onion jam sufganiyot with za'atar, sumac, and yogurt powder

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Hello! How was your weekend?? We had such a jolly holiday time tooling around town. We saw the community theater’s performance of White Christmas, had a great brunch at the town fancy restaurant that just started brunch, and did the holiday home tour where you get to tour a bunch of houses that are all dressed up for the holidays. It was so lovely and especially educational in our house planning stage. Eggboy got one of those laser measuring devices so anytime we found ourselves in a nicely sized living room, not too big/not too small/just the right amount of cozy, he would inconspicuously measure it go-go-gadget laser style. It was so cool. Then we came home and drew on graph paper and made hot cocoa with our espresso steamer. Excellent chill weekend!

Welcome to my first annual sufganiyot double feature, starring one savory recipe, one sweet recipe, and one silly sweater that I rented from the internet! Today I’m sharing the savory recipe which includes a buttery garlicky za’atar speckled dough that’s filled with sweet onion jam and dusted with vinegary sumac and yogurt ~powder~ that I had leftover from yogurt book testing. Yogurt powder is a lot like macaroni and cheese powder but tangier and less salty (but do you know what would work great in the absence of yogurt powder, should you not have time to amazon it?? Macaroni and cheese powder.) 

This one is for those people who would rather have a pile of cheese fries than a birthday cake (me). Or who want a next level garlic knot or savory monkey bread or any round bulbous soft hot bread thing (me me me). 

Early next week, right in time for Hanukkah, I’ll be sharing a rose jam sufganiyot recipe that follows the same general method so that you can get two great flavors for the price of one deep frying session. How long has it been since I complained about deep frying, am I due for a kvetch?

Actually on second thought, no time for that, I have to go order some books for Eggboy. The other day I half jokingly suggested that we do “Book Hanukkah” and gift each other one book for each night of Hanukkah (new, used, homemade… I think those are all the options). It was after we drew a two-story library into our home plan. I forgot about Book Hanukkah until a huge Amazon box arrived yesterday that was filled with books that I wasn’t supposed to see. So, ok, gotta go figure out what Eggboys read!!

A couple of notes:

-These are by far the best within a few hours of making them so if you’re looking to prep ahead, here are some tips: make the filling in advance (this can be made a few days in advance). For the first rising, the dough can stay in the fridge for a good day or two. Let it come to room temperature before stamping out your circles. Once you have your circles stamped, you can keep them in the fridge for up to 3 hours. Fry them right before your party, and then maybe hand off the job of filling them to that friend who arrives at the party looking for a job to do in the kitchen. 

-I like frying in cast iron! It does a nice job of maintaining the temperature of the oil.

-You can use any onion jam of your choosing here. I've linked to a super tasty recipe that tastes rather sweet on its own, but once it's in the donuts, it really balances out quite nicely.

onion jam sufganiyot with za'atar, sumac, and yogurt powder

makes 18

ingredients

2 1/4 tsp (1 packet) active dry yeast

1/2 c warm whole milk (105-110ºf)

1/4 c warm water (105-110ºf)
2 tb + 1 tsp sugar
1 tsp kosher salt

Black pepper

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tb za’atar
3 1/2 c (448g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 large egg + 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
6 tb (85g) unsalted butter, softened

canola or vegetable, for frying

filling/topping:

about 1 c onion jam

a few tb yogurt powder, for dusting 

sumac, for dusting

clues

in a medium bowl, combine the yeast, warm milk, water, and 1 teaspoon sugar and give it a little stir. let it sit for about 5 minutes, until it becomes foamy on top. 
meanwhile, in the bowl of stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix together the salt, a few turns of black pepper, garlic powder, za’atar, flour, and remaining sugar. Add the eggs and yeast mixture and mix to form a very very stiff dough. It will seem like the dry ingredients aren’t all going to get incorporated but try as best you can. Knead for a few minutes and then with the mixer on, begin gradually adding the butter, tablespoon by tablespoon. This, too, will seem like it isn’t going to incorporated into the dough but keep on mixing for about 8-10 minutes more, scraping down the dough hook occasionally, until your dough is smooth and slightly sticky. transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature (or in the fridge, see notes) until it has doubled in size, about 2 hours. 

