shakshuka o's

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Sugar beet harvest is officially dunzo!!!!!!!!!! Eggboy can finally catch up on sleep, there’s a celebratory brisket in the oven, and I still have three entire seasons of Pretty Little Liars to watch, which means that harvest wasn’t nearly has long as it could have been. Last year they were still harvesting on October 20th so the fact that this year they finished on the 13th is reason to party extra hard. We’re having the whole crew over tonight for brisket, Mac and cheese, corn bread, live accordion music by Sheila, and the presentation for the award for whoever transported the last truck of beets from the field to the plant. Then E-boy will probably sleep until it’s time to go to the hockey game tomorrow night. 

Here’s a little recipe that is partially Eggboy’s invention! It’s a riff on the Shakshuka Couscous from Molly on the Range that was invented when I was trying to figure out if we should have Shakshuka or couscous for dinner one night and Eggboy just said the two words together as if they were one dish. It was the same tone in which he suggested the train wreck that was “chicken pot babka” only this time it actually sounded like a good idea. So I went with it and it turned out to be an awesome heartier take on Shakshuka, almost like one of those one pot pasta recipes that are all over the internet. And then when I was in Maine a couple of months ago demoing this dish at Stonewall Kitchen, my friend Jeff (the same Jeff who dragged me for Tahdig Shakshuka) was all why isn’t this actually Shakshuka O’s?? That’s way more fun. And suddenly I was transported back to my Hello Kitty days when the most amount of vegetables I’d eat in one meal would be the carrots and onions in an individually sized microwaveable chef boyardee cup. And the most amount of meat I’d eat would be the tiny meatballs therein... 

And so a very nostalgic dish was born! 

The only special ingredient you need here is large ring pasta, which occupies most pasta aisles I think. I’m sure small rings or stars would work (although I don’t think stars would have the correct mouthfeel), and I really wanted to track down that Manischewitz Hebrew letter pasta since my Hebrew lessons start today (!!!!!) but alas it was discontinued years ago. Sad trombone! This dish is so much fun to eat though, and perfect for rainy nights when you don't feel like going to the store because all of the ingredients are super easy to have on hand (like my endless tub of feta that should have expired months ago but hasn't yet). If you thought that spaghetti-o's was at the height of its tastiness, you clearly haven’t had it with a soft cooked egg mingling its way into the sauce, making it rich and creamy. And with cumin and feta and harissa and all of the other tasty additions that make shakshuka so special. Get on this you guys! Happy weekend!! 

shakshuka o's

makes 4 servings

ingredients

3 tb olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

kosher salt

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tb ground cumin

2 tsp harissa, or more to taste

1/2 tsp paprika

black pepper

crushed red pepper

1 tb tomato paste

1 can or carton (28 oz) chopped tomatoes

1 tsp sugar

3/4 c large ring pasta

1/2 c vegetable stock

4 large eggs

a few handfuls of crumbled feta

a handful of chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley or cilantro or a mix

clues

in a large skillet, heat the 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. add the onion, carrots, and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until soft and translucent, 10-12 minutes. add the garlic, cumin, harissa, paprika, a good pinch of salt, a few turns of black pepper, and a pinch of red chili flakes and cook until it's all dreamy and smelly, about 2 minutes. stir in the tomato paste, then the chopped tomatoes and sugar. reduce the heat to low, stir in the pasta rings and broth, cover and simmer for about 8 minutes, until the pasta is al dente.

create 4 little wells and crack in your eggs. cover and simmer until the whites are cooked but the yolks are still runny, begin checking at 5 minutes. sprinkle the eggs with a little salt and black pepper, drizzle the whole dish with olive oil, top with feta and herbs, and serve.

-yeh!

maple tahini cupcakes with labneh frosting

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I’ve just gotten home from the most delightful weekend bop over to Chicago for the wedding of one of my oldest homies, Stefani! We used to play a lot of marimba together and then at one point we overlapped in New York where we’d pull all nighters and party like crazy ladies. And by all nighters, I mean one time we stayed out all night long until the Lower East Side Doughnut Plant opened at 6:30am and then got one of each doughnut and it was the best and I’m never gonna forget that. (omg i just realized i blogged about it eight years ago, i'm so embarrassed.)  

Now she is all wifed up and I had the honor of making* the wedding cake!! The bottom tier was pumpkin with vanilla buttercream and the top tier was the hazelnut horse cake from motr. I did a test run of the birch cake decor a few weeks ago and I'm very glad I did because it turns out that there is a very fine line between birch cake and poop stain cake.

*baking, freezing, sticking in a cooler, checking on a plane, and decorating at mum’s house. It was my second time doing that this year and it was way less stressful than flying with a wedding cake sounds! 

