summer

bloody mary popsicles

in ,

what a silly week it's been. 

every other hour, eggboy comes in dripping with sweat from building the chicken coop, saying it's gonna rain! it's gonna rain! and sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it *really* does and even sets off the tornado alarms. i love a good rain storm but without any buildings around to break the wind or supply camaraderie/beer in the chance that the storms get really awful, it can be quite scary. luckily we have a basement with a comfy couch and i have my stack of cookbooks to keep me company. during the last tornado warning i read the bread exchange's book. do you know about that project? it is very cool.

we got one inch of rain last night in the time it took me to make pesto cucumber noodles and when the sun came out, our internet was nowhere to be seen! he must have gotten sick of me price hunting for the same nike shoes over and over and just left.

so i spent a good amount of time without the internet, getting things done like cleaning and writing and reading the directions on my new silicone mini loaf pan. oh and watching dvds! i'm back to working my way through harry potter and this morning i watched legally blonde while i was on the treadmill. i'm pretty sure i know every line by heart, is this low-viscosity rayon with a half-loop top stitching on the hem?

*classic*

another silly thing about this week, speaking of fabulous fashion-forward colorful divas, is that it's billy's popsicle week!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 

yay! 

this year i have gone the ~savory~ route with a frozen bloody mary that is practically healthy, extra spicy, and gives you just the right amount of buzz to take the edge off of a tornado warning but not so much that you're too wasted to do anything productive when the rain stops. (if you're looking for the latter, don't try adding more vodka or else they won't freeze. just, like, have a few more or chase it with a shot or something.)

bloody mary popsicles

makes 7 3-oz pops

ingredients

2 c tomato juice
1/2 c vodka
2 cloves garlic, smashed
3/4 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp harissa powder
3/4 tsp worcestershire sauce
a squeeze of lime juice
a few turns of black pepper

clues

Whisk all ingredients together, pour into popsicle molds or 3-oz Dixie cups, freeze for 20 minutes. Insert popsicle sticks and freeze for two more hours. Serve with celery stalks (and/or an extra vodka shot) and enjoy! 

happy popsicle week, friends! be sure to check out all of the other popsicle week popsicles!

-yeh!

gouda mac and cheese with peaches and prosciutto

in ,

to the person who made national macaroni and cheese day deep in the heart of summer: 

hi, what are you on?

national bbq day, which was yesterday, i get.

national gummy worm day, which is tomorrow, i guess i kind of get in some odd garden-related way. 

but a food that usually requires standing over a hot pot of roux while your oven is pre-heating, and which will undoubtedly make a bathing suit the absolute last thing you want to put on?

i mean, ok, i won't fire you or anything because macaroni and cheese is my desert-island food, but i'm going to make some changes here in the name of *summer* (which around here has meant being stickier than an inside out sour patch kid and a couple of tornado warnings, but that doesn't really have anything to do with anything). please meet gouda yogurt mac and cheese with caramelized onions, peaches, and prosciutto. here are some things i would like you to know about him: 

1. this is a stovetop-only situation. when the fall comes, i will be the first to tell you to turn on your oven, make it rain panko, and get a thick brown crust going on your mac. and then when the winter comes, i will be the first to tell you to get a deep fryer going too because fried mac and cheese is better than life itself. but for right now, in this heat, we don't need any of that, just a skillet and a pot. 

2. roux who? ok, until recently i had only ever made mac and cheese with a roux! (you know, butter, flour, add some milk and make a béchamel, add your cheese and there you have your sauce, it takes kind of a while, it's super thick and creamy, it's so rich and good on a cold winter's day.) but then i was inspiiiiiired by diane kochilas' yogurt pasta, which makes an addictive creamy pasta sauce from yogurt and a bit of cheese, that's it. it's shockingly good and the tang of the yogurt is so summery and refreshing, i just can't get enough of it. so that's the sauce i've used here, but with shredded aged gouda. 

3. it is good both hot and cold. how many meals have i spent tiptoeing across the kitchen with a stray fork, sneaking bites of cold leftover mac and cheese out of the fridge? many. i know good cold mac and cheese and i know great cold mac and cheese, and this is a great one. probably because yogurt in its natural state is cold. 

4. i'm adding peaches. peaches and prosciutto and cheese are like hilary duff and dan humphrey and vanessa from gossip girl before things got weird. 

so, there you have it. a truly summery mac and cheese that's sweet, salty, tangy, creamy, and super easy to make. it won't put you in an immediate food coma, but you should still wait 30 minutes before jumping in the pool.

the recipe for this mac and cheese is right this way, on an entire site devoted to macaroni and cheese, nestled next to things like mac and cheese egg rolls and a mac and cheese burger. so in other words, if fall rolls around and you can't find me, i'll probably be lurking on this site. 

-yeh!

gouda mac and cheese with peaches and prosciutto

makes 4 - 6 servings

ingredients

4 oz prosciutto, chopped

2 tb unsalted butter

1 white onion, thinly sliced

salt and pepper, to taste

2 yellow peaches, chopped

1/2 pound orecchiette pasta

6 oz Gouda, shredded, plus extra for topping

1 c plain Greek yogurt

clues

In a large skillet over medium high heat, cook the prosciutto until crispy, 3-5 minutes. The prosciutto should be fatty enough that you don’t have to grease the skillet, but if the skillet gets to be too dry, you can add a bit of oil or butter. Remove the prosciutto and set it aside. Reduce the heat under the skillet to medium and melt the butter. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and a few turns of pepper and let it cook until very soft, for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the peaches and half of the prosciutto and cook for about 5 more minutes. 