Turn the dough out onto a work surface and roll it out to 1/2” thickness. Cut out 2 1/2” circles and transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment. When re-rolling scraps, first press them together and then allow the dough to sit for about 10 minutes before proceeding. Cover the circles with plastic wrap or a dish towel and let rise for another hour, until doubled. 

In a large heavy pot fitted with a thermometer, heat 3-4” oil to 350ºf. Fry the donuts in batches of 3 or 4, for 1 1/2 minutes on each side. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, fill a piping bag fitted with a large round tip with the onion jam. Using a skinny knife, poke holes into the tops of cooled donuts and rotate the knife to create space for the jam. Pipe the jam into the holes. Dust the donuts with a light dusting of yogurt powder and sprinkle with za’atar and sumac. Enjoy! 
 

-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett!

paprikash hotdish

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I am not up and at ‘em at 3 o'clock in the morning like I thought I would be because it turns out I’ve not been caught by westbound jet lag, which is a shame because westbound jet lag is almost as good as airplane ravioli. It's all because we became night owls in Berlin. While at home we can barely stay awake to finish Homeland, in Berlin we had no bedtime and stayed out well past the last call for hummus, discussing deli culture and gefilte fish over *just one round of arak* (in Berlin, i know, we'll get to that!). And then in the mornings we were lucky if we'd acquired our ein kleiner kaffee zu mitnehmen bitte and gotten on the u-bahn by 11. It'd weird me out when I’d get text messages from friends at home around then, “What is Michelle doing texting me in the middle of the night?!" I'd think, and then it'd occur to me that it was a normal New York waking hour. 

Which is all to say that we did a terrible job of adjusting to Berlin time, and thus have very little work to do now in the way of adjusting back to Grand Forks time. (And which is also to say that we could have easily spent our entire Friday night at the Berghain if Eggboy would have allowed us to attempt to get in lol.) 

I have a bunch of photos that I'm going to put together for you and then I'll tell you more about my trip, but today I've got to get going on testing Passover recipes and unpacking and telling you about this hotdish! According to a lot of instagrams and the fact that Eggboy is laundering all of his insulated coveralls at once in order to put them away for the warmer months, spring is here. Peas are here, rhubarb is here, chives are here, supposedly, but out my window it is still deliciously cloudy parka weather, which means that hotdishes are still *ok*. And I am really excited about this Paprikash hotdish because if Chinese hotdish is my stripper name, Paprikash hotdish is totally my other stripper name, as a nod to my Hungarian half. I love Paprikash and typically have it with dumplings or crusty buttery sourdough, but do you know what is equally as good as both of those things? Tater tots, duh. 

The filling is based on my chicken pot tater tot hotdish but it's flavored like a paprikash, meaning more onion and a load of paprika. So much paprika. Get new paprika because paprika loses its flavor really quickly if it's sitting on your spice shelf. I realize that peas and carrots aren't traditional paprikash ingredients but neither are tater tots, and in the interest of adding more veggies to make this a one-pot meal, I've dumped some in. The result is a v creamy, v comforting supper that's best when shoveled into your mouth out of a large deep bowl. And as you can see, this can totally be wrapped up and stuck in the freezer for later or to bring to a friend's house, just allow for an hour and a half or so in the oven if you're baking it from frozen!

Happy hotdishing! 

paprikash hotdish

makes 6 to 8 servings

ingredients

1/4 c butter

2 large onions, sliced

3 large carrots, chopped

Kosher salt

Black pepper

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 tb hungarian sweet paprika

1/2 tsp cayenne

1 tb tomato paste

6 tb flour

1/2 c dry white wine

2 c whole milk

enough chicken broth base for 2 c liquid** 

20 oz pounds boneless skinless chicken thigh, cut into 1/2- or 3/4-inch pieces

3/4 c peas

20 ounces tater tots

**a bouillon cube or something of the equivalent, like better than bouillon or homemade concentrate. since different brands require a different amount of mix per cup of liquid, check the manufacturer's instructions. don't dilute it in water! 

clues

preheat the oven to 400ºf. 

in a large skillet, melt the butter over medium high heat. add the onion, carrots, a good pinch of salt, and a few turns of pepper and cook, stirring until the onions and carrots are soft, about 10 minutes. add the garlic, paprika, cayenne, and tomato paste and cook for one more minute.

stir in the flour so that it gets evenly distributed and cook for one more minute. add the wine and stir until thickened. then add half of the milk, stirring constantly until thickened, and repeat with the other half of the milk. stir in the chicken broth base and chicken. cook, stirring often, until the chicken is cooked through and no longer pink, 15 minutes. stir in the peas. taste and adjust seasonings as desired. 

transfer the mixture to an 11" by 8" baking dish (or other 3-quart ovenproof dish) and cover with tater tots. arrange them snugly and neatly. bake until the tots are golden brown. begin checking for doneness at 30 minutes. let cool slightly and serve!

or, let cool slightly, cover tightly with plastic and refrigerate or freeze until ready to cook. it'll last 2 days in the refrigerator and 3 months in the freezer. 

