Tally Ragsdale

Culinary Challenge Week #23

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Baking

Welcome back my lovelies for another soaring week of food! We took the Highlands for our culinary inspiration and came up with some interesting success and surprising disappointments.

These milky buns were truly delicious. Because if their soft taste I could easily see why they are favored by the Scott’s at breakfast. Though they’re good any time of day if you ask me.

This soup was yummy but not earth shattering, which was kind of disappointing. It’s been a while since we’ve had a soup knock it out of the ball park.

This harvest salad however was the bomb. I had no idea what farro was but I have quickly decided I love it. and can’t wait to have it again.

Speaking of something Tay and I can’t wait to have again is a Hot Totty. It definitely warms you up from the inside out and it was perfect for a chilly fall evening.

Oh okay why do we not have these as mainstream in a America?!? It’s an egg, surrounded in sausage and deep fried. It sounds exactly like something we would eat. I highly HIGHLY recommend.

So these were disgusting. In my personal opinion. As Tay described, “They were too sweet. Too naturally sweet.” So yeah… Yuck!

However this was spectacular! Taylor said it was one of her favorite things we have made yet. Which is high praise indeed. She’s still stuck on Italian week when we made homemade Shrimp Scampi.

You can’t have a pot pie without potatoes and these creamy version there of were pretty good. Not bad at all.

This however was bad. Just bland as all get out. We did not enjoy it. Like at all. I’m not sure if I made it wrong or what.

And that is it! So yeah it was kinda a mixed bag week. But this coming week… We’ll let’s just say I have been looking forward to it since we started this crazy adventure. That’s right it’s finally French week! (Swoon)

Lots of love,

Tally

Holiday in Door County

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Travel

Happy Labor Day! (Or by the time you are reading this post-Labor Day) My sister and I had the day off, which since we both work for the same family does not happen often. And with adventure calling we headed north to Door County.

Us early in the morning(after snagging coffee) ready for the 2 1/2 hour drive north.

Our main goal for the day was to explore Cave Point County Park(a County park inside of a State Park) and paddle board up the coast of Lake Michigan.

We accomplished our goal! It was an absolutely gorgeous day with a warm sun and cool breeze. The water wasn’t freezing, which it normally is and it was crystal clear.

After our paddle board adventure we are our packed lunch(Swedish leftovers of course) and then hiked the park.

By 2pm or so we were headed north for coffee and some shopping in Sister’s Bay.

We enjoyed our visit immensely. And after some our light shopping we continued northward for some Ice-cream!!

The pumpkin ice cream and homemade waffle cone was amazing!

Tay enjoyed her cookies n’ Cream as well.

We kept heading north all the way to Gills Rock. Before we turned around for the long trek home. We stopped in Egg Harbor at Shipwrecked Brew Pub for some much needed supper and we were home by 10 pm.

If you stop at the *Shipwreck Brew Pub* I highly recommend the Clam Chowder- Delicious!

Culinary Challenge Week #22

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Baking

Welcome back to ole blog. I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and are ready for fall. I personally have been ready for the last month or so. But now I no longer look like a crazy person with her pumpkins out in August. Now I am perfectly normal again. (She said sarcastically)

Our word this week was Swedish and it was very yummy. Let’s jump into it!

So at first I disliked this Sourdough(though I ended up making it a fake sourdough) loaf. I mean it smelled absolutely fantastic, but it was a lot of work(it had to rise all freaking day). However this bread gets better as it gets older. Both Tay and I agreed that by the third day it was at its peak.

Buttery, boiled potatoes with a turnip? Yes please!

I. Am. Never. Making these again. The construction and frying of meatballs is an absolute pain! It is so much easier to buy the meatballs frozen. That being said these tasted like Swedish meatball perfection.

Oh my gosh!! These were fantastic! So do you guys know those ginormous tins of short beard cookies sold at Sam’s Club around Christmas? The pretzel looking ones? So these cookies are like those but infinitely better. Like a thousand percent better.

I really loved this soup. Tay not so much. It wasn’t the best soup we’ve made during this challenge, but it made for a week of yummy lunches.

This salad literally needs to be eaten the day it is made. It does not keep well at all. It wasn’t bad tasting though. Basically a vinegar bath with dill. So very light.

A spicy, heart warming drink- Yum! It was nice to have a different drink than apple cider, which I would drink on continuum if ya know… that was healthy.

And that is all we were able to cook this week with the holiday. Do any of these Swedish delicacies look yummy to you? Our next word(which Tay is super excited about) is Scottish. Look out Highlands here we come!