Also this weekend I got to see my family, eat some blinchiki at Russian Tea Time, and noodle around up near the Wisconsin border since mum just moved there and that area is so great! Especially with all of the fall leaves. We went to the Mars Cheese Castle. If you don’t know what that is, just imagine the type of place that *would* be called the Mars Cheese Castle and there you have it. I got a bunch of smoked cheese and fancy string cheese that is going to be my dinner because Eggboy is still harvesting up a storm.

Now I’m back with no travel plans until Thanksgiving and I could not be more excited to hibernate to the tune of Hallmark movies and UND hockey games. Winter, get @ me!!!! Also!! I start Hebrew lessons this week!!!!!! A Rabbi has moved to town and I jumped at the opportunity to take Hebrew. Right now I know: ken, lo, boker tov, bamba, and… gal gadot. I’m so excited. 

These cupcakes are the recipe for another wedding cake that I made for this weekend (it was a two-cake weekend)! Asha, the co-founder of Cake in a Crate, and Andy, the other founder and one of my former college classmates, got hitched in Vermont and I mailed them a very Vermonty cake that was filled with maple and tahini and covered with marzipan! I loved making this cake for them because it obviously had my two greatest food loves in life and also because I got to develop this new recipe for it. I don’t think I’ve ever put maple with tahini before but it turns out it’s a wonderful cozy warm combination. For Asha and Andy’s cake, we brightened up the warmth with a layer of raspberry jam before layering on the marzipan, but for this cupcake version I’ve added labneh. It makes for a topping that’s lighter than cream cheese frosting but heavier and tangier than whipped cream. There’s not much to it at all, it almost feels silly to call it a frosting since it’s literally just sweetened labneh. But with a zest of a lemon and a luxurious swoop, you’ve got yourself a lovely little cake. And the poppy seeds are like a minimalist sprinkle as well as a nod to the buckwheat labneh cake at tandem coffee, which inspired me to get hip to labneh frosting!

maple tahini cupcakes with labneh frosting

makes 16 cupcakes

ingredients

cupcakes:

1 c + 2 tb (142g) flour
3/4 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 large egg
6 tb (120g) maple syrup
1/2 c (100g) sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp maple extract
1/2 c (120g) buttermilk
1/4 c (50g) flavorless oil
1/4 c (60g) water
1/2 c (100g) tahini

frosting:

1 2/3 c (400g) labneh
1/4 c (30g) powdered sugar
a pinch of kosher salt
zest of 1/2 a lemon

poppy seeds and lemon zest, for decorating

clues

To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350ºf and distribute 16 muffin liners evenly between two muffin tins. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the egg, maple syrup, sugar, vanilla, maple extract, buttermilk, oil, water, and tahini. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix to combine. Fill the muffin liners equally and then bake until as toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean; begin checking for doneness at 15 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, mix together the labneh, powdered sugar, salt, and lemon zest. Taste and adjust as desired. 

Spread the frosting onto the cupcakes, sprinkle with poppy seeds and lemon zest and enjoy! These are best the day of. 

-yeh!

tahini caramel apples

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...and my rosh hashanah menu!

wednesday (eggfamily is coming over!)

apples from our tree // our trees are bursting, the apples are snappy and tart, oh and i make pies now… (more on this later)

marzipan honey // when i passed through new york last week on the way to stephanie and ben’s wedding i stopped at breads for car snacks and they were selling marzipan honey!!! i didn’t dare buy it because can you imagine the expletives that would come out of your mouth if a jar of honey spilled in your suitcase? so i plan to simply put honey from eggbro's bees and marzipan in my cuisinart and blend it up. 

potato challah!! // ohmygosh so many of you have made this already and every time you post a photo of it i scream and smile. your braids all look fantastic!! this is why i know 5778 is going to be great. 

matbucha // this will be my first time making it but i figured it’d be a nice accompaniment to the challah and a great way to use up the tomatoes from our garden! 

brisket // it’s been a while since i just did a classic, red wine braised, oniony and carroty brisket that makes the house smell exactly like rosh hashanah, so that is what i shall do. (hi yankee candle, can you make a brisket and challah scented candle??) i’ve blocked off like five hours of my day today to track down a brisket though because finding a brisket in this town is as hard as getting through the newest season of bojack. it can be done but it’s definitely not easy. 

something with zucchini // i have not figured this out yet but i need to bc we are now in possession of three zucchini that are twice the size of sven cat!!!! and sven cat is a very large northern cat!! i am leaning toward this zucchini kugel topped with walnuts and capers and tons of herbs, a la marian zucchini.

apple pie, with the marzipan crumble from alanna’s book // i know, i know, who is this pie maker cat lady that i have suddenly become??? we are going to talk about this soon, it’s gonna be fine. but there's this recipe i’m working on that has hawaij in it and omg it’s so good. ok bye.

thursday (low-key, eggboy and me, and probably what women want on hbo)

shakshuka challah! // i’m going to reserve some of the challah dough from wednesday, make lil rounds, spoon some shakshuka sauce and eggs into them, and then cover them with herbs and feta.

matzo ball soup // i’ll probably go the very classic route with this too, or i may use my fave roasted vegetable stock with it so i can use more of our garden vegetables. 

annnd....

tahini caramel apples!!!

i love a caramel apple. i love unwrapping all of the little pieces of caramel*, eating things on sticks, and brushing my teeth for an extra long portion of time. and picking apples from our tree makes me so happy, it’s like living on rock candy mountain. we are no strangers to tahini going with caramel (see: hawaij carrot cake), so it felt right that tahini caramel should go on apples. 

