#mollyontherange tour scenes

in ,

happy almost thanksgiving, friends!!! as the molly on the range tour winds down for the winter, i would like to take a mascara-less moment to be all verklempt and thankful for all of the wonderful huggable beans who i encountered these past few months all around the country. these wild months turned me into a person who purchases wellness shots of turmeric and wheat grass, but most importantly they were months that made my heart so full with warm fuzzies that it can only fit into metaphorical yoga pants these days. 

throughout my signings and demos, i collected new blogs to read, handwritten letters, gifts of custom sprinkle mixes and books and macaroni wall art (!!), and tips for new hotdishes to try. there were home cooked meals, potluck meals, and meals i would have never discovered were it not for local friends who showed me the way. and then there were the tofu macaroni t-shirt homies who i still can't stop giggling about. i saw so many old friends and made so many new ones that i think i started to build new muscles from hugging everyone so tightly (sorry if i was ever smelly). and with that i am packed with enough glee to last for a good long time. through this winter's hibernation at least. and ok maybe when it fades i'll write another book... is that how all of this works?

i am so so massively ginormously thankful for all of you who i got to spend time with during the molly on the range tour and i wish everybody the happiest, turkiest of thanksgivings!!! 

-yeh!!!! 

an extra special thank you to the photographers who captured the moments above:

photos 1, 2, 3, 19, 21, 23, 25, 29, 33 by 2nd truth photography with food styling + catering by quince mn at the pinch of yum studio for the motr + of a kind #akseverday event for // photos 6 + 30 by donny tsang at ellen bennett's #bennettbrunches series // photo 4 + 12 by liz clayman at the west elm + food book fair event with deb // photo 17 by donny tsang at the food52 motr launch party 

pumpkin donuts with spiced buttercream

in

here is a pumpkin recipe that will do you some good if, for example, you bought twelve too many cans of pumpkin for thanksgiving because despite your husband's questionable track record of pies he still insists on making one every year but with some great luck he nailed it this time thus alleviating your need for backup pumpkin. so now you have all of this pumpkin! 

or!

maybe you are on #teamcake but are so humble that you don't want your handsome show-stopping pumpkin cake to overshadow your husband's pie so you are in the market for something smaller and humbler. 

or!

you just like donuts.

or!

you want to get started baking now and need something that will freeze and defrost really nicely just in time for the post-turkey bird festivities.

ok i'll shut up now because it's true that you don't ever need a reason to want a soft pumpkiny donut that's topped with artful plops of pumpkin spiced buttercream. and i realize that baked donuts might just be differently shaped cupcakes, but i get so much satisfaction out of popping these little guys out of the pans and seeing the cloudy light get swallowed up through their holes. and how do you make a good cake donut better? top it with good buttercream, of course. if you and i have ever talked buttercream (or if you've read the butter section in molly on the range), you know that i'm an advocate for using the best butter available for it since it's basically just butter and sugar. you *want* the good buttery flavor, and for this i turn to the butter from my new cow friends, kerrygold. it's grass-fed and it's what i use for all of my buttercreams. 

so go forth into this thanksgiving week like the pumpkin champion that you are and get donut-ing! 

pumpkin donuts with spiced buttercream

makes 18-20 large donuts

ingredients

1 3/4 c flour

1 1/2 c sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp ginger

pinch cardamom

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 c oil

1/3 cup water

1 c pumpkin puree

for the buttercream:

1 c kerrygold unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 c powdered sugar

2 tb milk

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch each of nutmeg, cloves, ginger

 

sprinkles, optional

clues

preheat oven to 375ºf. grease a donut pan and set aside.

in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and cardamom. in a separate bowl, beat together eggs, vanilla, oil, water, and pumpkin. whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until batter is combined.

using a pastry bag, pipe batter into donut pan, filling the cavities halfway. bake donuts until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, begin checking for doneness at 12 minutes. remove from oven and let cool slightly. turn out onto a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature.

note: if you're making these in advance, transfer cooled donuts to a gallon ziploc bag (or wrap a pan of them in plastic wrap) and freeze for up to two weeks. defrost at room temperature for a couple of hours before frosting.