-yeh!

black and matcha cookies

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we took the quickest ever little trip down to arizona this weekend! phoenix is one of the very few places where you can fly directly to from grand forks so even though we jumped one time zone there and two on the way back (arizona can’t be bothered to take part in daylight savings time), it felt like we were just visiting the neighbors. very, very hot neighbors because it was 90 million degrees and ok i am done talking about the weather. i kind of missed having my customary little layover at the minneapolis airport since i’ve gotten into the routine of buying moon cheese and a short green tea latte at the starbucks by the mall, but it was also a delightful flashback to my chicago and new york days when direct flights were the complete norm. 

other delightful things about this trip included a sunny hike fueled by cracklins and these tasty pb and j bite things i just discovered, happy hour with eggaunt, and stumbling upon our new hands-down-would-totally-fly-back-to-airzona-just-eat-them favorite breakfast burritos at the los favoritos in apache junction on the way from mesa to tucson. they were hot eggy loaves of glee, cheesy but not greasy, and wrapped in the softest chewiest flour tortilla i’ve ever met. the only thing that would have made mine better would have been if i had mustered up the nerve to ask for ketchup with mine. **i know, i know** but i think i have a ketchup addiction.

when we arrived in tucson, i made hotdish and cake at the tucson festival of books! it was such a huge festival, i couldn’t believe my eyes, and it was right on the university of arizona campus which made me want to go back to college. the demo was in a great big tent filled with a lot of midwesterners because i am learning that arizona is mostly made of midwesterners, and it was such a great time even though i was a little bit nervous making hotdish for midwesterners. and one of my homeslices from junior high came! afterwards we ate salad and cookies at time market, 10/10 would recommend. 

that night we drove into the tucson hills for a taco party where we got to hang out by a pool with julia and naomi and a bunch of other folks involved with the festival. everyone was so sweet!!!! it made me want to stay longer, but alas there was only like one flight option home and it was on sunday morning. 

so now i am back and gearing up for a week of green food because of st. patrick’s day! one reason i am extra excited this year is because i am officially over my great matcha overdose of 2015 and matcha makes the prettiest natural food coloring. these cookies are miniature versions of the black and matcha cookies from adrianna’s book a cozy coloring cookbook and i have to be careful not to eat too many of them late at night otherwise the caffeine will keep me awake. it’s so hard to though because they’re so tasty! and i love their soft chewy texture. the other green foods i plan on making this week are salad, salad pizza, and the avocado dressing from a cozy coloring cookbook because avocados were on sale. but most importantly, if you like fun and crafts and cooking, you need adrianna’s coloring book!! it’s got super cute quirky recipes that you can color and cook! at the same time. if you’re an octopus. 

black and matcha cookies

makes 50 mini cookies or 11 large cookies

from adrianna adarme's a cozy coloring book

ingredients

for the cookies:

2 1/4 c all-purpose flour

1/4 c cornstarch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 c granulated sugar

1/2 c unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 large eggs

3/4 c milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

 

for the matcha glaze:

1 c confectioners' sugar

1 tsp matcha powder

1-2 tb hot water

1 tsp brown rice syrup or light corn syrup

 

for the chocolate glaze:

4 oz semisweet chocolate chips

2 tb unsalted butter

2 tsp brown rice syrup or light corn syrup

pinch of salt

clues

to make the cookies: preheat the oven to 350ºf. line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

in a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt.

in another large bowl, combine the granulated sugar and butter. with an electric mixer on high speed, beat the mixture until it's pale yellow. Next, add the eggs, milk, vanilla, and mix just until combined. add the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

for large cookies: using a 2-ounce ice cream scoop, drop scoops of batter onto the baking sheets, gently flattening them. bake for 15 minutes, or until slightly risen. repeat with the remaining batter. for mini cookies: use a piping bag to pipe out 1 1/2" plops of batter onto the baking sheets and begin checking for doneness at about 10 minutes.

to make the matcha glaze: in a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners' sugar, matcha, water, and syrup until smooth.

to make the chocolate glaze: in a small microwaveable bowl, combine the chocolate chips and butter. Microwave on high power for 1 minute, stirring once, or until melted. mix in the syrup and salt.

decorate the cookies by adding the matcha glaze to one side of the cookie and the chocolate glaze to the other half. repeat until you've glazed all of your cookies.

