green shakshuka pizza

Well this has been a weird few weeks! It’s the middle of October and I am sitting at my kitchen table, eating a Chrismukkah cookie, looking outside at a blanket of snow, and the sun is out and Eggboy is putzing around inside the house. The middle of October typically means sweaters not parkas, tiptoeing around the mud in socks with sandals, and only ever having Eggboy sightings at random times in the middle of the night since during the days he’s harvesting sugar beets. I guess the Chrismukkah cookie things remains the same though because Emily’s cookie swap is just two months away and I’ve got a title to defend. 

Beet harvest, which is supposed to start every year on October 1st, has yet to start, due to the weather, and as of yet, the fate of the beets is totally unknown. They’re in the ground still and we don’t even know if they’ll ever make it out of the ground. Each day brings so many questions. What do the fields look like after yesterday’s weather event? What will they look like after tomorrow’s weather event? When did I start referring to storms as “weather events”? What will the beet processing plant do? Should I continue stocking our freezer with baked goods for the drivers?? This whole situation is totally unprecedented and confusing.

And another thing that this weather has screwed up?? My trip to New York this past weekend :(!! I’d been looking forward to it for FOREVER and had been building my dumpling tolerance, rehearsing my hotdish demo, and also had all of these plans in place for Bernie’s first nights away from both me and Eggboy (assuming he’d be harvesting). But then on Friday there was a perfect storm of getting sick and the blizzard. And then I was glued to my couch (cuddling with Bernie, at least!!) watching the Mighty Ducks. It was a major bummer but then seeing Bernie’s face on her first sled ride cheered me way way up. 

The weather, the snow, the harvest, the flights!

Anytime life is weird like this, I try to maintain some sense of sanity by working extra hard to eat greens. My green smoothie in the morning, spinach salads at lunch, a few extra piles of kale in my quesadillas, all feel even more important because if life is gonna be weird, I at least want to try and feel not as weird physically. Yes I still stress eat the extra Chrismukkah cookie, but I strive to balance it with an extra pile of kale so that I have the energy to deal with all of the unknowns.

And pizza night is no exception! Sure, there is the salad pizza route. But now that’s snowy, Eggboy and I have been craving more of a hot situation. Enter: green shakshuka pizza. A gigantic pile of greens on a bed of chewy pizza dough and melty mozzarella with runny eggs, all brightened up by a sprinkle of salty feta and drizzley drizz of tangy yogurt. And obviously za’atar. (If you’re the kind of person who likes ranch on their pizza, try yogurt + za’atar!!!) There are so many delicious flavors and textures up in here that strike the perfect balance of healthy-ish and doughy cheesy comfort. It’s also pretty because look @ that oozy egg!!!!!

I am using Our Family yogurt and mozzarella here, two reliable staples in my fridge that I turn to regularly on pizza night. And if you’re coming to my Our Family event in Fargo on Saturday, give me a shout!!! Can’t wait to see you :)

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Green Shakshuka Pizza

Makes one 12” pizza

Ingredients

2 tb olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped

1 tsp sweet paprika

6 oz kale, stemmed and coarsely chopped

4 oz spinach

2 tb veggie, chicken stock, or water

Kosher salt

Black pepper

Crushed red pepper

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 lb pizza dough (storebought or homemade, I love Jim Lahey’s dough)

All-purpose flour, for dusting

6 oz Our Family mozzarella, shredded

4 large eggs

4 oz crumbled feta

Our Family plain Greek yogurt, za’atar, and chopped flat-leaf parsley, for topping

clues

Preheat the oven to 425ºf with a pizza stone if you have one. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, jalapeño, and paprika and cook, stirring, for a minute, and then add the kale and spinach in a couple of batches, allowing it to wilt slightly in between so it doesn’t overflow the pot. Add a good pinch of salt and cook, stirring often, for 7 minutes. Stir in the stock or water and cook for 5 more minutes. Add a few turns of black pepper, a pinch of crushed red pepper (or more to taste), and the lemon juice. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly while you roll out the pizza dough.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured piece of parchment into a 12” round. Sprinkle with the mozzarella and then use tongs to transfer the kale mixture to the pizza (discarding any excess moisture that’s in the skillet). Create 4 wells in the kale mixture and crack in the eggs, taking care not to break the yolks. To ensure that the yolks don’t break, I like to crack the eggs into a separate little bowl first and then pour them on the pizza. That way if I break I yolk while cracking the egg, I can use that egg for something else. Sprinkle on the feta. Carefully slide onto the pizza stone (if you don’t have one, slide it on a baking sheet) and bake until the egg whites are firm but the yolks are still runny; begin checking for doneness at 10 minutes. 