make the buttercream

beat together frosting ingredients with an electric mixer until smooth.

add frosting to piping bag. pipe onto cooled donuts and decorate with sprinkles as desired.

enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you for kerrygold for sponsoring this post!

fried brussels sprouts with lemon, parmesan, and breadcrumbs

in

okee doke, i am back from california, under my pile of wearable blankets, and have got just enough time to do a load of laundry and catch up on designated survivor before packing back up and scooting over to chicago and indiana for two of my final fall tour stops! it feels so good to be home, *especially* because eggboy kept up with all of the leftovers while i was gone so our fridge is not the war zone i expected! instead it's shiny and clean and ready to be filled up with lefse dough for the holidays. somehow there are zero eggs in our house though. macaroni, what the heck?? i was all ready to get back and try these steam scrambled eggs that alana just posted about (you use an espresso steamer to cook them!) but that will have to wait until macaroni get back to work. what are they even doing. 

it's probably for the better that i don't dive into a new recipe just yet because i have kind of a lot to unpack still and no clue where i'm going to put it all. on my trip i acquired a dozen new cookbooks 😬, a collection of sprinkles (from alana who brought them back from europe and my new friend amelia who brought a custom mix to me at my san francisco signing (!)), and some new warm weather gear in the form of socks that feel like a bear suit and a sweater that i'm never taking off. luckily it all fit in my allotted three checked bags (remember that time i packed light? lol) so if you need me i will be out back, building an igloo of cookbooks and a hot tub of sprinkles.

i have a brussels sprouts recipe for you for thanksgiving! typically my family roasts them or shreds them and turns them into latkes, but this year i'm going all in and deep frying the suckers. the first time i fried a brussels sprout was when i made the brussels sprout risotto from yotam ottolenghi's plenty more. it's the most beautiful bowl of lemony, parmesan-y, brussels sprout-y rice but i couldn't help myself from eating most of the fried brussels sprouts before they even made it into the mix. so i decided that i needed a whole dish of them cause yolo. i kept the lemon and parmesan components of yotam's recipe but then flung the sprouts onto a little bed of yogurt for a nice cool contrast and finished em off with breadcrumbs for texture and harissa powder for heat. and they're fried in olive oil, so you feel less bad about deep frying. i mentioned this in my sweet potato chip post, but trust that i'll never let you forget that you can deep fry in good olive oil since, as i learned at olive camp last year, it has a smoke point well above the temperature that's needed to fry. i'm using california olive ranch's everyday olive oil, which comes in nice big bottles and deep fries beautifully. you'll use a lot for this recipe, but whatever's leftover can be saved and used for future frying or to grease the pan for an omelette. a brussels sprout infused omelette, is that weird sounding?

fried brussels sprouts with lemon, parmesan, and breadcrumbs

ingredients

califorinia olive ranch everyday california extra virgin olive oil

12 oz brussels, halved and completely dry

kosher salt

plain full fat yogurt

a fresh lemon

a handful of panko breadcrumbs

chopped fresh parsley

parmesan

black pepper

harissa powder or paprika

clues

heat 2 inches of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. clip on a thermometer and heat the oil to 375ºf. working in batches, fry the brussels sprouts for a couple of minutes until browned and the outer leaves are crisp. be careful because the oil will splatter.

transfer the sprouts a wire rack, and sprinkle with kosher salt while still hot. 

spread a large dollop of yogurt onto a shallow bowl or plate and top with the fried brussels sprouts. add a large squeeze of lemon and top with breadcrumbs, parsley, freshly grated parmesan, black pepper, and harissa powder, or paprika.

serve and enjoy!