*this is an outdated hobby, as they don't even sell the individually wrapped caramel squares at my grocery anymore, it's all the unwrapped little balls

i went through a few variations of homemade caramel for these apples, which tasted fine, but getting the consistency just right took so much time and energy that i kind of started dreading making them. it wasn’t, like, fun dough-kneading energy, it was sweating-over-a-hot-pot-of-caramel-for-way-too-long-wondering-if-i’m-going-to-burn-it energy. so i dug out this brick of caramel that’s been sitting in the back of my pantry for two years, melted it down, mixed in tahini, and it worked like a charm and came together in like five minutes! it also tasted great, better than the homemade caramel even, since it wasn’t seasoned with stress and sweat. so conclusion: we're going with easy peasy store-bought caramel here. the tahini does a great job of cutting the sweetness from the caramel and kind of bridges the gap from tart to sweet. and the tiny bit of cinnamon adds a nice autumnal warmth!

you know what else is so good?? pouring any leftover tahini caramel onto a sheet of waxed paper and covering it with chopped pretzels. let it harden and cut it into squares. wrap in cute candy wrappers and eat as desired.

shana tova, friends!!!! 

🍎🍯🍎🍯🍎🍯🍎🍯🍎🍯🍎🍯🍎🍯🍎🍯🍎🍯

tahini caramel apples

makes 6-8 apples

Ingredients

6-8 tart apples
1 ounce (28g) toasted sesame seeds
11 ounces (312g) caramels
2 tb water
1/4 t cinnamon
1/3 c (75g) tahini
 

Clues

Wash and dry the apples. Insert sticks into the top, place them on a waxed paper lined baking sheet, and refrigerate them for at least 20 minutes. Place the sesame seeds on a plate and set aside. In a small or medium saucepan, combine the caramels, water, and cinnamon, and heat on medium heat, stirring with a heat-safe rubber spatula, until the caramel is melted. Stir in the tahini until smooth and reduce heat to low. Dip the cold apples in the caramel, letting any excess drip off, dip them in the sesame seeds, and then place on the waxed paper (or on parchment cupcake liners). Firm up in the fridge for about 20 minutes and enjoy! These should keep in the fridge, covered, for up to a couple of weeks. 
 

-yeh!

pictured: pot / spurtle / small plate / big plate

tahdig shakshuka

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With the way that people talk about making tahdig, you’d think that they were talking about reading Ulysses or something. Not that I would really know for sure since I am about 100% positive that I will die without having read Ulysses but I’ve felt the size of it and I’ve heard Eggboy talk about it and at this moment in time that is the best comparison I can think of because both require time and patience, and 30% of the time, you fail. 

When you do succeed though you’re rewarded, of course. Not necessarily with fireworks and instagrammability, but with satisfaction and maybe some street cred?? They’re beasts. One would take me 10 years to finish, another, it turns out, you can do in an evening so long as you focus and have the right tools.

Tahdig is a Persian dish that consists of the crispy layer of rice that forms at the bottom of the pot. It’s often flavored with saffron and can also be made with vegetables or bread. It is so good and I can’t believe it took me until 2017 to make it for the first time. I think I first heard about it from Naz at the Saveur awards back in 2014. I remember her talking about how much patience you need to make it and how exciting it is when it works. I love her post about Tahdig, where she compares it to a coy lover. Ok maybe that’s better than Ulysses. A while back in New York, a few friends attempted it for our Shabbat potluck but I remember them not being so satisfied with how it turned out. It’s just so hard to tell when the crispiness forms and then once you flip it out, I don’t think you can crisp it up anymore. In Berlin, Sophie and Xenia turned out like 12 perfect Tahdigs in a row, it was super human and they all looked like gorgeous yellow cakes destined to sop up short rib juices. Shortly thereafter I had a miniature tahdig at Zahav with their legendary braised lamb, and then finally it was time to make it at home. 

