hot sauce

corn dog in a bowl

in

hiiii from san fran where i am full on spam, pizza, and happiness because go cubs!!!!! i had such a great night last night at my signing at the mill (people made t-shirts about it!!!) and then hurry scurried back to my hotel to watch the cubs win. i screamed, duh. today i am guest chef-ing at the twitter office and then i'm hoping to go see the golden gate bridge and eat some vegetables! it has been sunny and perfect scarf weather and ok let's talk about corn dogs! 

one of my favorite recipes that was cut from molly on the range is also one of my oldest blog recipes. it emerged when I was deep in preparations for my senior recital and feeling blobby about a breakup. It was enough stress to cause me to not eat for like, a day, and when I snapped out of it I found polenta and a sausage in my fridge and whittled this meal which was enjoyed from under a layer of pink juicy velour. It tasted just like a corn dog and you could eat it with a spoon.

Since then, I’ve shepherded this dish into adulthood with a smooth buttery polenta, a big thick wiener, and a pile of sautéed greens to class up the joint. The greens are optional, of course, but i think they add some nice color, and kind round everything out into a dish that's fit for a quick yet civilized supper. 

I'm posting it today in celebration of cynthia from two red bowls and her new baby (bowl 3!!!!!). seriously look at this little nugget. i mean, that nose!! those cheeks! so squishy and cute. if you know cynthia, you know that she is the sweetest, and her man, b2, is also the sweetest, therefore we can pretty much bank on little b3 growing up to be a total heartbreaker. watch out, future kiddoes of the world! 

so... we know that baby showers are supposed to happen before the baby is born but b3 jumped the gun a little so now it's just a big old party of food in bowls, hosted by alana and steph. you should head over to their sites for a list of all of the other great bowl food that was birthed onto the web today for this tasty celebration (pun intended). welcome to the world, b3!!!! 

corn dog in a bowl

makes 4 servings

ingredients

2 c water

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 c corn meal

1/4 c whole milk

3 tb unsalted butter

1/4 tsp paprika

2 tsp sugar

Black pepper

4 hot dogs or sausages, heated until cooked through

Hot sauce, to taste

Sautéed greens, optional

Ketchup, if you’re into that kind of thing

clues

Place the water and salt in a medium saucepan and bring it to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, gradually whisk in the corn meal, and continue to whisk until the mixture has thickened. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the milk, butter, paprika, sugar, and a few turns of black pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired, and stir in additional milk if the polenta gets too thick. 

Serve in a bowl topped with a hot dog and a few shakes of hot sauce. Add greens and/or ketchup, if desired. 

-yeh!

cumin chickpea salad tacos with chipotle tahini

in

hello from chicago! i have been floating in a sea of family and friends, some of whom i haven’t seen since my limited too body glitter days, some of whom i didn’t recognize until they mentioned my elementary school. most of whom have more facial hair (if they’re dudes)… it’s so bonkers to see all of these old homeslices and sign their books! it really makes me want to smile my whole face off and hug the guts out of them. i hope i didn’t spread any cooties though, i’ve been chugging mum’s matzoh ball soup and just had my first wheatgrass shot (ew), so i think i’m on my way to being 100%. i’ve also been getting better at coming down off of the wired feeling that’s leftover after each book event. bojack helps (should i start a bojack blog?), and so does this great book that i’m reading, searching for john hughes. it’s a new memoir by jason diamond, who grew up right near me in the chicago suburbs, and reading it is like receiving letters from a good old friend that i’ve known for a million years. i love it and 10/10 would recommend.

speaking of the suburbs, i am heading deeper into the suburbs today, to lake forest for my second of three chicago book tour events. and tonight i’m going downtown to the cso! i can’t hardly wait.

Since it is Tuesday, we should think about tacos. This recipe has become a staple supper in our house. It began its life as a greek salad that I tested for Lily’s forthcoming book, Kale and Caramel, and Eggboy and I became so obsessed with it that we started having it literally every third day. Lily Salad! Lily Salad! Over the past few months, it’s evolved to fit our taco obsessed lifestyle and adapted to accommodate the ingredients that we commonly have on hand. Olives were swapped out for radishes, pita croutons were swapped out for the amazeballs tortillas from this small factory in moorhead, minnesota, and a load of mint was swapped out for whatever sad small amounts of mint we can get our hungry hands on. (At one time over the summer, mint was plentiful from my little plant. But when all of that died and it just couldn’t be found at any of our groceries, I got sad. And around this time I broke into Lily’s apartment in los angeles while she was on a date, and when she returned she had a bush of fresh mint the size of two of my heads. oh wow! is there a farmers’ market today?? i asked, pointing to her mint. no, this is literally the smallest quantity of mint that i can get from [insert generic grocery store name here]. *eye roll* *california* *ugh*.) I also started adding tabasco sauce because I feel weird not having tacos with classic tabasco sauce, and I thought that chipotle tahini would be a fun twist on chipotle mayo, giving it a nice creamy texture and some smokiness that brings these cumin chickpeas to the next level. 

