ciabatta panzanella kabobs with honey goat cheese dressing

do you know how many times i have almost dropped an entire plate of food on someone at a party because i was trying to balance it with a gin and soda while forking up a piece of spinach while explaining exactly how i ended up on a sugar beet farm? many. many. many. and in a past life this would not have been a big source of anxiety for me because when my parents met, my dad dropped an entire plate of food at my mom's feet. so it's genetic and all that, but as i won't shut up about, i am not in the market for meeting a boy right now. 

which is why i love food on sticks. (or maybe this is just my new inner minnesotan coming out.) imagine all the things you can do at a party when you only need one hand for stuffing your face: you can shake people's hands, you can drink more easily, you can pick your nose. 

so here is an idea for a summery party food on a stick that is more bathing suit friendly than a corn dog, more filling than a carrot stick, and quicker to the table than a shish kabob. it's a salad kabob and it's made with one of my favorite salads, the panzanella. 

feel free to change up the veggies, and take liberties with your bread if you'd like. (because i'm assuming you all have seen the game changer that is shelly's grilled pretzel panzanella? i know!)

happy partying!

ciabatta panzanella kabobs with honey goat cheese dressing

makes 8 kabobs

ingredients

olive oil

1  small (4 inch x 4 inch) loaf day old ciabatta, cut into 1-inch cubes

salt + pepper

3 oz prosciutto

1 c spinach 

1 cucumber, chopped 

1 c cherry tomatoes 

2 peppers, chopped

dressing:

4 oz président plain goat cheese, softened

3 tb olive oil

2 tsp white wine vinegar

1 tb honey

1 tb milk

salt + pepper

clues

heat a little olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat and cook the ciabatta cubes until toasty, a few minutes on each side. season with salt and pepper.

assemble skewers with a few of each component and then set aside.

in a small bowl, whisk together all of the dressing ingredients. drizzle over the skewers or serve on the side for dipping.

-yeh!

lactalis compensated me to license the photos and content in this post and provided me with complimentary président cheese products. all opinions are my own.

if you'd like to enter to win $50 worth of your own président cheese, visit artofcheese.com, where you can download a coupon and enter the pinterest sweepstakes, plus find more recipes and product information.

a mast brothers chocolate tour

one of the real big upsides of being a grandma on the inside is that when tema is looking high and low for someone to wake up before 10am on a saturday to go on a tour of the mast brothers chocolate factory she stops at me. it's because last friday night in new york city, i was full on homemade thank-you-for-letting-me-sleep-on-your-sofa-bed scotch eggs and in that sofa bed by 9 with netflix and a cookbook.

so not that waking up "early" and getting on the g train was at all a chore for me, but if it had been, it would have been completely worth it.  

in a heavily tattooed, bearded willy wonka way... (side note about tattoos: marian gave me a temporary one with a blue and purple pony on it and i feel almost cool enough to consider getting a real one and it's making me scared.)

like i have always felt ooooook paying a small fortune for a mast brothers bar if it's a special occasion like eggboy is playing a show in the west village, because pretty packaging and a high percentage of cocoa are my jams (!!) but now that i've learnt things about their process that go deeper than that--for example, taking very very very good care of their farmers and aging their chocolate for months upon months--i get all warm and fuzzy. and it makes me want to be bffs with michael and rick.

anywho, if you're in brooklyn and have eaten so much that you need a thing to do that doesn't require eating too much but you still want to be around food, take this tour, it is fun.

-yeh!

grilled wedge salad with a fried egg and cranberry feta

i returned home yesterday to a denim-clad smiley faced eggboy, a very gleeful garden, and a garage that doesn't have a boat in it (i'm still not actually sure who the boat belonged to, if it actually works, and where it is now, but it was here since we moved in and despite how glamorous having a boat sounds, having a second parking spot feels equally if not more glamorous, especially when i'm still on the fence about the boat shoe trend). 

being home right now feels kind of like i just ran 10 miles and am about to eat a pizza. it's great and i sort of never want to leave, but at some point we're going to have to hit the road for at least a few days to scout wedding venues. eeee!!!!

