After seven months and 32 episodes, Season 1 has come to an end. But not without a huge thank you to guests, listeners and supporters. What's next? Tune in to find out.

Random Sweets:

Website: randomsweets.com

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

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#ourSweetMidwestLife

You are in for a sweet and sticky treat today! Joining me are Adee Honey Farms’ second and third generation family members, Marla Hoyer, and Sarah Hauge.

We cover everything from the history of Adee Honey, way back to even before Richard and his brother Stanley purchased the South Dakota honey operation of about 1,000 honeybee colonies in 1957, to how they’ve grown the business to 100,000 colonies of bees that journey thousands of miles between producing honey in several states, and pollinating almonds in California and apple orchards in Washington. 

As with any agricultural industry, growth comes with challenges and honey production is not immune.  

Sarah shares about the company’s rebrand and adding new merch like hats, hoodies, stickers and T-shirts. We cover a few health benefits and the healing power of honey, tips to enhancing your baking, and how to be a smart consumer when it comes to fraudulent honey. 

Plus, after many years of mostly selling to the wholesale market, they let us in on a few development ideas as the company expands their retail line to meet the needs and wants of consumers. 

We wrap up the episode with a mocktail recipe using a simple syrup made of honey, the sought-after recipe for honey of a fudge sauce, and Marla is so kind to share her grandma Mae Adee’s Honey Apple Crisp recipe. 

This episode is jam-packed with so much more good stuff like Bruce Honey Days, how the color of your honey affects the flavor of the dish you are making, and tips for substituting honey for sugar, maple syrup and corn syrups. And you’ll learn why you should add honey to your first aid kit, and why you want to turn honey bottles upside down and watch how the bubble flows through the honey. Recipes, links, and photos are on randomsweets.com

Adee Honey Farms

adeehoneyfarms.com

Instagram: @adee.honey.farms

Facebook: Adee Honey Farms

Pinterest: Adee Honey Farms

Random Sweets:

Website: randomsweets.com

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

Instagram: @randomsweets

Facebook: Random Sweets

#ourSweetMidwestLife

Many Midwestern towns host annual festivities in celebration of characteristics unique to their community—like the city celebration we’re talking about today—the 32nd annual Honey Days in Bruce, South Dakota. 

Joining me for today’s show are longtime parade emcee, Mary Bjerke, and her husband, Russ, and their daughter, Christianne Beringer.

Mary shares the itinerary for the 3-day weekend of events, kicking off with KCountry 102.3’s cookout in Museum Park at noon on Friday, July 28, and other traditional events like a parade and craft show, competitive activities like basketball, bean bags, volleyball, horseshoes, and baseball, to the 5K run, walk or pedal where Denise Ulvestad shares her beloved honey protein energy balls, a kids bike parade, Legion pancake breakfast, car show, street dance, yard games, cow pie bingo, and wrapping it all up with the town vs. country softball tournament on Sunday evening. 

If you’ve listened to episode 8 of Funeral Potatoes & Wool Mittens, you already have Mary’s meatloaf recipe. Today, the family is sharing 5 recipes with honey as a main ingredient—sloppy joes, BBQ ribs, fudge sauce, barbecue sauce (all from a South Dakota honey cookbook I will be eagerly scouring antique and thrift stores for), plus the Greek Loukamades recipe Mary and her family used the year they won the honey bake-off competition. Recipes and photos they share are on random sweets dot com, along with links to Bruce Honey Days on Facebook. https://randomsweets.com/bruce-honey-days-2023-and-community-cookbook-honey-recipes/

We'll hear all things Bruce Honey Days from Mary, Christianne, and Russ. I also have an announcement about the end of season 1.

Bruce Honey Days

Instagram: @brucecomunityclub

Facebook: Bruce Honey Days

Random Sweets:

Website: randomsweets.com

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

Instagram: @randomsweets

Facebook: Random Sweets

#ourSweetMidwestLife

I’m talking all things summer gardening with two special guests—Lynn Darnall and her daughter Sarah Alfano, owners of Medary Acres Greenhouse—a 71-year-old, third-generation business in Brookings, South Dakota. We cover a variety of topics, from basics like watering and deadheading, to the value of mulching tomato plants, how to properly cut stems so you can bring the beauty of your flowers indoors, natural ways to keep plants healthy, and how to divide peonies. And when I ask how to protect my plants and vegetables from critters like rabbits, raccoons and deer, Lynn surprises me with a super special spray that was hard for her to say.