Top with dollops of yogurt and sprinkles of za’atar, parsley, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper and enjoy!

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-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett quernemoen

thank you, our family, for sponsoring this post!!

Crispy Chickpea Salad Kit with Butter Fried Croutons

When they said that everything changes when you have children, I didn’t realize that this would extend to my tastebuds! In my postpartum life, I am suddenly obsessed with two opposites: sugar and salad. (But Molly, you’ve always been obsessed with sugar? I mean, I’ve always been obsessed with making things with sugar, but until 18 weeks ago I would have chosen a pile of cheese fries over ice cream any day. Now... not so much.) We can argue about the sugar thing later but today’s post is about my new heightened love of ~salad~. It started literally from the day after Bernie was born. I had my token I’m-not-pregnant-anymore Jimmy John’s Italian Nightclub on white bread and then my excellent friend Heather texted that she would like to deliver a gigantic salad to me at the hospital. She brought me a big container of greens with chopped apple and cheddar and a bunch of colorful veggies and held my one-day-old Bernie while I gobbled up every last leaf. It was the tastiest thing in the world. Not just because Heather is one of my favorite chefs in the world but also because something had changed in my tastebuds that made me love raw vegetables and forkfuls of greens like never before. So that salad was the first salad of the rest of my postpartum salad-obsessed life and what happened after that was Eggboy and I proceeded to live on salads. Friends and Eggmom delivered tons of salads and I got mediumly good at balancing a salad bowl on the arm of the recliner while I nursed Bernie. And then after we ate all of the salad deliveries, we cobbled together as many salads as we could. I’d put Bernie in her sling and try to assemble a salad without having to chop anything because I didn’t want to use a knife while she was on me, or I’d try to direct Eggboy in making a salad but salad making requires serious multitasking skills and, erm, they don’t not call him Multitaskingboy for nothing (sorry!!!), so what we found was that salad kits are a great invention!!! Wow, they are so good at getting crunchy greens into my mouth. They make salads achievable in 30 seconds. They come with cute bags of crunchy things and tiny bags of seasoning that look like dime bags! The dressings are fatty and ok tasting! My first few journeys out of the house with Bernie were to the Hugo’s salad section, where I’d get a dozen salad kits at a time. We’d gobble them up multiple times a day. I know what you’re thinking though, and I absolutely agree: salad kits are flawed. There aren’t enough crunchies, the nuts are too brittle, the dressing is probably loaded with crazy ingredients I’ve never heard of, and where is the protein! I never said they were perfect, but they got me dreaming...

In the produce section of my grocery store dreams, salad kits are way more luxurious. They come with fluffy butter-fried pita croutons, crispy salty chickpeas, a small bag of za’atar, feta (!), and creamy tahini dressing. And you know what they say about dreams, make them come true! So now that Bernie has gotten pretty good at sitting in her bouncy chair, playing with her toys, listening to Raffi, and keeping me company in the kitchen, my hands have been free enough to do some salad prep at the beginning of the week, eliminating my need to clear out the salad kit section. It’s so fun. We sing Down By The Bay and squeeze lemons into tahini and whenever something smells particularly good I stick it under Bernie’s nose so she can take a whiff. So far the only thing that’s yielded a huge smile is the freshly baked pita that I was about to turn into croutons. Same, Bern, same.

So here’s a little non-recipe to get your juices flowing so that you can create your own salad kits with whatever’s looking good in your garden, your favorite cheeses and dressings, and whatever forgotten chunk of bread you have lying around that’s waiting to be crouton’d. I usually just pile all of the prepped veggies in a container or bag and then make separate containers of cheese, dressing, croutons, and a protein so that everything is ready to dump and go, easy peasy. Make a few at a time! Make one to deliver to a friend! Go wild!

