pita

pita and greens benedict with feta cream

Not to talk about the weather but because a dramatic shift in weather also means an actual dramatic shift in our life as farm humans: it is spring!! The snow has melted, the birds are chirping, the heat has been turned off, I’m deep in #VestLife, and the chickens are sooooo happy that they have more sunlight and grass to waddle around in. Last week, Eggboy put his farm hat on for the first time this year which means that spring planting is near and he’ll soon start coming in later and later at night smelling like sweat and dirt. The fields are bare right now but in a few weeks they’ll have little sprouts popping out all over and soon we’ll have a garden!!!! And I’ll no longer have to spend $5 on 15 leaves of basil at the Hugo’s on 32nd. 

Since I’m not the one who tends to the fields, the arrival of spring for me pretty much just means that I work slightly longer hours in the kitchen since supper time is way later, and I go to the gym at night by myself. Usually by the time I get back from the gym, Eggboy’s in and it’s Westworld o’clock, even though the sun doesn’t go down until really late but maybe that’s a good thing because Westworld is creepy.

It’s usually in these warmer months when I start taking on bigger kitchen projects, like learning buttercream flowers or bagels, and I think that this is the year I’d like to finally keep a sourdough starter alive and learn to make good crusty bread.

Ok let’s talk bout this recipeep! 

A solid 70% of the time, my mom and I have the same exact brunch order: eggs benedict hold the hollandaise. Just like pork and creamed soups, hollandaise sauce was one of those things growing up that *other people ate*. Who, really, I can’t be sure, but no one in our family. And I think it was simply because hollandaise sauce is heavy and unhealthy, and, to be frank, completely unnecessary. Or, maybe it’s necessary on other things, but a well-salted and adequately Tabasco’d perfectly poached yolky egg on thick Canadian bacon (I know! Pork! Somehow bacon never counted as real pork in our house!) and a toasty English muffin is nary in need of more. Hollandaise actually kind of hardcore effs it up because it takes a relatively healthyish breakfast option to bellyache status and, honestly, I wouldn’t miss hollandaise if it ceased to exist. Oops, this got dark! But the more I think of it the more I really want to just go back in time and convince the eggs benedict inventor to stop after the egg. 

Here’s a version of eggs benedict that does have a sauce but it’s a better sauce than hollandaise, for it is feta yogurt. It’s a light flavorful deal that adds loads of brightness and I realize I just shat all over the very idea of a sauce on a benedict but in my opinion it makes more sense here. All it does is tie together some great garlicky kale, a poached egg, and a fluffy homemade pita, almost more like a dressing than a sauce. And with this vegetarian version, the feta yogurt fills in for the ham in the protein department. This eggs benedict is salty, creamy, garlicky, and green. It’s one that doesn’t require you to order it without the sauce and a colorful main for your next brunch party. 

And you know what’s cool?? You can poach eggs in advance: Simply transfer freshly poached eggs to an ice bath and refrigerate them in a container of water for a day or two until serving time. When it’s time to serve, reheat them by submerging them in hot water until warm. (more details here!)

As for the thick pitas you see: I made one batch of dough (recipe here) into 16 pitas and rolled them out just lightly, molding them more into slightly flat bread rolls as opposed to a flatbread, so they could be thick enough to get sliced in half. 


Pita and Greens Benedict with Feta Cream

Makes 4

Ingredients

2 oz feta, crumbled

1/2 c (113g) whole milk greek yogurt

1/2 tsp aleppo pepper or paprika, plus more for sprinkling

black pepper

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic, sliced

6 oz kale, thinly sliced

Kosher salt 

2 tb water

Juice of 1/2 lemon

4 large eggs

2 thick puffy pitas, halved

Clues

In a high speed blender, combine the feta, yogurt, aleppo or paprika, a few turns of pepper, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil and blend until very smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings if desired. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use (this can be made a day or two in advance). 

In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute. Add the kale, a few pinches of salt, and the water, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and wilted. You may need to add the kale in batches if it’s too much to fit in all at once. Season with pepper and squeeze with lemon. Turn heat down to low just to keep this warm while you poach the eggs.

To poach the eggs, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Crack the eggs one or two at a time into a fine mesh sieve and let any loose bits of egg whites seep out (this step isn’t totally necessary but it will decrease the amount of wild rogue egg white bits) and transfer to a bowl. Carefully lower them into the boiling water. Cook until the whites are firm but the yolks are still runny, 2-3 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove to a paper towel or clean kitchen towel to dry off any excess moisture. 

Toast or grill the pitas. Drizzle with a little olive oil and top with the kale and eggs. Spoon on the feta cream and sprinkle with fresh black pepper and a pinch of aleppo or paprika. Enjoy!


p.s. Enrich and Endure makes Crossback aprons now! Omg, I am obsessed. Keep an eye on Instagram, I’ll be doing a giveaway with them in the coming weeks!!