 

-yeh!

thank you so much, california olive ranch, for sponsoring this post!

butternut, bacon, and apple hotdish

in

tomorrow i go home to eggboy, the autumn, and probably a bunch of leftover containers that are still in the fridge from before i left two weeks ago. i am so gosh darn excited for two of those things! and to eggboy's credit, there are a zillion experiments in our fridges, some of them intentional and some of them unintentional, which i sometimes actually need for recipe development purposes so he's become trained not to throw anything away without explicit instructions. (like, have i told you that the clown cone, sprinkle cake, and cookie salad from molly on the range are still in my freezer because i was paranoid i'd lose all of my photos and would have to reshoot everything?)

so what's currently in our fridge is likely a bunch of butternut squash dishes. we got so much squash from our garden this year that i went wild with my cookbooks and cooked up a squash storm every day before i left. two of my favorite dishes were anna's butternut and cannellini gratin and claire ptak's squash cobbler. anna's dish is less creamy than a typical gratin, it's more like a hearty vegetable soup, and claire's dish opened up a world of savory cobblers to me. i couldn't get them out of my brain so eventually i combined them, added apples from our apple trees, and called it a hotdish like the lady of the north that i am. it pretty much follows the hotdish equation:

meat* + vegetables** + creamed soup*** + a starch****

*bacon

**squash and onions

***okay, even though there's soup in here it isn't creamy but there's cheese on top so that's some good heavy dairy that counts for something?

****flakey buttery biscuits! 

the base has the lightness of anna's dish, but the biscuits add some oomph that make it a good special occasion meal or sunday supper.  i had chantell and brett over from fargo to enjoy it on a crisp fall morning the other day. we wandered around the farm, collecting squash from the garden, apples from our trees, and eggs from macaroni for the biscuit egg wash, and i wore my new fall fashions from old navy. you guys i'm so excited to be partnering with old navy again because you know how i won't shut up about how my current favorite aesthetic is naptime-chic? (as in garments that double as blankets so that no matter where you are, you are always as cozy as you'd want to be for a nap? think huge scarves and piles of soft layers.) old navy has all of that right now. blankety scarves, shirts that are comfy enough to be pajamas but nice enough to wear when guests are over, and that red and black lumbersexual number pictured above that's soft like a robe. and of course i like layering on all of my tops over their jeggings, aka yoga-pants-disguised-as-jeans, aka good apple tree shimmying pants.

the whole situation is as cozy as a nice hot bowl of this butternut hotdish so i'm hoping this post is encouraging you to be cozy both inside and out. 

butternut, bacon, and apple hotdish

serves 8

ingredients

1 lb thick cut bacon

2 large purple onions, thinly sliced

kosher salt

2 lb squash, seeded, peeled, and chopped into 1/2” cubes

leaves from 6 sprigs fresh thyme

black pepper

crushed red pepper

2 large apples, chopped into 1/2” cubes

1/4 c white wine

1 c vegetable broth

for the biscuits:

2 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp kosher salt

14 tb unsalted butter, cold and cubed

1/4 c heavy cream

1 large egg

cheese, optional

clues

preheat oven to 425ºf.

in a large skillet or pot, crisp the bacon. Transfer it to a paper towel. drain off most of the fat from the pan, you’ll want a thin coating to remain, add the onions and cook over medium high for 10 minutes, until soft. add the squash, thyme, a few turns of pepper and a few pinches of crushed red pepper and cook for 10 more minutes, stirring occasionally, and then add the wine and broth. give the bacon a rough chop and add it to the pan along with the apples. bring the mixture to a simmer and then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes, while you make the biscuits. 

to make the biscuits, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. add the butter and, using a food processor or pastry cutter or your hands, incorporate the butter until the mixture is the consistency of oatmeal. mix in the cream until the mixture comes together to form a dough. turn it out onto a floured work surface, pat it out to 3/4” thick and then cut out round biscuits, re-rolling scraps as needed.

(note: you can also use torn crusty bread as the topping for your hotdish. i like this as a lower maintenance weekday option.)

pour the squash mixture into an oven-safe vessel such as a casserole dish or cast iron pan or dutch oven and then top it with the biscuits. brush the biscuits with the beaten egg and top with black pepper and grated cheese, if desired. bake until the biscuits are golden brown, begin checking for doneness at 25 minutes. enjoy!

-yeh!

pictured: jacket // shirt // sweater // jeggings // scarf

thank you, old navy (@oldnavy), for sponsoring this post! post your own style tips with the #oldnavystyle hashtags! disclaimer: per my sponsor agreement, the product links in this post are affiliate links.