I don’t want to think about it yet, but we talk about how to prepare for winter, from what to do with our pots and perennials, to a fun way for plant lovers to get through the cold months. 

If you’ve listened to at least a few episodes of Funeral Potatoes & Wool Mittens, you know we always find a way to talk about food and today is perfect because what’s better than eating foods fresh from your garden? Sarah shares a mocktail recipe with a fresh herb, and a salsa recipe and Lynn has a secret natural sweetener up her sleeve—the stevia plant.  

Lynn and Sarah leave us with gardening advice for novice gardeners and the more seasoned gardeners who may have been around long enough to remember what gardening was like in the late 1960s. This episode is so full of information, you’ll learn about rhizomes, nubs and a beer fridge. All recipes available on https://randomsweets.com/gardening-salsa-and-mocktails-with-medary-acres-greenhouse/.

Thyme Mocktail and Salsa Recipes

Dill Pickle Pasta Salad

Sarah’s band: Hot Freaks

Medary Acres Greenhouse

1100 8th St. S., Brookings, SD

medaryacres.com

Instagram: @medaryacres

Facebook: Medary Acres Greenhouses, Inc.

Random Sweets:

Website: randomsweets.com

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

Instagram: @randomsweets

Facebook: Random Sweets

#ourSweetMidwestLife

Today on the show, South Dakota native Sydney Andera talks about who inspired her to make homemade strawberry apricot jam, her favorite flavor of birthday cake since she doesn’t like chocolate, the meal she likes most that her mom, Michelle, makes, her Grandma Naomi’s broiled parmesan potatoes, and a barbecue joint and a doughnut shop she and her boyfriend, Sajen, enjoyed on a recent trip to Colorado. All that, plus a funny story about how Sydney broke her electric hand mixer with potatoes. Photos from this episode and the recipes are on https://randomsweets.com/homemade-strawberry-apricot-jam-with-sydney-andera/.

Links from this episode:

Sydney's Strawberry Apricot Jam Recipe

G-Cue Barbecue

Voodoo Doughnut

Beano's Classical White Pizza Sauce with Oregano

Strawberry Pound Cake Recipe

Vodka Pasta Recipe

Spaghetti Bake Recipe

Beer Chili Spaghetti Recipe

Key Lime Pie Recipe

Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake Recipe

#ourSweetMidwestLife

Website: randomsweets.com 

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

Instagram: @randomsweets

Facebook: Random Sweets

On today’s Bake With Me episode, I invite you to bake along with me as I make Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Poppers. With just a few ingredients and a mini muffin tin, you can quickly make a batch of these poppers that all the peanut butter and chocolate lovers in my family like. Since we’re using a peanut butter cookie mix, all we need is the cookie pouch, the ingredients to make the cookies, peanut butter, and Mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And we’re doing this by hand so there’s no need to dig out your mixer. They bake in about 7-8 minutes. Here is the recipe on randomsweets.com.

Website: randomsweets.com

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

Instagram: @randomsweets

Facebook: Random Sweets

As South Dakotans love to road trip across the state, plus, hundreds of thousands of tourists vacation here throughout the summer, this episode is for anyone who wants to learn more about, and try, 26 iconic dishes and drinks that define the Mount Rushmore state. If you’re from the Midwest, you’ve probably already checked a lot of these foods off your list. And even though I’m mostly talking about South Dakota where I was born and raised, I included a few iconic dishes from neighboring states like Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Minnesota, where I live now. I found some fun commonalities among foods we consider to be iconic in the upper Midwest. 

The South Dakota list includes foods with Native American influence like Indian tacos, fry bread, wojapi and wasna, and Germans from Russia influence like fleishe kuchele and kuchen, to down-home comfort meals like hot beef commercial and beer-battered and fried walleye (just a note, the restaurant mentioned no longer serves walleye or cooks a fisherman's catch of the day), to the sought-after watermelons grown in the sandy soil near the James River, the Zebra doughnut in Centerville that’s so good it has its own trademark, Dakota martinis and chokecherry wine, to the liquid gold produced by the state insect—the honeybee. 