-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett quernemoen

sheet pan pita pizza with broccolini and lemon

All of my teacher friends have gone back to work, the apples on our trees have appeared, and Eggboy comes in every night covered in a light layer of wheat dust because he is about halfway through wheat harvest. This can only mean a few things!

Fall is near

Risotto season is near

All of the mosquitos will soon die

I have to start collecting things for my Halloween costume and learning the choreography to that Haim video

Bojack season 4 and Broad City season 4 will be out soon

And before we know it Candace Cameron Bure will be all up in our TV with this year’s new Hallmark Christmas movies and I’ll be baking my second annual cookie tins, flipping latkes, and humming Sufjan Christmas.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

I know we’re supposed to be ~hanging on to the last days of summer~ but cover me with pumpkin bread and let me be cozy.

Of course I don’t want to minimize all of the wild and crazy awesome summery things that this last month since Eggsister wedding has brought, so I am going to show & tell some highlights right here:

-I fell in lurrrv with Maine, nearly died of happiness in the shadow of a lighthouse as butter dripped down my face while I ate my first real lobster with old friends and new! I taught classes at the magical Stonewall kitchen, experienced the insanely awesome Tandem Coffee Roasters and Briandre3000, freaked over oysters and kimchi ice at Eventide, and got to see Luke play gong at Bowdoin!! And then thanks to new friend Emily I got to see the Punch Brothers/I’m With Her/Julian Lage tour (and tell Chris Thile that I’ll be making him a hotdish soon)!

-Partied my tuchus off at Jaclyn’s wedding (complete with late night Ted Drewes!!) and Stefani and Kelly’s Bridal shower the day after!

-Judged the first annual town hotdish competition! There were six entries, including something called a funeral hotdish, which you and I are going to sit down and chat about on another day, and one with Thanksgiving stuffing all over the top, which I’m totally going to do this Thanksgiving. Sadly there were no tater tot hotdish entries, so please start planning your entries for next year, ok?  

-Celebrated my fourth anniversary of moving here! And this lil blog's ninth birthday! 

-Road bikes all around Mackinac island with the fam and then ate all of the fudge and snow cones and talked the entire time about how we felt like we were in a poop-scented Disney World. It was so great. 

-And then Eggboy and I saw Bruno Mars live in Fargo!! We bought tickets like a year ago because we loved his performance at the 2014 Super Bowl so much. It happened to be on a Friday and because it was all the way in Fargo, I made this here pizza so that we could have pizza night on the road. It’s kind of a hybrid between a grandma pie and the farmers market focaccia that I love getting at Huckleberry, and it’s covered in a flavor combo that I can’t get enough of these days: broccolini, lemon, garlic, and parmesan. Those four things are the perfect combination of bright/salty/sour/green, the kind of amazingness that can only really be made better on a bed of doughy crust and under a blanket of melty mozzarella. And because we’re eating a bunch of broccolini we’re going to continue to ride the healthy train by making this crust part whole wheat. It’s good! The crust uses the same dough that I use for my pita, it’s super easy to make, and it only rises for a couple of hours (or, maybe only one hour in this heat), versus the overnight pizza dough that I typically urge you to make. It’s also the type of thing that’s just as tasty at room temperature, in case you want to bring this to a potluck or, yeah, enjoy in the car on the way to the Bruno Mars concert!

One thing that will send this over the top:

Let loose with on the flaky salt on the crust. Do not hold back. Zoom in on the very top left picture in my grid up above, the one of the box of pastries, do you see how much salt there is on that chocolate chip cookie? It was an *inspiration*, h/t Briandre. It redefined my comfort level with flaky salt and this pizza crust is my prize and it can be yours too if you set your mind to it. 


sheet pan pita pizza with broccolini and lemon

makes one half sheet pan pizza

ingredients

for the pita:

1 1/2 c (356g) warm water

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

1 1/2 tb sugar

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 tb olive oil

2 c (256g) bread flour

1 3/4 c (224g) whole wheat flour

 

for the pizza:

olive oil

8 oz fresh mozzarella, torn

1 lemon, cut as thin as possible with a sharp knife or mandoline, seeds removed

1/2 purple onion, cut as thin as possible with a sharp knife or mandoline

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

6 oz broccolini, chopped

kosher salt

black pepper

2 oz parmesan cheese, shredded, plus more for serving

crushed red pepper

flaky salt

clues

for the pita:

in a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, mix together the water, yeast, and sugar. Let it sit for 5 minutes, or until foamy. with the mixer running on low speed, add the salt and oil, then gradually add the flour. increase the speed to medium-high and mix until the dough is smooth and slightly sticky, 7 to 10 minutes, adding just enough additional flour so that the dough no longer sticks to the bowl. (alternatively, mix by hand and knead on a lightly floured surface.) place the dough in an oiled bowl and turn it once or twice to coat it in oil. cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until it has doubled in size, 1-2 hours.

