RYE PANZANELLA SALAD

all of the people these days are done with winter and ready for spring. they want pastels and ham and no more snow. they want to run outside (?)

and while i do love a good spring onion and my springtime birthday, i am cozied up here making cookies just begging winter to stay for a few more months because this whole farming off season thing, with eggboy free for impromptu road trips, and the pretty snow everywhere, and all the reason in the world to spend days and days baking is absolutely the best ever.

and it's like, well, if you wanted me to invite you over to eat cookie dough for breakfast in our jammies and then spend the day making a layer cake, why didn't you just say so? then you will know what this winter has been to me. then you will know. 

especially in your butt. (bc actually your girl could use some running outside, if you know what i'm saying.)

the recipe i have for you today is a winter panzanella salad, and just looking at its worried face, i think it knows its brussels sprouts will soon be replaced by tomatoes, its crispy shallots by ramps.

...oh did someone say tomatoes and ramps? well, i guess the changing of the seasons isn't that bad. but for the record, i do plan on wearing my ugg boots and fleece lined pants until someone delivers me a ramp to my doorstep.

my winter eye panzanella salad with brussels sprouts, salami, and dijon vinaigrette (as its birth certificate actually says) is up on betty crocker's site. it should be known that after i took these photos, i sat on my couch with that massive red bowl and a fork, watching made-for-tv christmas movies in total pastrami winter heaven.

-yeh!

chickpea pizza with harissa and spinach

i have this fantasy that one day i will hear a knock on the door and it will be the postman with a package marked overnight and therein will lie a frozen roberta's pizza. or a frozen lou malnati's pizza. or a frozen any pizza from new york or chicago. 

another fantasy i have is to one day build a pizza oven on the farmstead and become a pizzaiolo (pizzaiola?) using wheat that eggboy grows and cheese from our future cow(s) and/or goats.

another fantasy i have is that kesté will open a location in a dakota.

another fantasy is right out of back to the future two where what's her name puts a pizza in a pink device and cooks it at "hydrate level four please" in approximately three seconds.

uggghhh, i fantasize about pizza so much. i miss me a good slice.

this week on molly on the range, i'm sharing a recipe that has kept me afloat during those pizza nights when all of my new york friends are instagraming their grimaldi's and their tottono's and i am all kinds of jealous. it's a chickpea crust (gluten free!) topped with my new favorite condiment, harissa. it's not an imitation of my favorite new york or chicago pizzas by any means, but it's absolutely delicious in its own quick, easy, and healthy way. go check it out!

-yeh! 

lemongrass chicken rice bowls

until last week, one of my greatest stresses about living in the middle of nowhere centered on a root vegetable: the daikon. the happy cute radish that is an essential part of a bánh mì is something i sort of just concluded was a unicorn to my tiny town. i have made many grumpy faces about this, being all jealous of new yorkers and their jewelry store bánh mì and chicagoans and their ba le shops everrrrywhere. i have considered different options for how to live without it. (should i make a bánh mì but leave it out? should i sub a sugar beet? should i hop on an airplane right now?)

and then a few days ago at the local brightly lit grocery store called hugo, there he was, next to the celery root, staring me right in the eye and waiting for me to take him home. i got all bright-eyed and butterfly tummied and then i picked him up as carefully as if i were handling a dragon egg, gingerly placed him in the cart, and then took him home and gobbled him up.

this is how i ate him: quick pickled, covered in sriracha mayo, with lemongrass chicken inspired by the bánh mì that i had in new york in chicago, but over rice, and with a spoon, while i watched the cristina pato tiny desk concert. side note: the transition back into a life without olympics constantly streaming in the background is sad and weird, but i am coping with plenty of tiny desk concerts.

lemongrass chicken rice bowls

makes two servings

ingredients

for the chicken:

2 stalks lemongrass, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

2 tb soy sauce or tamari

1 tb sesame oil

2 chicken breasts

for the daikon/carrot slaw:

(adapted from the kitchn)

1 c julienned daikon

1 c julienned carrots

a big pinch of salt

1/4 c sugar

1/2 c white vinegar

1 c water

for assembly:

2 c cooked brown rice (i used basmati, but really any kind will do)

1 jalapeño, seeded and sliced

some thin slices of cucumber

sriracha mayo (1/4 c mayo + 1 tsp sriracha, or more if desired)

hoisin sauce, to taste

a few sprigs of fresh cilantro

-yeh!!

clues

mix together the lemongrass, garlic, soy sauce, and sesame oil. rub it all over the chicken and let the chicken marinate in the fridge for half an hour. immediately make the slaw.

for the slaw, combine all ingredients in a large bowl, cover, and then refrigerate until ready to use. (you want it to sit for at least half an hour.)

once the chicken is done marinating, slice it thinly and then cook in a little olive oil over medium heat. 

to assemble your bowls, drain the slaw, and then on a bed of rice, layer the chicken, slaw, and remaining fixins as desired.

enjoy!

home

we made the five hour journey to ikea this weekend. i think i love that place more than pie. it is so worth the trek. i mean i really miss being a bike ride away from an ikea, but at least now we get to make a fun weekend trip out of it complete with drive-through egg mcmuffins and a san fermin/son lux concert, you know? 

eggboy and i officially have about half a dozen wildly successful ikea voyages under our belt, so i think this means that we can safely cross off any comparison to liz and criss in this regard and i am just too smitten with this realization. somehow we were plopped on the same ikea wavelength and each time we go to that store it gets better and better. we get in early, we get out before we're too crabby, and in between a few wonderful things always happen:

1. we share meatballs and he always lets me have the last one. 

2. if there is an extra cute dessert (especially one covered in marzipan of a pretty color), i obviously get it and bounce up and down excitedly and basically improvise a short broadway show about it at our table and he never gets embarrassed. (and yesterday it was a mini princess cake and omg it was the cutest thing ever ever everrrrrrrr!@!!!! jazz hands!!!!!!!)

3. we usually agree on aesthetics and if we don't, we stay calm and logical. if necessary, we spend an appropriate amount of time with, for example, hektar, getting to know him, envisioning how he would get along with our kitchen, meeting his family. we're not afraid to decide at the last minute to buy a twin set of mini hektars instead of the papa hektar that we had originally planned on.

3a. we keep receipts incase mini hektars need to go back. 

4. by the time we get to the kitchen accessories and i have to do that thing that i do every single time which is debate whether or not i need a pony shaped cake pan, he usually has an idea for a song lyric and will happily hang out with the mountains of tupperware, finding words that rhyme, while i decide for the "final" time that no, i do not need a pony shaped cake pan. 

5. egg is real good at calling me out on wanting to impulse buy things that i'll never use, so on the rare occasion that he does support a random thing i found and suddenly had to have, i know it's for real. 

6. and on the even rarer occasion that we both stop dead in our tracks in front of a really cool thing that is about to be sold out, we grab one. even if we have no idea where we will put it. (because planning out our lighting is officially my least favorite thing, because i have no idea how to light a house, because can someone come over and do it for me? and not crush my filament lightbulb dreams like this new york times article just did?)

...which is all to say that our ikea trip has made me even more excited about our farmhouse facelift and it has given me the motivation to whine less when eggboy suggests that instead of watching house of cards we go and sand some cabinets. 

and speaking of our home, a little thing i wrote about living in the country has been published in the kinfolk home issue and i am so excited i could poop. i talk about elk and eggs and how my concept of home has changed since moving here from the city. the issue officially comes out next week!

ok, i am off to go browse wallpaper and possibly make chocolate mint meringues. or rosewater meringues.

-yeh!