It was not a total failure but, you’ve seen my little stove coils, they can only heat so much and tahdig requires a very even heating element. So I tried it out in my mini cocottes and it worked for a few but then got fussy when I tried to make 30 of them for a dinner party. It was actually really traumatizing and I didn’t make tahdig for a long time after that. I kind of came to the conclusion that my go-to cast iron pots weren’t necessarily the right option for tahdig and started creeping around the internet for alternatives. Anytime tahdig would come up on my IG feed, I’d kind of stalk the account to see if they posted the pot they made it in…

And then a few months ago Alana started raving about her GreenPans and how nonsticky and easy to clean they were (I think she has become my new kitchenware curator btw), so when GreenPan got in touch to work on this post I figured I’d better at least try a Tahdig in one before making any decisions, so I did and guess what! I nailed it the first time. And the second, third, etc., etc. The coating on the pans is not only so nonsticky that the tahdig practically slides out of the pan and into my mouth, but it also heats so evenly that I can use their 12” pan on my 8” coil and still get an evenly yellow saffrony ghee-y crust. And it doesn’t contain the crusty nonstick stuff that peels off and kills u. I am hella sold. (the pan i'm using is part of their 10th anniversary set and it's on sale rn!) I know Alana likes making eggs in them and now that it’s fall I’d like to try making caramel for my apples in them but for now I’m just really glad to have filled the void in my life that was a perfect Tahdig pan.

Let’s talk about why this Tahdig is different from all other Tahdigs: In a shakshuka-inspired move, it’s got poached eggs all up in it. “Just because it has poached eggs doesn’t make it a shakshuka” wrote Jeff after I IG-ed it. It spurred a long argument that is still not over. He thinks it is more similar to Maqluba and that shakshuka requires a sauce. My argument was that even though most shakshukas have tomato sauce, shakshuka isn't required to have tomatoes or even a sauce (see: green shakshuka). darya said it might be similar to mirza ghasemi! which i've never had but sounds delicious. What do you think? I love shakshuka and I also love this dish and definitely feel like shakshuka doesn’t really need to have tomato sauce… but… tomato tomahto? 

This dish is crispy rice, eggs, and a party full of toppings. I basically just pulled a bunch of pretty things from my garden and threw them on top. I would def recommend topping this with at least pickled onions, fresh lemon juice, herbs, and tomatoes if you have them. Feta was also great! But you can really go wild and use whatever toppings you have on hand. This recipe makes a big batch and is perfect for a brunch party. And seriously with an even nonstick pan like this one, you can go confidently in the direction of tahdig, even on your first try.

tahdig shakshuka

makes 6 servings

ingredients

540g basmati rice

kosher salt

1/8 tsp saffron

3 tb ghee

6 eggs

for topping: black pepper, crushed red pepper, fresh basil and mint, pickled onions, lemon wedges, feta, chopped scallions, chopped tomatoes, other herbs/cheeses/sauces as desired

Clues

In a large bowl, cover the rice with enough water so that it comes up a couple inches above the rice and soak for 30 minutes. Drain the rice and then rinse it well. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons salt. Boil the rice until it’s soft on the outside but still has a bite on the inside, about 4-5 minutes. Drain and rinse under cool water to stop the cooking. 

Crush the saffron using a mortar and pestle and then dissolve it in 3 tablespoons boiling water. 

Heat a 12” lidded nonstick Greenpan over medium high heat and add the ghee and the saffron water and swirl it around so it coats the pan evenly. Add the rice and pack it down firmly with the back of a spatula, making a pyramid shape in the center. Use the handle of a spatula to poke a few holes in the rice, stopping right before you get to the very bottom of the rice. Carefully cover the skillet with a clean dish towel and then the lid, folding the corners of the towel up around the lid so they don’t touch the stove (if you’re working with a gas range, you may want to fold the towel up around the lid before putting it on the skillet to be extra careful that your towel doesn’t get in the flame). Cook on medium high for 30 minutes and then reduce the heat to medium low. Carefully uncover the pot, keeping the cover level so that any moisture collected under the towel doesn’t spill out and burn you or fall back into the rice. Using a spoon or spatula, create 6 egg-sized divots about an inch apart and crack in your eggies. Cover (you don’t need the towel for this step) and cook until the whites are cooked but the yolks are still runny. Top with black pepper, crushed red pepper, fresh basil and mint, pickled onions, a few squeezes of lemon juice, feta, chopped scallions, chopped tomatoes, and/or other herbs/cheeses/sauces as desired, and serve immediately. Enjoy! 


Thank you GreenPan for these pans and for sponsoring this post and for making the perfect Tahdig pan! the lidded one pictured is part of their limited edition 10th anniversary 5-piece set ($59.99) which includes a smaller 10” pan, a bamboo spatula, and a recipe book, and all greenpans are 20% off from 9/15-9/24. greenpans have a ceramic nonstick coating, thermolon, that is made from a sand derivative. it is high heat resistant and won’t ever peel off or emit harmful fumes. 

All photos are by Chantell and Brett Quernemoen!