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Crispy Chickpea Salad Kit with Butter Fried Croutons

Veggies: In a big container, pile in fresh spinach or other greens, halved grape tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, chopped red onion, thinly sliced radishes, and chopped fresh mint. Store in the fridge for up to three days.

Chickpeas: Drain, rinse, and dry a can of chickpeas and dump them onto a rimmed baking sheet. Toss with a good drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast at 350ºf for 50 minutes, tossing occasionally. Let cool and transfer to a container. Store at room temp for up to four days.

Feta: Put a big handful in a cute container 🤷🏻‍♀️Store in the fridge.

Za’atar: Put a teaspoon or so in a tiny bag. Seal with a cute piece of washi tape.

Tahini dressing: Mix 1/4 c tahini with a squeeze of lemon juice and 3-4 tb water until creamy and pourable. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a cute jar and store in the fridge for up to four or five days. If it gets too thick to pour while it’s in the fridge, mix in a little more water before serving.

Butter fried croutons: Heat a good layer of butter in a pan over medium and tear up two thick fluffy pitas into the pan. Fry until golden and crispy on the outside but still a little chewy on the inside (I like em best this way!) transfer to a plate, sprinkle with salt, and let cool. Store in a container at room temperature for four or five days.

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-yeh!

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Freezer Burritos

Back when I was brainstorming freezer meals for maternity leave, I wanted to figure out a burrito that would pack loads of veggies, protein, and nutrients, and still be something that I craved when I was exhausted and starving. I achieved that here, and I’d like to thank a giant pile of queso fresco for the assist. Queso fresco is so darn good, fresh, and salty. I purposely only called for 8 ounces in this recipe when the standard block at my grocery store is 10 ounces, so that I could have 2 ounces leftover to nosh on. This filling is sooo flavorful, it has the perfect balance of smoky, salty, sweet, spicy, fresh, and bright… you could eat it with a spoon. And of course it’s only made better when swaddled up in a soft nutty whole wheat tortilla. Homemade tortillas will make these truly bonkers, but of course store-bought will work too. 

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Sweet Potato and Black Bean Freezer Burritos

makes 8

Ingredients

1 lb sweet potatoes, chopped into 1/2” cubes

3 tb olive oil, divided

Kosher salt

1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tb tomato paste

1 tb chili powder

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1 (14 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 (14.5 oz) can chopped tomatoes

2 c (3 oz) fresh spinach

8 oz queso fresco, crumbled

A handful of chopped fresh cilantro

Black pepper

Hot sauce, to taste

Juice of 1/2 lime

8 10” whole wheat burritos (store-bought or homemade, using a double batch of this recipe and subbing half the flour for whole wheat flour)

Clues

Preheat the oven to 425ºf. Toss the sweet potatoes in 1 tablespoon olive oil and spread out on a sheet pan. Season with a couple of good pinches of salt and roast for 20 minutes, tossing halfway through. You’ll want them to still have a bit of a bite because when you reheat the burritos, the potatoes will continue to cook. (If you want to eat these now and not freeze them, add another 10 minutes to the baking time, until the potatoes are tender.)

In a large skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium high heat. Add the onion, jalapeño, and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until soft, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic, tomato paste, chili powder, and oregano and cook for another minute. Add the black beans, tomatoes, and spinach and simmer for about 7-10 minutes, stirring, until the spinach has wilted and most of the liquid has cooked off. Add the sweet potato, queso fresco, cilantro, a few turns of black pepper, hot sauce, and lime juice. Taste and adjust as desired. Remove from heat.

Fill the burritos with about 3/4 cup filling per tortilla. Wrap with plastic wrap, label, and freeze for up to 3 months. To reheat, remove plastic wrap and wrap in a paper towel or parchment. Microwave for 2 1/2-3 minutes, flipping once, until heated through. Let cool slightly and enjoy!

If you want to bring these to the next level, heat a skillet with a thin layer of oil and grill the burritos on each side until browned and crisp.