-yeh!

february adventures

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luckily my effed up valentine’s day cake experience didn’t dictate the tone for the other parts of february because i squeezed in so many fun adventures for such a bite sized month! i got to hug old friends, eat schnitzel with cool new ones, play loud music, and jump a whole delta airline status!!!! i like you, february. come back again soon. 

let’s make a list:

photos 1 & 2: i spent a whole entire weekend at the grand forks ice arena watching the synchronized ice skating sectionals competition and i only left to get jimmy johns across the parking lot. i got to cheer on my old team!! it was sooo fun! it was sad when they didn’t win but the team that beat them was from north dakota so i still got to kvell. eggboy joined me for a few of the divisions but he got a lil bored so he left and did taxes.

photos 3-14 &16: i went to canada! which is a thing that you can do quite successfully in february if you live in the north pole already. my first stop was toronto where i stayed at the *coziest* bed and breakfast, ate at fat pasha, gave a couple of tahini covered #mollyontherange demos with hillel students and at their palatial jcc, and made ras al hanout hotdish on the marilyn denis show. i tried to make a ketchup joke because i thought that canada was the land ketchup, but either i’m incorrect about that or my delivery sucked? come on, ketchup chips, ketchup on mac and cheese, right??

in montreal i stayed with my bb and lead monkey bread inspiration, talia, in an apartment filled with hudson’s bay stripes and st. viateur bagels. we ate poutine and smoked meat and wore patagonia quarter zips for a majority of the time. my friends from the wandering chew put on the most magical #mollyontherange dessert party at the museum of jewish montreal. so many wonderful humans came out and we all ate so much sugar so naturally we needed to disco it off after. also in my two days there we managed to have one of those late-night perfectly boozy meals at maison publique, followed by some thick babka and schnitzel the next morning at hof kelsten. 

photos 15 & 17: kittsona, the town boutique, put on a cookie decorating #mollyontherange signing. i substituted the almond flour for hazelnut flour in these cookies and they were so tasty.

photos 18-22: conrad is a beast of a pianist and the last time we performed together, he was seven and soloing with our youth orchestra and i was 13 and putting on lip gloss and waiting for my triangle note. so it took a while, but we managed to perform together again in aspen this month with the aspen music festival! i decorated dobos torte and made cheesy spätzle while he played beethoven and jason eckardt music. from now on i only want to listen to beethoven while being covered in chocolate frosting. 

photos 23-28: proud of myself for not exploding from happiness during my 36 hours in new york, but somehow the stars aligned and i found myself in selfie distance from my all-time favorite podcast hosts, my all-time favorite ice dancers, three of my all-time favorite college homies, and i made my all-time favorite food on the today show. i also acquired a pair of comfy cool shoes called blog. i also got to eat hummus with rob and brian and they didn’t even fart when i was in the room. such mensches they are.

photos 29-36: then i went to florida! my friends george and sam have a new music group that was playing a david t little quartet (and u know how i love the loud music of david t little), so i dusted off my vibraphone mallets and brute forced some notes out. it was such great fun. i also got to see my tampa family and my old roomie and eat some fresh tomatoes which are in season down there, which felt so weird but so awesome! 

not pictured: eggboy and i went to see the town choir perform in a warehouse, it was so hip, it was like we were in brooklyn! i made suuuuuuuch a good chicken and dumplings (here is the recipe, next time i’m going to start with 2 tsp salt in the stock and work my way up and maybe not use the whole 4 tsp that it calls for). i acquired a love of matcha lattes and neck scarves. ooh and i watched this lucius, over and over and over.

tomorrow i leave for kentucky for the iacp conference! i'll be leading a cake workshop, talking on a panel, signing #mollyontherange, and seeking out the best kentucky dance clubs!! see you there??

-yeh!