for the pizza:

preheat the oven to 450ºf. 

brush a sheet pan with 1/4 cup olive oil and pat out the pita dough to the edge, this might seem like a lot of olive oil but it'll make it good. set this aside to rise (uncovered) for another 20 minutes or so. Now is a good time to chop your toppings.

brush the dough with another little drizzle of olive oil, top with fresh mozzarella, lemon, onion, garlic, and broccolini. add another drizzle of olive oil on top. sprinkle the toppings with a couple pinches of kosher salt, a tonnn of black pepper, and shredded parmesan. Sprinkle the edges of the crust with flaky salt and don't be shy with it.

bake for 25 minutes or so, or until the cheese is browned and splotchy and the crust is golden.

top with crushed red pepper and additional parmesan, if desired. 

enjoy!


-yeh!

humshuka

wheat harvest is underway! yee haw. eggboy has been spending his days plucking wheat from the stalk and i’ve been spending my days using it all. well not the exact wheat that he picks on that day but just wheat in general. cause baking is fun. so in other words it’s business as usual for me, but a little bit more business since eggboy’s days are longer and when he works longer i work longer because normally i just work until he comes in for supper. and he’s been coming in for supper at like 9! look at us, staying up late like teenagers. 

i have been taking some time to get out of the house by going to the gym though and watching the olympics from the treadmill. go simone! go aly! go equestrian people who wear the most elaborate fancy downton abbey-era costumes and can make their horsies trot in such mesmerizing/majestic/superhorsey ways! and if they had an olympic event for best farmer's tan, eggboy would win right now fyi. i think one year i’d like to go to the olympics and go hospitality house hopping. i’d probably go to a winter olympics though because of the ice skating. 

today i’m posting a recipe for this great awesome tasty thing that my friend inbal introduced me to in tel aviv last week, hummus with shakshuka on top. humshuka! i saw it a little while ago on green kitchen stories but only ate it for the first time in tlv and it was so mind blowing. the hummus came together with the tomato sauce to become like a creamy hearty tomato soup, and of course a runny yolk never hurts in that situation. i feel like this would be the *perfect* sunday brunch so, yay, happy weekend and here are your brunch plans!  


humshuka

makes 3-4 bowls

1 c dried chickpeas

1⁄2 tsp baking soda

1 tb lemon juice

1⁄2 c tahini

3⁄4 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste 2 cloves garlic (optional)

1⁄4 c cold water

1 batch shakshuka (recipe follows)

chopped fresh parsley, for serving

freshly baked pita, for serving

onion wedges, for serving

 

 

in a medium bowl, cover the chickpeas with enough water to reach 2 inches above the height of the chickpeas and soak them for 12 hours. 

drain and rinse the chickpeas and place them in a large saucepan with the baking soda. cover them with 1 to 2 inches water and bring the water to a boil over high heat. reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer until the chickpeas are very soft, about 2 hours. drain them and let cool slightly, then transfer to a food processor. 

add the lemon juice, tahini, salt, and the garlic (if using) and blend until very smooth, about 1 minute. with the motor running, drizzle in the water and continue to blend for 2 to 3 more minutes. taste and season with additional salt if needed. 

spoon into bowls, creating a large well in the center. top with shakshuka and fresh parsley and serve with pita and onion wedges.


shakshuka

serves 3-4

3 tb olive oil, plus more for drizzling 

1 medium yellow onion, chopped 

kosher salt

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tb ground cumin 

1 tsp harissa, or more to taste (different brands vary in spiciness) 

1⁄4 tsp smoked paprika

black pepper 

crushed red pepper

1 tb tomato paste 

1 can or carton (28 ounces) chopped tomatoes 

1 tsp sugar

3-4 eggs

in a large skillet, heat the 3 tablespoons of oil over medium heat. add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until soft and translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. add the garlic, cumin, harissa, smoked paprika, a good pinch of salt, a few turns of black pepper, and a pinch of red chili flakes and cook until fragrant, 2 minutes. stir in the tomato paste, then the chopped tomatoes and sugar and bring to a simmer.

create 3-4 little wells and crack in your eggs. either baste the eggs by spooning the hot tomato sauce over them, or just let them be in a sunny-side-up situation. when the whites are cooked but the yolks are still runny, remove from the heat. Sprinkle the eggs with a little salt and black pepper.


-yeh!