eggs benedict salad with dill hollandaise dressing

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something that doesn't show through on the internet is my chicago accent. i have been told that it's very strong. i won't admit that it's strong, but after hearing myself talk on video a few months ago, i'll admit that an accent indeed exists.

no one growing up ever thinks that they have an accent, right?

chicagoans don't have accents right? (lol!)

i was first informed of my accent towards the end of high school when i started spending my summers on the east coast, at tanglewood. it was the first time in my life that a majority of my time was spent with people who weren't from chicago, and suddenly i was *different*. i couldn't say "practice" or "alex" or any word with an "a" without being giggled at! and what really gave my chicagoness away was my pronunciation of "salad." i could not order an effing salad without a percussionist saying "syaaaaaalad? do you want a seeeyaaaaalad? what's a seeeyalad anyway???"

so i stopped eating salad altogether.

i stopped using the letter "a" altogether.

i stopped talking altogether. 

i mean, no, i didn't actually do that, but i still can't order a salad without holding my breath for a moment and waiting for someone to mock me.

so, here's a salad that's worth every unit of mockery on the east coast. an eggs benedict salad that's basically all of the great eggs benedict ingredients, tossed with fresh greens: soft cooked eggs, warm canadian bacon, a hollandaise drizzle that's got a nice bit of dill, and the best part, english muffin croutons. here, i've used homemade english muffins from the huckleberry cookbook because they are the absolute best english muffins in the world, but if you want to use another english muffin, go ahead.

eggs benedict salad with dill hollandaise dressing

makes 4 servings

ingredients

2 thick english muffins, chopped into cubes

6 slices canadian bacon

4 large eggs

8 oz mixed greens

1/4 purple onion, thinly sliced

kosher salt and black pepper

hollandaise dressing:

1 large egg yolk

1/4 c unsalted butter, melted

2 tsp lemon juice

1/4 c olive oil

1 sprig fresh dill, chopped

kosher salt and black pepper

clues

make the croutons: spread the english muffin cubes out on a baking sheet and bake them at 400 for about 15 minutes or so, until they reach your desired crispiness. i like em still a little soft.

cook the bacon: brown it on both sides over medium high heat, and then chop it into 1/2-inch pieces.

boil the eggs: bring a large pot of water to a boil, carefully add the eggs, and cook for 7 minutes. transfer them to an ice bath, peal them, and then slice them in half. 

place the greens, onions, croutons, bacon, and eggs on a serving platter. sprinkle everything with salt and fresh pepper. 

to make the dressing, add the egg yolk to a food processor or blender. blend the yolk, and then gradually drizzle in the butter, lemon juice, and olive oil, and then add the dill. season with salt and pepper to taste.

dress the salad to your liking and enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you to the american egg board for sponsoring this post! america’s egg farmers launched the good egg project to educate americans about where eggs come from and encourage people to eat well and do good every day. check out the good egg project site to learn about hen nutrition, environmental improvements that have been made by egg producers in the past few decades, and to see a slide show illustrating the steps that eggs go through to get to the grocery store.

 

coconut marzipan tractor cookie cutouts

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something that i was taught when i moved to the farm was that farmers fall into one of three main tractor camps: john deere, case, and new holland. i had already known about john deere because remember in high school when clothes with the john deere logo were popular for no reason according to kids in the suburbs who had never been to farms? but when i got here i quickly learned all about case because eggboy is a case man and case is the best (!) and here, look at case win tug of war against john deere. so all of our tractors and things are red which look really nice against the golden yellow wheat, a bit christmas-y against the beet greens, and in general, a really nice look and i applaud past generations of eggs for their decision to go with case.

the last time mum was in town we found this tractor cookie cutter at the home of economy and the cookie cutter guy on the tractor has eggboy's hat, so we had no choice but to get one. i took him for a little spin last week to celebrate the first day of wheat harvest and naturally, i was expected to decorate my cookies with red. no green food coloring in site.

here i'm using a recipe and decorating technique from juliet sear's new book, cakeology. what a book! it is like the triple black diamond ski slopes of cake decorating, with airbrushed things and intricate hand painted things and the hamburger cake to end all hamburger cakes and they are so gosh darn beautiful. i think it's going to be a good few years before i can master one of those cakes, but it is something to aim for! the cutout cookies in her book are so tasty and fun to decorate though and i love the idea of using the same cookie cutter for both the cookie and the layer of decoration. juliet uses fondant for her doggie cutouts, but here i'm using some coconut marzipan that i picked up in new york a few months ago (and also kate's book has a recipe for it that i've been meaning to try). of course, feel free to use any cutout shape that you'd like. but if you use a tractor, you'd better decorate it red :)

coconut marzipan tractor cookie cutouts

adapted from juliet sear's cakeology

ingredients

7 oz unsalted butter, softened

3/4 c sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 2/3 c all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

for decorating:

16 oz coconut marzipan or regular marzipan, kneaded with a bit of food coloring

about 1/4 c frosting or icing, for sticking 

clues

Preheat the oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment.

Place the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla into a mixing bowl and mix until just combined, either by hand or using a stand mixer on low. The mix should still look grainy but be thoroughly incorporated.