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-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett quernemoen

spring veggie white matzo lasagna

I am so curious to see what our opinions are re: matzo after Passover is over this year because since last year’s Passover, we have basically kept the itsy bitsy Kosher section of our grocery store in business with our aggressive year-round matzo eating habit. I ate an insane amount of it while I was pregnant, with peanut butter and jelly, with Kewpie mayo and sliced cheese, and in extra shallot-y matzo brei covered in ketchup. Matzo was my go-to 3am snack, in bed. I am pretty sure Bernie is 1/3 made of matzo. Eating matzo is different when you have the option to eat bread though, right? Which is why we never got sick of it. This week without the option though, I’m afraid we’ll get sick of it and I’ll have to find another easy 3am snack. What a dramatic life we lead! 

When it came to baby meal prep, I was told over and over to make lasagna! So a matzo lasagna, one big enough to provide enough leftovers for a few good days, was an obvious choice for Passover. And I wanted to make sure it was veggie packed, so I converted my spring vegetable quinoa hotdish in Molly on the Range to a freezer-friendly layered situation. The matzo pieces get nice and soft with the white sauce, and the flavors of leeks, chives, ricotta, and peas whisper spring! Even though it’s totally loaded up with cheese and milk, the ricotta and bright flavors add a nice sense of airiness. And there’s layers upon layers of spinach in this. So go ahead, have seconds!

Thanks to Our Family for partnering on this post and providing all of the cheese for this delicious Passover supper!

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Spring Veggie White Matzo Lasagna

Makes one 9” x 13” casserole

Ingredients

Sauce

1/4 c (57g) unsalted butter

2 large leeks, chopped

4 scallions or ramps, chopped, white and green parts separated

Kosher salt

4 cloves garlic, minced

6 tb matzo meal

3 c (720g) whole or 2% milk

1 c (236g) vegetable stock

1/4 c (75g) chopped chives

1/2 c (55g) fresh or frozen peas

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp onion powder

Black pepper

Hot sauce, to taste

Filling

1 large egg

1 (15oz) container our family part skim ricotta

3/4 c (3oz) our family shredded parmesan cheese

2 c (8oz) our family shredded mozzarella

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 c (5-6oz) fresh spinach

9 sheets matzo (I use lightly salted matzo)

Directions

If planning to bake immediately, preheat the oven to 350ºf. If prepping ahead, see directions below.

To make the sauce, in a large pot, melt the butter over medium high heat. Add the leeks, the white parts of the scallions or ramps, and a pinch of salt and cook until softened, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, and then stir in the matzo meal and cook for another minute. Add the milk, one cup at a time, stirring until thickened after each. Add the vegetable stock and continue to stir until thickened. Stir in the green parts of the scallions or ramps, the chives (reserving a small handful for the topping), peas, nutmeg, onion powder, a few turns of black pepper, hot sauce, and salt to taste. Remove from heat.

To make the filling, in a medium bowl, mix together the egg, ricotta, 1/2 cup of the parmesan, 1 1/2 cups of the mozzarella, and the salt.

To assemble, spread 1/2 cup of the sauce in the bottom of a 9” x 13” casserole pan (see specifics below on type of pan you should use if you’re planning to freeze). Layer in the following: 2 sheets of matzo, a third of the cheese filling dolloped all over, 1 cup of spinach, a layer of sauce, 2 sheets of matzo, another third of the cheese filling, 1 cup of spinach, a layer of sauce, 2 sheets of matzo, the remaining cheese filling, 1 cup of spinach, remaining sauce, and then sprinkle the top with the remaining 3 sheets of matzo broken into pieces, and the reserved parmesan, mozzarella, chives, and a few turns of pepper.

Bake, covered with foil, for 45 minutes, and then for an additional 15 minutes uncovered, or until golden brown on top. Enjoy!

To freeze: I’d recommend using a foil pan that you can place directly in the oven from the freezer. Otherwise, you can use glass or enameled cast iron pan, but it would be best to defrost it in the fridge overnight before baking to avoid cracking the pan. Once the lasagna is assembled, let it cool slightly and wrap in plastic wrap or foil. Freeze for up to 3 months. To reheat, bake at 350ºf covered in foil for 1 hour 30 minutes, and then uncovered for an additional 15-30 minutes, or until golden brown on top and heated through. Enjoy!

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-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett quernemoen

this recipe was created in partnership with our family!