recipe

peanut butter and grape galette

in

haiiiiiii!!! did you all have a nice fourth of july???

i did. i cleaned, and did yoga, and substituted coconut oil for canola oil in challah (which turned out to be surprisingly super gross, but i'm doing yoga now so i'm *letting it go*). and then when it finally started to get dark out, which is so obnoxiously past my bedtime up here in winterfell, we went over to emily's house and mingled in the presence fireworks and live smooth rock from the town square down the road. it was great! side note: emily is getting married in five days and she's still hosting parties and taking down potato chips with generic brand french onion dip like a champ. so much admiration. 

in other news: mum is coming for a visit this week! yayayayay! she's going to help me with emily's wedding cakes and we'll probably eat at the blue moose and maybe even take a day trip to bemidji. i'm so excited. every time she visits though i have to get all of the peanut butter out of sight because she's allergic. i make eggboy convert to almond butter for the two days preceding her arrival, (sweat out any remaining peanut residue that might be left in his pores... jk, but srsly), and then bury all the jars in the back of some cabinet or try and use it all up in some baked goods to give away.

so i made a galette over the weekend when my coconut oil challah failed me!

it's a fancy pb + j sandwich. it's the easiest thing in the world. and it's the best warm out of the oven with a big dollop of yogurt or whipped cream. 

so if you have a bunch of grapes that are about to go bad, a peanut-allergic mum who is about to come to town, and/or a hankering to bake something simple yet satisfying, then this is a recipe for you. get to it!

peanut butter and grape galette

makes one galette

ingredients

1/2 c creamy peanut butter*

2 tb honey

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 lb pie crust

12 oz california grapes, halved

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

1 tsp sugar

a pinch of flaky salt

*i use all-natural pb that's unsweetened and lightly salted. if you're using unsalted, i'd recommend adding a pinch of salt to the peanut butter mixture.

powdered sugar and yogurt or whipped cream, for serving

clues

preheat your oven to 400f. 

mix together the peanut butter, honey, and vanilla extract. roll out your pie dough on a piece of parchment or silpat and then spread on the peanut butter mixture, leaving about a 1-inch border around the edge of the crust. lay down the grapes in an even layer, leaving about a 1-inch border around the edge of the peanut butter (so you have three concentric circles), and then fold up the edges of the crust around the grapes.

brush the crust with the egg yolk and then sprinkle the entire galette with the sugar and a pinch of salt.

bake until the crust is golden brown. begin checking for doneness at 25 minutes. finish with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and serve with yogurt or whipped cream. 

-enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you so much to grapes from california for sponsoring this post!

sriracha egg salad

in

here are two equal and opposite reactions: making your own mayonnaise and then eating your own mayonnaise. that is, if you make it by hand, which is actually really satisfying and the best* thing that you can possibly do in the kitchen now that it's short sleeve season. 

*in addition to a whole bunch of other things, like kneading bread dough by hand...

it's also really fascinating to see with your own two eyeballs how mayonnaise really is just eggs and oil, and i think that makes egg salad extra funny. eggs coated in eggs. lol. you'd think eggboy would move mountains for the stuff, but he despises it. i told him how weird that is and his response was i'm not mayo boy, which is probably fair since i love olive oil but can't really do olives. 

and all that means is more egg salad for me. yay!!!!!!!

i love egg salad because: 

1. i'm 90,

2. it's so soft,

but it has to be severely mayo-y and salted ferociously, which you can do easily when you make it from scratch. and another thing that you can do easily when you make it from scratch is use olive oil in your mayonnaise, for a healthier option, and then eat all of it in the comfort of your own home without worrying that you're offending someone with the smell of hard boiled eggs.

i'm about to tell you how to whisk mayo by hand for this egg salad.

i know, i know, making mayo in a blender takes but one second. i know.

you can also buy mayo at the store. i know. 

but we're going to make it by hand because it's fun, it's good for you, and you might find yourself in a blender-less, mayo-less world one of these days and you need to know how to fend for yourself. the rest of this recipe is an easy peasy straightforward egg salad scenario that gathers sweetness and crunch from chopped onion and a bite from dijon and sriracha. (there's no celery here, i didn't want it here.) it's equally at home on crunchy toast as it is sandwiched between fluffy white bread, and if you want to just eat is straight with a spoon, you can do that too.

sriracha egg salad

makes 4-6 servings

ingredients

1 large egg yolk

1 tb dijon mustard

1 tsp sriracha

1/2 tsp sugar

kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

1/2 c extra virgin olive oil

1 tb lemon juice

8 large hard boiled eggs

1/2 small white onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

 

 

clues

in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, mustard, sriracha, sugar, a good pinch of salt, and a couple turns of black pepper. continue to whisk, vigorously, and do not stop until i say. using your other hand, drizzle in the oil as slowly as possible. the oil stream should be the thickness of a strand of hair. once the mixture has thickened and become pale, you can increase the speed of the pour slightly. (how is your arm? do you need to switch hands? you can do that quickly.) once all of the oil has been added, whisk in the lemon juice. stop whisking. taste and adjust salt, pepper, and sriracha as desired. 

transfer the mayo to a small container. there's no need to dirty up another large bowl, you can just go forth and make your egg salad in the bowl where you just made your mayo. 

to do this, place your eggs in the bowl and use a pastry cutter to give them a rough chop. alternatively, you can chop the eggs with a knife before putting them in your bowl. fold in the onion and garlic and add a good pinch of salt. like i said, i like a severely mayo-y egg salad, so if it were up to me i'd stir in all of the mayo that we just made and be done. but i don't want to offend you, so start by folding in half of the mayo, and then add more as desired. reserve any unused mayo for anything you want. eat all of your egg salad at once! or within 3-4 days. 

enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you so much to the american egg board for sponsoring this post! check out their good egg project site to get to know the family-owned farms that are part of the board and read about their efforts to create sustainable, healthy, and comfortable environments for their chickens.

roasted grapes with sweet labneh

in

one of these days i am going to be one of those people who, before leaving for a long trip, cleans out the fridge, washes the dishes, does laundry, and stocks the freezer with 12 individually portioned lasagnas for eggboy and one for me for the night that i return. 

today is not that day.

look at this pile of laundry.

what's all of this stuff on my desk.

somebody send pizza.

ah!!

i am back from new york and l.a. i think this was the longest amount of time that i've spent in a city since i became a country bumpkin and toward the end of my trip i *almost* had a very real jazz freakout because wowwwww there are so many people in such a small space, but i was caught by a bed of tacos and brioche. 

in a few days i'll get to the part where i tell you all about eggboy's first meeting with an eggslut (hold your jokes!), but first i must recover from what all just happened. you know, eat vegetables, wash underpants. 

one great mess that i returned home to, however, was the giant stack of cookbooks that i received right before i left. among them was tara's book. holy cow is it beautiful! the words are beautiful, the recipes are beautiful, and where the beauty hits me hardest is the photos. they're perfect. they're not flashy or crowded, and they accomplish this wild task of showing how food should look in a very confident way. a way that i can't stop admiring.

there are so many recipes in here that i can't wait to make, like the plum macaroon cake, fig toasts with buttered honey, five-spice steak, roasted peaches with glazed sesame oats... i could go on and on. the first recipe i made was the roasted grapes with sweet labneh, because it's grape season (yay!) and you know i have a serious thing for labneh.

roasted grapes with sweet labneh

serves 4-6

adapted from tara o'brady's seven spoons

ingredients

labneh:

zest from 1/2 orange

1/3 c demerara sugar, plus more for sprinkling

2 1/2 c labneh*

*if you make your own, layer the labneh with sugar during its initial straining process

grapes:

1 tb honey

2 tb grappa

1 lb seedless california table grapes

shortbread, to serve

clues

preheat oven to 375f.

to make the labneh, rub the orange zest into the demerara sugar and fold it into the labneh. spread the labneh in ripples on an ovenproof plate. sprinkle with more demerara. 

to make the grapes, mix the honey with the grappa in a large bowl. snip the grapes into clusters and toss them in the mixture. transfer them to a roasting pan with a shallow rim. 

bake the grapes and labneh until the grapes start to shrivel and the labneh is set and golden. begin checking for doneness at 12 minutes. you can either place the grapes and their juices on top of the labneh and then top with crushed shortbread, or you can layer everything into individual ramekins or glasses for a little parfait situation. (for the parfaits in these photos, i used unbaked labneh so that it would be easier to get a smooth layer, but both options taste great.)

enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you so much to grapes from california for sponsoring this post!

rhubarb simple syrup + a giveaway

in ,

i did a terrible thing last year: when eggboy pointed out that our house came with a very large, very low-maintenance, very beautiful rhubarb patch, i went out, did my thing, enjoyed a lot of blintzes about it, and then despite how many times i told myself that i was going to continue to have my way with all of that rhubarb, i did not. i used next to none of it. i neglected it and it died.

i have lived with this guilt for one year.

so the other day when i was working with all of the eggs to put in our little garden and saw across the yard that our rhubarb had sprang up, i ran as fast as i could safely run while carrying scissors to collect a very large armful of it. (it was more of a trot.) eggsister and i immediately dipped a stalk in sugar and ate it as if it were nature's fun dip, and then i chopped some up for rhubarb water to make this simple syrup. later, eggboy blew my mind by informing me that rhubarb is a vegetable and not a fruit. am i the last person to learn that??

i've been making cakes with it and giving away bouquets to everyone that crosses our path. celeste even took some on her road trip back to portland. (that's her in the photo hiding behind the big fat leaves, don't eat the leaves!) and once i'm all rhubarbed out, i am going to chop it all up and freeze it for the year. i'm feeling good about our little rhubarb patch. real good. 

i like this syrup because it allows you to experience rhubarb in all of its celery-ish sour glory without much other schmutz there to salt its game. sometimes i worry that rhubarb gets bitter about always having to share the spotlight with strawberries, you know. i like adding this to soda water and cocktails... what else do people use simple syrup for? snow cones? snow cones!!!

rhubarb simple syrup

makes about 4 cups, which is a lot of simple syrup, i know. there's no shame in halving this.

ingredients

2 pounds rhubarb, chopped

water

3 c sugar

a squeeze of lemon juice

clues

place the rhubarb in a large pot and cover it with water. bring to a boil, and then simmer it for an hour. (if you have the time, i like letting it cool overnight to really make sure that the rhubarb flavor is extra strong, but if not that's ok.)

strain the water into a bowl or large measuring cup and discard the rhubarb. measure out three cups of the water and pour it back into your pot. if you're left with more rhubarb water, you can discard it, or you can add it to the pot, just make sure that you have equal parts sugar and water.

whisk the sugar with the water and bring to a boil, stirring, until sugar has dissolved. stir in the lemon juice and let it cool.

serve with soda water, cocktails, snow cones, or whatever else you'd like!

enjoy!

ooh and do you see those fun coasters in the photos? they are from small gunns, a really awesome san francisco-based company! this week i'm giving away one small gunns linen set: a table runner, six coasters, and six napkins. to enter this giveaway, leave a comment with 1) your favorite use for rhubarb, and 2) your favorite color of these linens. i'll choose a winner next week! open to u.s. residents. update: this giveaway is now closed.

-yeh!

thank you so much to small gunns for sponsoring this post! for 30% off of your next order, use the code: sprinkles. for more ways to connect with them, check these out: instagram/facebook/twitter/newsletter.