Add the egg a little at a time with your mixer on low or with a wooden spoon, until fully incorporated.

Add the flour to the mixture and mix until a dough forms. If the mix is a little sticky, add a little more flour, or, alternatively, if it’s a bit dry add a few drops of water. You will know it’s right when the dough comes together without leaving sticky traces on the bowl and it forms into a nice shiny pliable ball.

Dust the work surface with flour and roll out the cookie dough to 1/4 inch thick. 

Cut out your shapes, place them on the cookie sheets, and Bake for 10–12 minutes until golden brown around the edges. Cool on a wire rack.

to decorate, roll out the marzipan and cut out shapes using the same cookie cutter that you used for the cookies. pipe a few squiggles of frosting onto the cookies and then stick the marzipan directly on top.

enjoy!

-yeh!

a little tiered cake with a lot of tahini and marzipan

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last week, two of the most wonderful humans on the planet got married. lydia and ben have been friends of mine since juilliard, and on friday i sat weepy on the couch as jacob, who was in north carolina catering their little six-person wedding, live texted the thing to me:

they signed the paper! it's official!!!!

*****ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!! i am crying****** 😂😭😂😭😂😭😂😭 is she the most beautiful human on the planet?1?1?!!!!!!!!! 

pull yourself together! and yes. she is. now, i'm about to put the rosemary on your cake, how do you want it???

whatever feels right!!!!!! make it pretty!!!!! i am so weepy happy!!!!!!!!!!

by all accounts, it sounded like a total dream. and i was so *tickled* that they asked me to make their cake. shipping a decorated cake is something new for me, so earlier in the summer, i did a test run where i put a buttercream frosted cake on dry ice and shipped it 2-3 day in a styrofoam cooler. it worked! but in the end, i strayed from the buttercream route and shipped a sturdy room temperature cake wrapped in tons and tons of bubble wrap. it was very tahini and halva centric, as lydia and i have bonded over a mutual loooove of halva, and i aimed to keep the decorations elegant and classy and quirky, just like her :) here is what i made:

the bottom layer // a simple chocolate cake, filled with halva floss and tahini that i sweetened a bit with sugar.

the top layer // layers of tahini dirty blondies baked in my favorite mini cake pan, and covered with apricot jam.

the whole thing got wrapped in marzipan, decorated with marzipan braids and fresh rosemary, and gobbled up by the new mr. and mrs.

congratulations, lydia and ben!!!!!!!!! welcome to married life!!!

-yeh!

grilled pineapple + prosciutto salsa

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my refrigerator plays a lot of roles: experiment incubator, keeper of the butter shelf, cheese vault, condiment storage center, shielder of leftovers i just don't want to deal with right now, and over the summer, salad bar.

i am very into making big batches of cold prepared foods and keeping them in containers in the fridge for when eggboy runs in for a quick snack or during long days of cake testing when i've reached my cake quota and need a gosh darn plant in my belly at a moment's notice.

i like salad bars. a lot. they make eating vegetables easier and in my dream house there is a self-replenishing salad bar. (like smart house, with salad.)

my favorite cold foods these days--and we'll call them cold foods because salad bars aren't just about traditional salads, right?--are hummus (obviously), a cold curry cauliflower situation (recipe coming soon!), israeli salad (which by the way i am leaving for israel this weekend!!!!!), and this grilled pineapple salsa that's got prosciutto in it which is magic. 

magic because it isn't just for chips. it's for toast, and eating straight, and tossing with some greens to make an actual salad, and *wait for it* pizza..........

pizza gif pizza gif.

at the end of the week, if there's any of this pineapple salsa left, we throw it on a pizza for pizza friday because true story, this salsa happens to be all of our favorite pizza toppings in a bowl.

an all-purpose salsa, if you will.

grilled pineapple + prosciutto salsa

makes about 5 cups

ingredients

1/2 pineapple, cut into wedges

2 roma tomatoes, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1/2 purple onion, chopped

4 oz prosciutto, chopped

a good squeeze of lime

salt, pepper, and smoked paprika, to taste

clue

heat a grill or grill pan on medium high heat and grill the pineapple wedges on both sides until you get pretty brown marks. let them cool and then chop.

in a large bowl, toss together the pineapple, tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, and prosciutto with a squeeze of lime and a few good pinches of salt, pepper, and paprika.

enjoy however you'd like!

-yeh!

this salsa is shown here on a great new thing: freschetta's new gluten free pizza! it's true, eggboy and i do a lot of jazzing up of frozen crusts or pizzas on friday pizza night because when you live on a farm where no restaurants will deliver, you do that after a long hard day! so we've had our fair share of gluten free crusts and can tell you that this freschetta one nails it. it's chewy and flavorful and truly one of our new favorite gluten free pizzas (you can #trustthecrust!). full disclosure, freschetta has sponsored this post, but (!!!) i'm so happy they did otherwise i don't know how i would have found out about this new gf pizza because i am a hermit and don't spend as much time perusing the new products at the grocery store like i used to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ anywho, this pizza, which is certified gluten free, comes in cheese and pepperoni, in both single serving and large, and it's in stores now!