blog — molly yeh

dinner

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!!!!

drunken zucchini noodles

in ,

greetings from fort worth! i have already lost count of my taco intake and i'm slowly adjusting to/falling in love with the extremely friendly stranger people here. they are so delightful, i even got an unsolicited rhubarb jam recipe from a lady at the market. (it has cherry jell-o in it!) 

a majority of my texas existence has been spent in a dark corner of the stage, wiggling my toe off in the name of vibraphone sustenance, and flipping through genius recipes during my breaks (you are a silly goose if you don't have that book yet). i can't see any of the singers unfortunately, but boy do they sound great.

there's one line in the opera that i could listen to over and over and over, it's towards the end when michael's character, who is starving and cold and searching for food, sings the most beautiful melody with the words:

...maybe there are worms in the backyard... 

the end of the world is near and, oh goodness, the way that michael sings this line gets at my deepest shivers. it's one of the most haunting moments in the piece and i love it with the same intensity that worms gross me out. am i doing a good job of convincing you to come? worms, blood, apocalypse? truly, this opera is a crazy delicious gem and day-long rehearsals do not feel so day-long. 

when i'm not in rehearsal, i'm working with a lot of lovely restrictions that aren't as bad as the apocalypse but still, errm, adjustments. a kitchenette with two hot burners, no oven, and a camera lens that has lost his ability to focus. so! eggboy said it will be like learning to write with my left hand, and so far it's been really quite exciting, in a cutthroat kitchen type of way. i had a morning of steamed stove-top cake research, i bought ingredients for a rhubarb curd crepe cake which i am going to attempt without a whisk, and, ok, i'm going to learn how to take a disposable camera photo. 

halp.

my kitchenette does not have a spiralizer, but my home does, and i miss it very much! it arrived in the mail right before i left, so i quick made all of the noodles that i could and pretended to be ali maffucci. you all have her book, right??? i am so into it, it makes me want to eat so many vegetables, i don't even know myself anymore. these drunken zucchini noodles were one of the first recipes i made out of it, because i miss the drunken noodles at sripraphai and also because "zucchini" was the first large word that i ever learned how to spell and for all of first grade spelling it out loud was my go-to party trick. 

it kind of goes without saying, but these noodles present an excellent solution to the conundrum of wanting to sit on the couch, watch veep, and mindlessly shovel thai takeout into your mouth, but not wanting to feel like poop afterwards. they're delicious!!! 

drunken zucchini noodles 

from ali maffucci's inspiralized

ingredients

1 tb hoisin sauce

1 tb low-sodium soy sauce

1/2 tb oyster sauce

1 tb thai chili oil

1 tb thai or vietnamese fish sauce

1 tb virgin coconut oil

8 oz ground pork

2 small shallots, minced

1 medium garlic clove, minced

1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips

2 thinly sliced scallions

2 medium zucchini, spiralized with blade a

3 tb chopped fresh thai basil leaves

clues

heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. add the hoisin, soy sauce, oyster sauce, chili oil, and fish sauce and heat for about 2 minutes. transfer to a bowl.

add the coconut oil to the skillet and heat until shimmering. add the pork and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, for 5 minutes or so, until cooked through and browned. add the shallots and garlic and cook for 2-3 more minutes.

return the sauce mixture to the skillet and add the bell pepper and scallions. cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently. add the zucchini noodles and cook 2-3 more minutes or until the zucchini noodles soften. fold in the basil leaves, taste and adjust sauces if desired.

enjoy!

-yeh!

pictured: bowls // pan // cutting board // spurtle

 

tater tot chicken pot hotdish

in

spring planting started yesterday and all i can think about is how grateful i am for the world synchronized skating championship online webcast. hehe. oops? i know, i should be celebrating spring planting (i am! here, have a cake!) but, like, any other time, i probably would have been a little salty if eggboy had tout à coup called way past dinner time to say that it would be another many hours before pizza o'clock, and last night it was received with something more to the effect of, ok the entirety of team russia 2 is dressed like black swan, there are tiaras, they're about to swizzle, g'bye. 

is this what being a farm wife is???

oh right! that and planning dinners that last for a long while on the stove or in the oven for the unpredictable nature of "dinnertime during farming season." we learned how to do that last year though, during the great sugar beet harvest shakshuka slow-poach showdown. whatever that means. now it's just a matter of getting back into the swing of things and not making delicate time-sensitive food like soufflés or al dente noodles.

i know, i don't even make soufflés or al dente noodles during non-farming season. but you know what i mean.

so i figured it was high a time as any to put my first tater tot hotdish recipe out into the world!

omg tots omg tots.

i know, they're moment-ing in brooklyn right now. 

but let me tell you about 1980s upper midwest church cookbooks and tater tot hotdish: they are married. tater tot hotdish is quintessential comfort food for eggboy and eggdad and egggrandma. tater tot hotdish : eggdad :: mum's mac and cheese : me. it's a staple at potlucks and you're not a minnesotan until you can properly apply a layer of tater tots to a 9 X 13 casserole dish of creamed soup.