speaking of weddings, let's talk salads. because i'm going to eat a lot more of them in the coming months, or at least that's what i tell myself when there isn't a box of donuts in front of me. the good people at président cheese are hosting a big internet salad party, so i just went straight for the good stuff, i.e. bacon and eggs. it's kind of a man salad, and it may or may not be a breakfast sandwich in disguise, but it's a fun main attraction if you feel like a grilling by the pool but feel awkward downing a burger while wearing a bathing suit. 

rather than dressing this salad, i like cooking the yolk so that it's extra runny and oozes all up in that wedge. this combined with the yummy grilled taste of the lettuce and onion and topped with sweet tangy cranberry feta makes for a very fun salad. 

be sure to check out the other salads up in here because they all look so fun and tasty!!!!

grilled wedge salad with a fried egg and cranberry feta

serves 4

ingredients

1 head lettuce

olive oil

kosher salt

8 strips bacon

1 medium onion

4 eggs

black pepper

1 c président regular feta crumbled with cranberries

clues

light a grill or heat a grill pan over medium high heat.

slice lettuce into 4 wedges and brush them lightly with olive oil. grill on both sides for a few minutes, until they start to brown. sprinkle with salt.

grill the bacon and onions on both sides as well.

fry the eggs in a little olive oil until the whites are cooked but the yolks are still runny. season with salt and pepper.

to assemble, place each lettuce wedge on a plate, and top each with two slices of bacon, some onion, an egg, and two tablespoons of feta.

enjoy!

-yeh!!

lactalis compensated me to license the photos and content in this post and provided me with complimentary président cheese products. all opinions are my own.

if you'd like to enter to win $50 worth of your own président cheese, visit artofcheese.com, where you can download a coupon and enter the pinterest sweepstakes, plus find more recipes and product information.

new york

in a way, it was like i never left. and in much the same way, i haven't one clue how i lived here for six years. how did i ride the subway every day? how did i do all of my grocery shopping with a basket and not a cart? how did i not spend all of my money on smelly cheese and pistachio cake at bklyn larder? 

(how did i sleep through the hum hum humming of the falafel truck out front and roommate patrick's 3am passion-pit-soundtracked no-girls-allowed patio parties? (i love you, patrick!!!))

and on the other hand: ask a 22-year-old me how i would ever be able to live more than two subway stops from the nearest pork bun, and no, i would not have been able to tell you.

today i go home to the farm after three weeks of making music, spending time with old friends and new, and eating approximately everything. i'll go home with a very full belly, an even more full heart, and a ring on it! i wish i could give all of my friends here one more hug, but i mustn't be long, as i've got to go home and plan a (omgomgomgomg) wedding.

here are a few of my favorite links and things from this past week in new york:

my first stop when i got to new york was black seed bagel with donny. it was a very tasty first stop and a good primer for the roberta's, the mission chinese, and the peekskill simple sour at the dog-friendly bar that i would later have with him. (hashtag my wedding diet starts tomorrow?)

i had three halvah desserts that i cannot get out of my head: an ooey gooey sandwich cookie at mimi's hummus, sticky crunchy halvah ice cream at the russ and daughter's cafe, and the kadaif at hummus place, which is covered in a mountain of shredded halvah. i later bought some shredded halvah from sahadi's to take home with me.

my first time performing in central park was with the knights last tuesday and it was so much fun. you can listen to the concert online!

the steak salad at five points. i want it every day of my life.

maria and i went dress shopping and saw pnina in real life and i got all kinds of starstruck. my kleinfeld experience was magnificent, but i think perhaps the wedding dresses at veka were much more farm girl me. 

tema introduced me to bakeri and i had a total cute attack.

yesterday's beautiful morning turned into a glorious afternoon in prospect park with some of my most favorite humans. the good people behind dolly and oatmeal, two red bowls, cake over steak, food52, apt. 2b baking co., and the tart tart came out for some serious noshing. serious noshing. and instagramming, obviously.

and but really, if i had to marry a restaurant and not eggboy, i would marry bklyn larder.

bye bye for now, new york!

-yeh!