Lots of love,

Tally

Culinary Challenge Week #21

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Baking

Welcome back! Hope you guys are hungry this week, because Pizza week was a tremendous success. Everything was delicious and not one thing went sideways on me. (Lol)

Umm so this bacon and egg Keto, Gluten free breakfast pizza was probably the most delicious thing ever! I would make this/eat this again in a heart beat.

Pizza Soup with homemade croutons 10 out of 10

An interesting concept, when I looked for this recipe, but oh my if it isn’t amazing! Like the perfect marriage of tomato soup and pizza sauce drowned in cheese and topped with absolutely delectable homemade croutons. Frankly I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have store bought croutons again. They have gone the way of Pumpkin Pie. (I can not stand store bought pumpkin pie after making homemade last year- so gross!)

Yeah this unfortunately was too good and way too easy to make. Graham cracker cookie crust and a s’mores topping… Yummy!

And of course homemade Pizza 10 out of 10

Our next word is Swedish. Until next time…

Lots of love,

Tally

Culinary Challenge Week #20

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Baking

Welcome to a very special edition of the Culinary Cooking Challenge! Over twenty weeks ago(read here) my sister and I started on a grand adventure of cooking. And while we have missed a week here or there for various reasons for the most part we have stayed on task and created some amazing dishes!

With this being a milestone of epic proportions!(I mean come on! Twenty weeks is pretty impressive) We both decided to do something extra special and have Tay do the cooking. But before we get to Tay’s creations let’s do a brief recap of our weeks so far…

The countdown…

I’m not saying that’s a crap ton of food- but it is… It really is. And now for the recap of-

Week Twenty!

Taylor is the unofficial queen of mixing nonalcoholic drinks. Remember Caribbean week(here)? Anyway these shirleys were no exception. Very yummy.

Okay so in all honesty I made these- it has been a crappy week here and I needed baking release. So this streusel muffins were a necessity.

If you could only smell it! Steak strips, yeast rolls and steamed broccoli. All the things that make me happy. Tay’s meal for the week was very delicious.

Again I made the bread because that was thing Tay was not comfortable attempting.

Yeah so this was an epic cookie fail. Don’t let looks deceive you these chocolate chip cookies were actually… not the greatest. But In her defense she’d had a wonky evening and is super stressed about college starting up when she made these, so I think she did pretty darn well.

Our next word is Pizza!

Lots of love,

Tally

By the by Tay tried again and rocked these cookies!! 10 out of 10

Oconomowoc Arts Festival 2021

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Lifestyle, Travel

Last weekend was the 50th Annual Arts Festival in Oconomowoc, WI. and my first time visiting the event. Oh boy did we have a blast!

Giving you some background; Oconomowoc is probably the cutest town in south eastern Wisconsin(in my personal opinion) Situated in the heart of lake country this classic American small town always has something going on. And this charming collection of local and far flung artists is no exception.

So one glorious Sunday afternoon Tay, her baby beardie and I headed out in search of culture and the unexpected,

The event did not disappoint in either category. There was so much unique talent represented and displayed.

We were told that normally the event is much bigger and yet given about a hundred vendors it definitely was well attended. These pictures are just a few of the works that stood out to me.

And of course I couldn’t go to an art event without coming home with a friend. Isn’t he glorious?

Lots of love,

Tally

Culinary Challenge Week #19

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Baking

So first off I want to apologize that my regular content has been lacking this month. It has been a crazy couple of weeks and my hands are up in the air as to what will happen next as far as life goes. (Anyone’s guess at this point) But hopefully I can get my content back up to scratch. Again super big apologize.

Anyway we are getting super close to the twentieth week of the culinary challenge and we are so excited for the extra special week! But more on that later for now let’s get to the blueberry inspired food.

At first I was on the fence about this salad, but seeing as how I practically ate all of it in four days I don’t think I can claim indifference. A very simple and delicious dish.

Focaccia Blueberry+Feta Bread 8 out of 10

So not as good as the Rosemary Focaccia we had back in Italian Week. But I mean with focaccia I feel like you can’t ever you dislike it.

Umm these ribs were amazing! Like I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have bbq ribs any other way but smothered in blueberries. This is something I could see making again and again.

Speaking of something I would most certainly make again this cheesecake is fantastic. Taken from a recipe by Half-baked Harvest(one of my fav culinary queens) I highly recommend this deliciousness! In fact it desires another pic.

I forgot how messy it is to make biscuits. I haven’t made them since week four(here) My hands were covered in flour, batter and dyed blue by the berries. It was all worth the fuss and mess as these were so lovely warm covered in honey.