let's review our hotdish definition: a meat, a creamed soup, a vegetable, and a starch, dumped together and baked until hot. typically a tater tot hotdish is hamburger meat, cream of something (mushroom?) soup, and peas or green beans under a bed of store-bought tater tots. mine is inspired by chicken pot pie: chicken, béchamel, and vegetables. 

and thyme. and miniature. and yes, store-bought tater tots, for now. 

tater tot chicken pot hotdish

makes 4-5 servings

ingredients

2 tb unsalted butter (or olive oil)

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

optional: other chopped sturdy veggies! celery, potatoes, and broccoli would all be great

1/4 c all-purpose flour

2 c whole or 2% milk

enough chicken bouillon for 2 c liquid*

1 lb boneless skinless chicken thigh or breast, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1/2 c frozen peas

1/4 t dried thyme

optional: other herbs! rosemary and parsley are nice!

black pepper

frozen tater tots! about a pound of them.

 

*i like orrington farms brand, which requires 2 tsp mix per cup, but other brands, like better than bouillon i believe only require 1 tsp. best to check the instructions.  

clues

preheat oven to 400.

in a large skillet over medium high heat, melt the butter and add the onion, carrots, and any other veggies, stirring until soft, 7-10 minutes. stir in the flour so that it gets evenly distributed. add 1 cup of the milk, stirring until thickened, and then add the second cup, stirring until thickened.

add the bouillon, chicken, peas, thyme, any other herbs you’d like, and pepper, and simmer, stirring often, for 10-15 minutes, until the chicken is fully cooked. taste the mixture and adjust seasonings, if desired.

transfer the mixture to a 2-2 1/2 quart casserole dish or 4-5 mini cocottes--and then cover with tater tots. 

bake for 20-25 minutes, until the tots are golden brown.

let cool slightly and enjoy!

shakshuka pizza

in

we've been vaguely cheating on friday pizza night with nachos. ever since we adventured into the secret menu world of the local pizza parlor, in which every pizza can be ordered as nachos, we've been changed humans. there's one pizza called the happy pig that we particularly love as nachos: mozzarella, pulled pork, pineapple, some vegetables, and barbecue sauce. (i know, i was horrified about barbecue sauce as a pizza ingredient when i moved here, but i've since embraced it even though i'm slightly embarrassed to say it out loud.) last time i really wanted to get the tater tot pizza as nachos basically just so that i could tell people that i ate tater tots on nachos, but eggboy protested.

i love our nacho nights and the small-town pizza parlor vibe with the crayons on the tables and the quirky pizza nacho names, but lately i've felt guilty about letting nachos invade our pizza time. like i was forgetting my roots. so last week i renaissanced pizza night with a pizza that would certainly not be shut down by you-know-who despite the fact that it was not covered in sausage and pepperoni and more meat.

eggboy loves shakshuka. more than he loves peanut butter, maybe even more than he loves taylor swift. and i love it too, even more so if there is a big fluffy pita to soak it all up with. this pizza basically replaces the pita with a chewy pizza crust that soaks up the sauce and creates one big delicious mess that's best eaten as a folded slice so it almost becomes a doughy shakshuka sandwich. i'm going to consider this my valentine to eggboy and tomorrow, for our last pizza night before we fly off to vienna (!!!!), i might even make one heart-shaped. 

ok: eggs on pizza. it's kind of fussy. the whites can spill out and they take time to cook... so work carefully and make sure your tomato sauce well walls are as high as you can make them before cracking in your eggs. if you're having a particularly difficult time, you can crack the eggs onto a hot pan for a couple of seconds so that the whites firm up just slightly, and then immediately transfer them to the pizza to bake. 

the baking part can be tricky since eggs take longer to bake than pizza dough when you have your oven cranked up to a zillion degrees or whatever it is they tell you to bake your pizza at. alex gave me the simple tip of decreasing the oven temp and baking it for longer, which makes a lighter doughier center, but i really love it that way and i think it does wonders for soaking up the shakshuka!

shakshuka pizza

makes 2 personal pizzas

ingredients

1 batch of the pizza dough here or any other pizza dough you'd like

2 tb olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp harissa powder (optional, but you really should)

a pinch of sugar

salt + pepper

1 tb tomato paste

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes

4 eggs

4 oz crumbled feta

a handful of chopped parsley

clues

preheat oven to 475 (ideally, with a pizza stone).

heat the oil in a pot over medium and add the onion. cook until soft and translucent, 5-7 minutes. add the garlic, cumin, harissa powder, sugar, a good pinch of salt, and a few turns of black pepper, and cook for 1 minute. add the tomato paste and diced tomatoes and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes.

flatten your pizza dough out either on a floured pizza peel or, if you're clumsy with a pizza peel like me, on a piece of parchment. top the pizzas with the tomato sauce, create two wells on top of each pizza, and then crack the eggs into them. sprinkle each with feta, and then carefully slide the pizza onto your pizza stone. bake for 7-10 minutes, until the egg whites have set but the yolks are runny and the crust is lightly browned.

drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with parsley, and enjoy!

-yeh!