cumin chickpea salad tacos with chipotle tahini

makes about 8

ingredients

Olive oil or flavorless oil
1 15-oz carton chickpeas (drained, rinsed, and patted dry)
ground cumin
ground coriander
Salt and pepper
original Tabasco sauce

5 oz mixed greens
1/2 purple onion, thinly sliced
1/2 large cucumber, chopped
4 radishes, thinly silced
A handful of fresh mint leaves, or more if you've got it
A handful of crumbled feta

1/4 c tahini
3 tb cold water
1 tb lemon juice
1 tsp chipotle tabasco, or more to taste

about 8 six-inch flour tortillas

clues

heat a thin layer of oil in a skillet over medium high heat. add the chickpeas and cover them with a dusting of cumin and coriander, a big pinch of salt, and a few turns of pepper. cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown. remove from heat and top with a few shakes of hot sauce. 

in a large bowl, combine the mixed greens, onion, cucumber, radishes, mint, and feta. 

in a small bowl, mix together the tahini, water, lemon juice, chipotle tabasco, salt, and pepper and stir until thickened. taste and add additional tabasco, if desired. 

warm the tortillas in the pan you used to cook the tortillas in (so the seasoning gets on one side), and then fill them with a pile of salad, a spoonful of chickpeas, and a healthy drizzle of chipotle tahini. alternatively, you can toss the chickpeas and the tahini sauce with the salad before stuffing everything into a taco.

enjoy! 

 

-yeh!

thank you, tabasco, for sponsoring this post! check out the #tabascotastemakers hashtag for more tabasco recipes!

choose your own adventure bloody marys

in , ,

throughout my year of making molly on the range, i had a lot of shoot days where my primary task was taking a few options for beauty shots of the five or six dishes that were on the schedule for that day. most of the shoot days fell in the winter, when the days are extra short around here, so that was silly and took a lot of advanced planning, but in general it wasn't too unlike photographing a blog post. there was more pressure knowing that the photos would get put on paper, however at times it was actually physically easier than shooting a blog post since i knew there wouldn't be much room in the book for many more angles and process shots, beyond one final beauty of the finished dish. 

but! there were also a few different kinds of shoot days that involved people (!) and festive wardrobes (!) and entire party setups, captured by chantell! we had a bonfire, a harvest party, a dumpling party, a brunch party... they were much bigger productions than blog posts and there were a lot of moving parts to coordinate, like humans and props and making sure all of the humans showed up in seasonally appropriate attire (which didn't necessarily reflect which season it actually was. for example, don't ask when we shot the holiday party... the answer is not "around the holidays.") it was a lot like planning a real party! so fun. a little more stressful because if something went wrong i couldn't just spill the punch bowl, call the cops, blame it on the neighbors, and get it out of my life. these were parties that'd live on in physical form. 

one of my favorite parties was our brunch party, modeled on our town brunch club. brunch club member emeritus kristin came up all the way from minneapolis, eggsister came from fargo, farmhouse pottery sent such gorgeous props, and we ate so many of my favorite recipes from the book. (i've strategically included a few preview shots of these up above but the little labels depicting what they are are hidden because those are secrets until the book comes out! #october4 #pleasepreorder) bloody marys were obviously involved but sadly the recipe didn't make the book. 

so here they are now, in honor of sherrie's end of summer #drinkthesummer party, which you all need to check out because i am thirsty and needing to pee just looking at these titles: salty melon slush, garden tonic punch, and jalapeno watermelon cooler to name a few!

i think i make a good bloody mary because savory drinks excite me sooo much. it's like cold boozy soup and--bonus!--you get a serving of vegetables. this recipe is fun because it gives you a good base recipe which you can spice up based on whichever fancy hot sauce you have hiding your fridge. and then depending on what hot sauce that is, that's what you call it. harissa bloody mary, zhoug bloody mary, sambal oelek bloody mary, sriracha chipotle obscure-hot-sauce-in-an-unmarked-bottle-that-you-found-in-your-bag-after-a-long-night-of-tequila-in-tijuana* bloody mary... the world is your hot sauce oyster and impressing your brunch guests is just a few shakes away! 

(*this is fictional, it never happened, stop worrying, mum)

choose your own adventure bloody marys

makes about 6 servings

ingredients

4 c tomato juice

1 c vodka

4 cloves garlic, smashed

1 1/2 tsp celery salt, plus more for garnish

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp ground caraway seeds

1 tsp ground horseradish

1 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1 tb lime juice

black pepper 

hot stuff ***

garnish:

celery stalks

lime wedges

pickles 

bacon

***This is the essence of this recipe, what makes it. Open up your refrigerator, find the fanciest spicy situation that you have, and then add it to taste. This will be the title of your Bloody Mary. Harissa Bloody Mary. Sriracha Bloody Mary. Zhoug Bloody Mary. Sambal Oelek Bloody Mary. Or a combination.

clues

In a pitcher, mix together the tomato juice, vodka, garlic, salt, sugar, caraway seeds, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, a few turns of black pepper, and hot stuff. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired. To serve, give 6 glasses a celery salt rim job and distribute the mixture evenly. Garnish as desired with celery stalks, lime wedges, pickles, and bacon. 

-yeh!

molly on the range is out october 4 and you can pre-order it now!