorable!

My stepdad and I ordered the special of the day: the breaded pork tenderloin.  It was huge, but so good!

Everyone told us that we had to stop at the new Unc's Cheesecake bakery in town.  We were so full after lunch, we didn't sample the cheesecake.  But my mom and I did order a couple of carrot cake balls for the ride home. Actually, I thought they were pumpkin cake balls, but when I ate mine the next day, it turned out to be carrot cake.  Still very good, although I really wanted pumpkin!

Sugar cookies decorated for fall.

Carrot cake balls for the ride home.

Have you been to any fun fall festivals this year?  I'm always looking for a new one to visit.  I just love this time of year!