In this episode, I reference an article I wrote and photographed in 2017 for the Food Network for its collection titled, States’ Plates. I thought it would be fun to talk about the delicious foods on a podcast episode that you can listen to while you’re driving around the state, and maybe try some new ones if you haven’t had all 26. The link to the article is in the show notes if you want to follow along and look at the mouthwatering photos in the gallery.

Since I grew up in South Dakota, I was familiar with many of these foods like lefse, chislic, and SDSU cookies ‘n cream ice cream, but there are a few that were new to me—like tiger meat, pasties, and kolache. I share which two I was most surprised that I liked, the one that I still dream about and highly recommend you try at least once in your life, the one that I now always try to eat when I’m in Rapid City, and the one dish I have not, and will never, eat.

Show Notes & Links

Food Network States’ Plate South Dakota

Wheeel Inn

Cheyenne Crossing

Watecha Bowl

WoodenKnife

Tyndall Bakery

Pietz’s Kuchen Kitchen & Specialties

Prairie Berry Winery

Schade Vineyward

Purple Pie Place

Meridian Corner

Adee Honey Farms

Fleish Kuchle recipe

Grandma’s Kuchen

Sanderson Gardens

Harriet & Oak

Lou Lou’s Bomdiggities Pasties & Coffee Shop

Dakota Life: From Cornwall to the Hills

Pasty recipe

Laughing Water Restaurant

Savor South Dakota, Wojapi recipe

Savor South Dakota Mavis Two Bulls and Rachel Nava making wojapi

Black Hills Burger & Bun

SDSU Dairy Bar

Zebra King Donuts

Dimock Dairy

Stensland Family Farms

Cattleman’s Club Steakhouse

Boat House Bar & Grill at Spring Creek (the restaurant has changed hands and no longer serves walleye and do NOT cook a fisherman's catch of the day)

The Pheasant Restaurant & Lounge

Tanka

The Cardinal Tap

Dakota Butcher

Kessler’s

Flandreau Bakery

Ruth Schumacher’s Cheese Buttons Recipe

#ourSweetMidwestLife

Website: randomsweets.com 

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

Instagram: @randomsweets

Facebook: Random Sweets

Do the great outdoors beckon you to the campground all summer long? Today’s guest, Jenn Buse from Tyler, Minnesota, is such a seasoned camper, I knew we’d have fun talking about meals and snacks she shares with family—whether fireside folk singing, watching the sun set over Lake Poinsett, or cozied up in the camper on a rainy day.

Jenn has celebrated nearly all 49 of her birthdays at campgrounds. Once she became a mom, she and her husband, Brent, carried on the summer camping tradition with their children, MacKenzie and Landen. Jenn shares how she came to love Midwest summers as a bassinet camper, a few of her favorite campgrounds in South Dakota and Minnesota, the surprising way she grew up eating graham crackers for breakfast, and her approach to simplifying the dreaded unloading process on the return home. 

She is so generous to share family-favorite recipes that we can make for camping, a picnic, or a summer day at home. With breakfast being the most important meal of the day, we begin with omelets in a bag, their famous Buse flapjacks, and toad in a hole. For lunchtime and snacks, Jenn shares MacKenzie’s Mustard Dip, her mom’s horseradish pickles, and Grandma Beth’s macaroni salad that never misses a camping trip, and Grandma Henkel’s potato salad that people used to buy by the ice cream pail. Once supper rolls around, we’re firing up the grill to make hobo dinners, Jamie’s glazed ham and SPAM pizza burgers.

We leave the best for last—the sweet treats for the campfire, like what they use to switch up their s’mores, how to make pie pockets in a bonfire sandwich cooker, and the funniest story about her dad, popcorn and raccoons. 

If you like lefse, be sure to listen all the way to the end because Jenn has a little secret about how to buy it from the Lefse Ladies, which she co-owns with her sister-in-law, Amy. While you’re listening, please enjoy the recipes, links, and photos on randomsweets.com. If you aren’t already, please subscribe to this podcast so you can binge-listen while on your next camping adventure.

