blog — molly yeh

passover

Passover Recipe Roundup!

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Whazzup! I'm just popping in to say a quick hello before we down some extremely chametzy pizza and then zip off to Whistler for our Passover ski trip!! This is gonna be a great Passover, not only because we're going to be spending it on a cozy mountain, but also because there's a new haggadah up in here (!!!), a new seder plate from lily (bonus: lily is also a new member of #teamsavory matzo brei. welcome, lily!), and some of my favorite new Passover recipes are in the April issue of Rachael Ray Magazine. Pick up a copy, there's a Passover tater tot hotdish!!!! 

Below are a bunch of my fave Passover recipes, old and new. Enjoy! Happy Passover!

-yeh!

photos 1, 4, 11, 12, 13, and 14 by chantell and brett quernemoen!

shawarma stuffed peppers with tahini and herbs

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Happiest Tuesday to you! I’ve just returned from a weekend of celebrating Mia’s 12th birthday! It was exactly what you’d expect out of a 12th birthday weekend: we played with slime, got locked in a room with a zombie, and ate unicorn cake that was dangerously close to looking like a penis cake. It was my first time, ok? How was I supposed to know that rolling marzipan around a log of rice krispies treat and then adding grooves all around and painting it with edible shimmery dust would make it look like an almond flavored wiener of gold? 🤷🏻‍♀️ It’s not my fault. But thank you, Instagram friends, for setting me straight and encouraging it to be more conical and pointy at the top. See? It got better:

The next time I make a unicorn cake I’m going to make two ropes of marzipan and twist them together so that the grooves are plumper and smoother, like the one here. Does anyone in Grand Forks need a unicorn cake?? I want to practice my unicorn cake now. Or maybe even a narwhal cake? Mia’s into narwhals too, I hope this lasts so I can make her a narwhal cake next year.

The whole time I was making this cake I was also watching the World Figure Skating Championships free dance, which was a treat!!! It was a bummer that the Shib Sibs weren’t there but (!!!) Kaitlyn Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker went in their place and my heart just melts when I watch them. They have this young, old-fashioned, first-time-in-love vibe that’s almost as Disney as Meryl and Charlie and it just makes you love them soo much. And then I was running terribly behind on my unicorn horn de-wienering but had to stop everything and give Papadakis and Cizeron my full undivided attention because that was the last time we’ll see *that* program and, sigh, I still can’t get over it’s beauty. Of course they broke the record again. Of course! 

I’m really sad that the skating season is over but now Eggboy gets to have his sports time fun since cycling is about to start. 

Oh but not before our last ski trip hurrah! We’re heading to Whistler at the end of this week for Passover and I’ve been looking forward to this for forever. Whistler seems like the most adorable winter wonderland and you know I love a good mountain!! I’ll be giving Passover cooking demos when I’m not skiing, at Pesach on the Mountain, so I’ve been working up a bunch of new Kosher for Passover recipes including these shawarma stuffed peppers. These peppers are super easy to make. Easier than they are to eat. (Are Eggboy and I the only people who have always struggled with the mechanics of eating a stuffed pepper? Or do you also find this dish slightly flawed in execution?) Maybe we should just eliminate all shame from the equation and use our hands to eat these like an apple. Eh. They are worth the little mess though because they have warm delicious shawarma spice all up in it and when you cover them in a pool of creamy tahini sauce, mmmmm, they are good.

I’ve made these a couple of different ways: one with rice and one with cauliflower rice. Rice absorbs the juices and binds the filling together nicely while the filling in the cauliflower version stays a bit loose and juicy. Juicy lucy. I personally prefer the texture of the rice version but the cauliflower version is still super tasty and a great Passover dinner if you’re not going to be eating rice. 

For shawarma seasoning, I love NY Shuk’s, but here is a great easy homemade version too. And here is a great k for p tahini!

shawarma stuffed peppers with tahini and herbs

serves 4

ingredients

2 tb olive oil or canola oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

Kosher salt

2 tsp shawarma seasoning

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 lb ground turkey

black pepper

1 c (6 oz) cauliflower rice or 1 c cooked basmati rice (from 60g dry rice)

1 (14 oz) can diced tomatoes

4 large or 6 small bell peppers

1/4 c (50g) tahini

3 tb cold water

1 lemon

fresh herbs (cilantro, parsley, mint), for topping

 

 

clues

Preheat the oven to 400ºf. 