This was almost a perfect, 10-for-10 week and it was crazy delicious! I probably gained like five billion pounds.

And now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for! For our twentieth week Taylor is doing the COOKING!!! Everyone get excited. Until next time…

Lots of love,

Tally

Culinary Challenge Week #18

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Baking

Oh my gosh we are two weeks away from the 20th week!!! We might have to do something special when we get there… Until then here(a day late) is a bunch of very delicious Hungarian food!

This was probably my favorite thing of the week! Salted cucumbers covered in sour cream, chives, hot pepper and paprika. All the good things in life.

Sour Cream, Cabbage + Pork Casserole 8 out of 10

Oh look my second favorite dish of the week. I mean baked sour cream, how can you go wrong?

Lagos(Hungarian Fried Bread) 7 out of 10

Not as good as the Icelandic Donuts a few weeks back, but these deep fried cakes were definitely interesting. I can see why they’re a staple street food in Hungary.

So much like the cinnamon rolls I made(again Iceland week) but less sweet and more breakfast-y. This particular recipe made four(yes four!) loaves and thus a few of my friends and family were gifted rolls.

Not pictured this week are the crepes that I tried to make one morning… I have made French crepes before, which one would think would not be too different from Hungarian crepes. However the recipe for Hungarian crepes was no good and we ended up with uneatable, burnt goo patties. Yuck!

Kolaches(blueberry, apricot and ricotta cheese) 10 out of 10

We used to have these every Christmas(my elder sister is the queen of Kolaches) And these were fantastic as all ways!

You’re lucky I took a picture of this before we threw it away. This was the worst. Plain and simple.

After our failed crepe episode we had Lagos and fruit instead.

As you can tell Hungarian week was a pretty even mix of really good food and just the worst. A very interesting experience to say the least. From here we leave globe trotting as our next word is ingredient based. Everybody get ready for BLUEBERRY week!

Lots of love,

Tally

Culinary Challenge Week #17

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Baking

So my week of “leftovers” (a.k.a. a week I wasn’t supposed to cook) turned into a very heavy baking week. Who am I kidding I am an obsessive baker and cook at this point.

Above is a very yummy French toast bake I made. Mainly because we had a whole loaf of gluten free bread that no one was going to eat. But as I have learned you put sugar on it and they will eat it.

For the more… adult eaters(those who are willing to try new things) I added strawberries- Delicious!

My garden tomatoes all became ripe at the same time so I made fresh salsa. Everything except the onion was from my garden.

So for her birthday, Tay requested homemade Mac’n cheese. I didn’t have time to actually make that for her birthday, but this week I did. This was my second time attempting homemade noodles and it was so much better than the first time.

And this Parmesan based mac’n cheese was very good. Even to me and I am not a great lover of the staple comfort food.

These homemade oatmeal creams however were the bomb. It was a rainy afternoon and the twins wanted to bake something, so we went a little crazy and made like twenty of these massive sandwiches. Do I regret it? No… no I do not.

I also cooked breakfast for Tay one morning: eggs, sausage links, homemade white bread(that I had frozen and thawed in the fridge- which worked perfectly) and of course fresh salsa.

As you can see I didn’t cook at all this week and I am super, super proud of myself- LOL Make sure to check back next week, when I am going Hungarian and actually cooking.

Lots of love,

Tally

DIY Good Will Fall Wreath

Featured by Tally Ragsdale, posted in Lifestyle

Ah it’s getting to be that time… my absolute favorite time of the year… fall!

With the return of chilly days, crisp smells and crunchy leaves comes the return of Hobby Lobby’s seemingly endless fall wreaths. All drool worthy and all horribly overpriced. Okay well maybe not all of them. Some are worth the buck. And yet why would one drop $80 on a wreath, when you can drop $10 at Good Will and get the same results? I ask you, why?

Growing up my Mom was the master recreator. Any sign, wreath, floral arrangement, etc. you saw in store or on Pinterest she could recreate. Naturally having daughters she taught us also the fabulous art of DIY.

One of my favorite diy tasks was to redo my Mom’s ginormous wreath on the side of the house every season. We would cycle it through spring, summer and fall (a giant snowman head replaced it during Christmas and winter) and then back again.

My Mom was ever thrifty so we shopped clearance racks and garage sales for those perfect sprigs you finish off the decor.

It’s been a while since I have truly diy’d anything and I loved it! It brought back all the memories. So which style was your favorite? Comment down below!