Show Notes & Links

Recipes and photos from this episode: https://randomsweets.com/18-camping-meals-and-snacks-plus-jenn-buses-favorite-campgrounds-in-south-dakota-and-minnesota/

Lefse Ladies

Shear Attraction

Douglas Lodge at Itasca State Park

Aebleskiver Days

Honey Days

Lake Poinsett Recreation Area

Oakwood Lakes State Park

Itasca State Park

Sleepy Eye City Park and Lake

Lake George Blueberry Festival 2023 

SPAM Museum

#ourSweetMidwestLife

Website: randomsweets.com 

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

Instagram: @randomsweets

Facebook: Random Sweets

You are going to love today’s guest—my friend and a true Midwesterner, Leah Brink has lived in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and for nearly 20 years, she’s called Brookings, South Dakota home. She’s the kind of person who brings the fun to a party. It was her idea to start our show making strawberry daiquiris in my kitchen, and I certainly didn’t argue with that!

She speaks frankly about the influence her mom had on her philosophy regarding food, and how her short-lived rebellion led to her own goal of fitting more fruits and vegetables into her and her family’s lifestyle, in more of a lifelong, enthusiastic way. But don't worry. Along with the nutrient-packed smoothies Leah starts her day with, and the salsa, soup, Caesar dressing, bean dip, and hummus she makes in her Vitamix blender, we still talk about Cajun cream sauce, chicken alfredo, decadent fudge, and Taco John’s. See her recipes on this post on randomsweets.com.

Leah is a second-generation South Dakota State University alum, with her daughter, Maddie, a junior SDSU Political Science major with a goal to attend law school. Her son, David, will graduate Brookings High School in 2024, so she has one year left of being a busy baseball and hockey mom.

Leah has spent her professional life in a variety of careers, from property management and owning and operating a restaurant, to international services which gave her the opportunity to travel to London 15 times, to corporate recruiting, and most recently, a marketing and training executive. But she doesn’t limit herself to whatever her current job role is. Leah commits to understanding her community and using her skills to play a part in it, like serving on countless boards and commissions, performing as her church’s pianist and organist for 14 years, plus, she served three years as an elected city councilor. 

She’s one of the smartest, polished, and energetic people I know, yet, she humbly champions for her family, friends, and community of entrepreneurs. Leah loves being a South Dakotan, and she cherishes her childhood memories of picking potatoes, and tending to the raspberries and strawberries at her grandma’s farm in rural Trent. 

Leah shared her recipes for good greens smoothies and strawberry daiquiris, and photos of her family and her Vitamix blender creations so while you’re listening to this episode, visit randomsweets.com. This episode is not sponsored or endorsed by Vita-Mix Corporation. But just like friends chat about stuff that makes our lives easier, and more fun and meaningful, I’m excited to hear all about Leah’s experience with her new blender—as she says, “the kitchen tool I never knew I needed.” 

Vitamix Pro 750 Heritage Series (affiliate link)

Biscuit Love

Recipes: https://randomsweets.com/leahs-vitamix-strawberry-daiquiris-and-good-greens-smoothies/

Website: randomsweets.com 

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

Instagram: @randomsweets

Facebook: Random Sweets

Today my North Dakota brother-in-law, Russell Ziegler, a coal miner and former United States Marine, joins us to talk about cold-smoking cheese, smoking pork butt, and how he turns a plain old pork shoulder into an incredibly flavorful smoked ham that practically shreds itself at the sight of a fork. You'll learn where he uses maple syrup, what’s in his brine that turns a pork shoulder into smoked shredded ham, and why he puts his smoked pork butt in a slow cooker to finish it off. We also talk about his wife Betsy’s recipe for cilantro lime slaw that is the crown to all meats, and it wouldn’t be a Midwestern show if we didn’t talk about dessert so Russell shares his thoughts on his Aunt Henrietta’s kuchen.

While you’re listening, take a look at the photos, recipes, and links from this episode on https://randomsweets.com/smoking-cheese-pulled-pork-and-ham-with-russell-ziegler.

Website: randomsweets.com 

Instagram: @potatoesandmittens

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