In a large skillet or pot, heat the oil over medium high heat and add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until soft, 5-7 minutes. Add the shawarma seasoning and turmeric and cook for another minute. Add the ground turkey and season with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a few turns of pepper. Brown the turkey, breaking it up with a wooden spoon or spatula. When it’s all cooked through and no longer pink, reduce the heat to low. If you’re using cauliflower rice, microwave it (covered in a bowl or in the bag it came in if the package says that it’s ok) for 3 minutes. Add the cauliflower rice or basmati rice to the skillet and stir in the diced tomatoes. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Cut off the tops of the bell peppers, core them, and place them in a casserole dish. Fill the peppers with the turkey mixture and then bake for 35 minutes. 

To make the tahini sauce, stir together the tahini, water, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste until smooth. When the peppers are done cooking, squeeze them with additional lemon juice, top with a nice big blob of tahini sauce, and a pile of fresh herbs. Enjoy!

 

-yeh!

photos by chantell and brett quernemoen! 

sprinkle macaroons

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Sup, homies! Happy spring and also happy snow day (!) which leaves us with the best case scenario: a beautiful wintery day where the sun stays up long enough to enjoy it on the drive to (and maybe even from) the gym. These kinds of days are delicious because you get the coziness of the snow and the energy of the extra light, and the light has that perfectly diffused snowy quality that is all fluffy and cloud like. Is there a name for this type of winter weather that seeps into spring? Like Indian Summer, but for winter? And don’t say something like Annoying Winter, that’s not the point of this exercise. 

Speaking of exercise, I’ve been on a remarkable health kick, spawned by a sudden urge to eat kale four times a day. I’ve been eating kale and eggs for breakfasts, kale grilled cheeses for lunches, kale tacos for snacks, kale salads for dinners, I’m definitely going to get sick of it really soon but for now I’m riding it out and feeling excellent. The Adventures of Kalegirl and Eggboy!! Also, World Championship Ice Skating is on! Which is great, obviously, but did you also hear about the 13-year-old Russian figure skater in Junior Worlds who became the first female to land two quads in a program in competition??? Bonkers! The future is now! Additionally, I’ve gotten into so many awesome books recently, like Alon Shaya’s new cookbook, Jessica Merchant’s new cookbook, Stephanie Izard's Gather and Graze, and Call Me By Your Name, so if there was a sunny side of the street to be walking on right now, and if I actually walked anywhere, I'd be there. That's what's going on in my world!

But enough about kale and books, let’s talk about sprinkles. I feel a little funny that I’ve never funfetti’d macaroons before. I don’t know why it took this long but the other day a giant box of sprinkles from Beautiful Briny Sea arrived and I immediately felt compelled to fold them into egg whites, condensed milk, and coconut to make the first macaroons of the season. They were so tasty! Crisp on the outside, rich and moist on the inside. And how do you make a tasty thing tastier? Dip it in chocolate. It felt like the right thing to do, and then it felt more right to coat the chocolate with sprinkles. Eggboy said it was too many sprinkles! Can you believe he let those words exit his mouth?! I was stunned. I love the extreme amount of sprinkles because they add a fantastic crunchy quality that you don’t often find on a macaroon. And they’re fun to look at. And sprinkle flavor is good!! These ones are at least. (Use sprinkles you’d want to eat by the spoonful because you’re essentially doing that here.) I used these chocolate sprinkles in the batter and these rainbow sprinkles on the bottom.

All general sprinkle-flavor dessert rules apply here: do not use sanding sugar in the macaroon mixture because the colors will bleed and use clear imitation vanilla for that nostalgic birthday cake flavor that will also keep your batter bright white. As with almost all of the macaroons that I make these days, these are based on Danny Macaroons' delicious basic macaroon recipe. And speaking of macaroons, I wrote a little piece about them for this cool new huge Tablet feature that you should check out, 100 Most Jewish Foods. 

Happy almost Passover!

sprinnkle macaroons

makes 16

ingredients

1 c (283g) sweetened condensed milk (reserve the rest of the can to add to your morning coffee!)

2 tsp clear imitation vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 (14 oz) bag sweetened shredded coconut

2 large egg whites

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 c (48g) rainbow sprinkles, plus about 1/3 c (63g) more for topping and dipping

3 oz (85g) chocolate (any kind!)

clues

preheat oven to 350ºf. line two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

in a large bowl, combine the condensed milk, vanilla, and almond extract. mix in the coconut and set aside.

in a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form. 

fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture and then gently fold in the 1/4 cup of sprinkles. spoon lightly packed 2" balls of the mixture onto the baking sheets, 1" apart and sprinkle the tops with more sprinkles.