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta according to the manufacturer’s directions. Strain it. 

In a large bowl, mix together the shredded cheese, yogurt, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Fold in the hot pasta and the onion/peach/prosciutto mixture. Top with additional cheese and remaining prosciutto. The sauce will thicken once the pasta cools slightly.

thank you, wisconsin cheese, for sponsoring this post!!!!

buttermilk chocolate cake with peach filling and a marzipan cow

in ,

this week:

-the chicks are getting to be huge! if they were little apples last week, they are full on grapefruits now! 

-i've been chipping away at orange is the new black. but now that i've started swapping out some of my treadmillings for yoga videos, i haven't been watching as much netflix, so oitnb is going by very slowly. 

-i developed a new system to stay hydrated: instead of having to get up to go to the sink every time i need a water refill (which ends up having to be annoyingly often because somehow all of our water glasses are ever so dainty), i just have a cute pitcher near me at all times. i've been alternating between this one and this one. i have to pee a lot more now but i feel so great!

-the tour de france is starting!!!! i am excited. but eggboy is about thirty times as excited. every year, he buys the live streaming membership and we watch it when he comes in for lunch. go nibali! go contador! go froome!!!

-my freezer has started its journey to fill up to the brim with cake for my friend emily's wedding next week (!!!!). she is having 300 people!!!! so it is basically my dream come true because all this week and next week i get to make caaaaaaake.

-and also: i bought a cow cookie cutter for emily's cake because she is marrying evan the cow farmer. so the other day when my friend lena was in for a visit, we took him for a test run (the cookie cutter, not evan) on this here patriotic cake for the fourth! 

the recipe is right this way, on the vanity fair site! 

happy almost fourth of july!!!!

-yeh!

new orleans

in ,

i am back from the most pleasant weekend in new orleans, and with me i have brought: a newfound love of pralines ("prah-lines"), a southern accent for my inner dialogue (kind of like a fierce millennial britney spears, but i blame the fierce millennialness on all of my time spent with graham), and two very old used jewish cookbooks, one of which is littered with shrimp recipes.

new orleans just oozes with magic. i felt like i was owen wilson in midnight in paris, like i had just stepped into another time and place and there were so many new things to observe as an outsider, yet i was still made to feel so welcome. there were some very great quirks, like being called "baby" by everyone in the most non-creepy way, and turning down the colorful little streets to find six-person marching bands who could have marched right out of a dream. what a place! i've got to go back. just maybe at another time of year when it's not so darn sticky :)

here are some places i went and loved:

kitchen witch // a used cookbook store in the french quarter that makes you feel like you're in your grandma's living room, raiding her church cookbook collection. it's amazing. it's also owned by the sweetest lady ever. 

shaya // an incredible israeli restaurant where graham, beau, matt, and i stuffed ourselves silly. their labne = best i ever had. their hummus with curried fried cauliflower = good enough to make me feel like i could handle being a vegetarian. what!

meaux bar // lol, we might have all gone out for desserts here before shaya because that's how we do. they were v good.

pizza delicious // great ny-style pizza, amaaaazing garlic knots that graham and i could not stop eating, and a fun local vibe that was kind of like one part bushwick, one part park slope. i was down with it.

piety street sno-balls // sno-balls are like snow cones but the ice is much smoother... it really is more like snow. the one i had was nectar and wedding cake flavored and it could not have come at a better time, holy balls it is so hot in new orleans. 

sylvain // i went here twice! once for a fancy lady vichyssoise (there was caviar in it!) with a mind-blowing smokey buttermilk avocado kale salad, and once for all of the meaty fried brunch things with beau and matt and graham. everyone who works there is very wonderful and stylish, i want to be bffs with all of them. 

the old coffeepot // super cute, super old, diner-y, and with fun options like sweet rice donuts that were a new and interesting thing for me. not like rice flour, but actual kernels of rice... like a sweet cinnamon arancini. i dug it. this place also furthered my new appreciation for grits.

district donuts // ok so like i kind of feel bad for not totally taking advantage of all of the seafood in new orleans, but i had no choice, this place serves a mother fucking donut croque monsieur and a mother fucking donut caprese sandwich. wtf! slay me. and their regular sweet donuts are fantastic because they're actually not *too* sweet. so many hearts. 

cafe du monde // i honestly went here out of fear that someone would bite my head off if i told them that i went to new orleans but did not go to cafe du monde. waiting in line was a little bit reminiscent of standing in line at disneyland, because it was hot and crowded and smelled like fried dough, but in the internet age, it's fine, you just tweet. the beignets were great! glad i did it.

last but not least: thank you sooo much to the sustainable seafood blog project for having me down! graham and i made our food photography class debut and it was so much fun. we celebrated by shucking oysters and sipping satsuma rum with all of our cool new seafood blogger friends!! miss you all already!! <3

-yeh!