Minnesota chef Amy Thielen shares tips for getting the most out of fall cooking season

[MUSIC PLAYING] NINA MOINI: Well, our radiators have definitely kicked into gear. It's also time for our ovens to do a little of the lifting. That's because for many, fall means it's time to get the comforting, warm flavors of nutmeg, apple, maple to fill the air in our kitchens.

And while some of you may already be thinking about stocking up on canned pumpkin and cranberry for Thanksgiving, right now we're going to talk about baking and cooking through the entire cold season. One of our favorite Minnesota-based chefs and authors, Amy Thielen, is on the line. Amy, thanks so much for coming back on Minnesota Now. We always love to hear from you.

AMY THIELEN: Oh, thanks for having me. I love to be here.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, thank you. When we talked in the spring, I was going to say about the radio show you hosted on KAXE out of Grand Rapids called Ham Radio, All About Minnesota Cooking. And I'm curious what you think would be the quintessential Minnesota fall dish.

AMY THIELEN: Oh, that's really hard to narrow down.

[LAUGHTER]

NINA MOINI: You can pick a few if you want-- if you really want.

AMY THIELEN: Well, right now I am pretty much. I'm still drowning in apples. We have about two bushels in the second fridge. It's funny how we pick the apples and they go into the fridge, and then they start to lose their tang. It's interesting.

But they're still really good right now. And I have been making all kinds of stuff. I don't know if it'd be a quintessential dish. I mean, I think about, in Minnesota, stews of meat. I mean, this is when I turn from vegetables to meat.

NINA MOINI: Stews.

AMY THIELEN: And so I have been making a beef stew pretty canonical, shall we say. But then I'm thinking, my husband and I, our son went to college. And so now we're just two of us. And so when I make a stew that is a recipe to feed six to eight, as I usually do, now I have all these leftovers. And so I started making dumplings and dropping those into the second day.

NINA MOINI: Oh, nice.

AMY THIELEN: And that just feels really warming and obviously something you just could not eat in the summertime.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, that is the problem with stew, is like by day 5, you're like, all right, [LAUGHS] I loved this stew that I made. So you're just outside of Park Rapids. I'm sure it's beautiful there. What do you do to pick out ingredients in the colder months. Are there certain places you're going and looking for different things, or how do you manage all of that?

AMY THIELEN: Yeah. I mean, I don't do-- I have a big garden. But I don't do canning like I used to. Just-- I don't know-- I feel like it should be a group activity.

NINA MOINI: Sure.

AMY THIELEN: And so now I go to all the stores. The people in the grocery stores, they're my friends, Nina.

[LAUGHTER]

And I see them a lot.

NINA MOINI: I bet.

AMY THIELEN: I'd like to visit a lot of the stores in the area. But I lately have been going to the co-ops. We have fantastic small grocery stores and co-ops up here--

NINA MOINI: Awesome.

AMY THIELEN: --Harmony and Bemidji and Manna and Detroit Lakes. And there's a little natural food store in Manehga called The Clean Plate. So I'm surrounded by really great little independent grocery stores.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So you mentioned your stews. What about like soups in particular? What stands out to you this time of year?

AMY THIELEN: Squash. Squash is my go-to. And I'm always trying to make something that's interesting, you know?

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

AMY THIELEN: Because it can be so boring. And I like my squash soup puréed. I'm pretty picky. I like buttercup squash. I don't like the butternut, the peanuts. I like hamburger-shaped turban. That's a little bit drier and a little bit generally richer or sweeter, or I like delicata as well.

And I have a wood cook stove. I know that sounds so spoiled in a way. And so I just pop that in now that I'm heating the house, making a little wood fire. But I like it a little bit drinkable. So in the winter now, I'm starting to make all these different kinds of vegetable soups that are just purées that are drinkable.

NINA MOINI: Nice.

AMY THIELEN: I do a celery one. I do put green stuff in it. I put spinach. It turns really green. My squash, I'm putting a little bit of black tea and honey in recently--

NINA MOINI: Nice.

AMY THIELEN: --which is really great actually. And it just is like, wow, that was the tea I was drinking now. Oh, hey, could that be squash soup? Yes, it can.

NINA MOINI: I love that creativity. I feel like you probably are super creative and inspired all the time by different things. But what you were saying earlier about it can get boring. Like, maybe if someone has a dish, they sometimes people have a specialty. And it's like, please bring the thing you're good at to the holiday gathering. But I think sometimes people do get bored. People get bored with stuff. So like, where do you go for inspiration?

AMY THIELEN: I mean, besides the internet?

NINA MOINI: Yeah, Google.

[LAUGHTER]

AMY THIELEN: Instagram. I go to books. I mean, I'm old school. I'm really an old school nerd. And I have a lot of cookbooks. And some of them are older ones too. I mean, I get sent a lot of new books. And I always look through those for inspiration. But I have some real old classics that with some ideas that maybe have fallen out of favor that are interesting to me.

That's really what I do. Yeah. I just think that after summertime, summertime, I get bored then because it's ironic. But you have so much produce. And there's so many great raw materials in the summertime.

You don't want to screw them up by getting too crazy on them and creative. I just want to do no harm. So now is the season of creativity really because we have that limitation. We're actually so-- let's just say we're so lucky in Minnesota to have these kinds of seasons that change our lives and our cooking in this way, you know?

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Well, so we talked about the hot stuff and the warm stuff and soups and different things. But I know treats are fun year round. And I want to know, before we have to let you go, what is your favorite type of treat to bake in the fall? Give people a little bit of inspiration from you.

AMY THIELEN: Yeah. So, well, we have a lot of apple trees that have gotten really mature. And I was talking about the apples. So in addition to the two bushels, we have 36 quarts of apple cider this year in the freezer. I mean, that's capacity. So I started taking those out, thawing them, and I'm boiling them down into a syrup.

NINA MOINI: Nice.

AMY THIELEN: That's a tradition from the Shakers on the East Coast. You know that sect of-- they were really known for their cooking. It's very simple, but it's creative and really-- so that syrup, this apple syrup, is a really great sweetener. It's like the viscosity or thickness of maple syrup.

And so I love to make this apple cider scone cake. And this is, I think, a recipe you could probably find on the internet because I did it for food and wine a while back. And you take that cider, and you put it in a baking dish, a buttered baking dish. And then you drop like a scone batter or a drop biscuit batter. Honestly, it could be anything, your favorite one. And then just bake it and--

NINA MOINI: Bake it all.

AMY THIELEN: --the bottom becomes caramelized. And so it's like a biscuity cake with this sweet sour bottom. That's my favorite.

NINA MOINI: Wonderful, Amy. I was so enveloped in what you were saying, I didn't realize it's actually time to go. But thank you so much for stopping by and sharing about all the wonderful cooking and baking that you're doing this fall. Thank you.

AMY THIELEN: Oh, thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: That was award-winning author and chef Amy Thielen. That does it for us this week on Minnesota Now. Thanks so much for tuning in. Have a good weekend. And we hope to see you back here Monday at noon.

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