bake until golden brown; begin checking for doneness at 18 minutes. remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes on the pans. transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

place the remaining 1/3 cup of sprinkles in a shallow dish. melt the chocolate in a microwave in 30-second increments, stirring after each, or in a saucepan over low heat, stirring often. dip the bottoms of the macaroons in the chocolate, scrape off any excess, and then dip the chocolate in the sprinkles. place back on the parchment paper and let cool at room temp or in the fridge. enjoy!

these can be kept at room temperature for about 3 days or in the fridge for up to a week.

spinach and white cheddar baked matzo brei

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passover days 1-2.5:

-ate lots of almond butter matzo sandwiches
-became not so weirded out by cauliflower rice after mum insisted on a cauliflower rice tabbouleh. with enough acid, salt, and herbs, it turns out it does not taste like mushy farts as undercooked cauliflower is so wont to do.
-stoop kicked my ass on a four mile run, i decided i should start running again but got nervous at how wildly bored i get on runs. tried to calculate how much i'd have to kickstart to fund unorthodox's increase from a weekly podcast to a daily podcast because i wouldn't get bored on runs if i could just listen to unorthodox the whole time.
-ordered our garden seeds finally! i added chioggia beets to the order not because i like eating them but because they look pretty (and because they look so pretty i'm going to learn to like eating them)
-discovered the new millennial pink dishes at ikea. also bought about 12 packs of these cute napkins. eggboy and i are planning a scandinavian tea party themed bridal shower for eggsister and these are truly perfect for it. 
-fell back in love with this roasted vegetable stock. i don't know what my beef is with parsnips but every time i see them listed on an ingredients list or menu i kind of gloss right over them as if they were a less than worthy vegetable but they're a great addition to this stock and i'm going to try to treat them with more respect
-went to tuesday night's chicago symphony performance and sat really close. close enough to wonder how truls' face stayed so matte during the dvorak cello concerto (note to self: listen to that second movement again to appreciate more of its prettiness). for the second half they played prokofiev 5, which i love for the crunch and woodblock, and while the speed wasn't as aggressive as when jaap does it, it certainly did not disappoint.
-listened to a lot of nelly furtado and san fermin! love their new albums.

currently:
-about to leave for fargo for tonight's fargo seder. i have 150 malabi macaroons in tow. 
-wondering how many days will pass before i give in and make matzo crack.

i am not yet tired of matzo brei but in the event that you are and are stressing out over what to make for brunch this weekend, i have two ideas for you. one is matzo chilaquiles, which i'll be making since i spent the better part of late march testing my other idea: this baked matzo brei. which, to be honest, probably prefers to identify as a frittata or crustless quiche since those more closely represent the texture, and i find it's usually the texture that people tire of when they're sick of matzo brei. this is basically a quiche with a matzo crust but instead of the crust on the outside, it's broken up and dispersed throughout the filling so it gets nice and soft and mingles with the cheese. my favorite part about it is the purple onions that go on the bottom of the pan when you cook it because then when you serve it, it gets flipped over and is like a savory upside down cake.

you can serve this hot or make it the night before and serve it at room temp. a handful of fresh herbs at the end make it party ready (and instagrammable??)! happy weekend everyone! 

spinach and white cheddar baked matzo brei

serves 4-6

ingredients

6 large eggs

1/2 c heavy cream

4 sheets matzo, broken into 2-3” pieces

Olive oil

2 c packed fresh spinach

Kosher salt

Black pepper

1 small or 1/2 large purple onion, thinly sliced

1/2 c herbs (any mix of cilantro, parsley, mint, and/or chives), finely chopped, plus more for serving

3 ounces white cheddar, shredded, plus more for serving

2 tsp za’atar

1/2 tsp sweet paprika

Plain Yogurt, for serving

Harissa, for serving

Fresh lemon, for serving

Sumac, for serving

clues

preheat the oven to 350ºf.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and the cream. fold in the matzo and set aside.

Heat an 8” oven-safe nonstick skillet (like a cast iron pan) over medium heat and add a drizzle of olive oil. Cook the spinach until wilted, season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool slightly. Add 2 more tablespoons of olive oil to the pan, let it get hot (you can increase the heat to medium high as long as you keep an eye on it so the olive oil doesn’t burn), and then add the sliced onion and a pinch salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to brown. 

While the onions are cooking, add the herbs, cheddar, za’atar, paprika, 3/4 teaspoon salt, a few turns of pepper, and the wilted spinach to the egg mixture. When the onions are browned, spread them out evenly in the skillet and then pour in the egg mixture and spread it out evenly. Cook for 3 minutes and then stick it in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, until just set. Let it cool for a couple of minutes in the pan and then carefully run a rubber spatula around the edge to loosen them from the pan. Cover the pan with a plate and then turn it over to flip it onto the plate. 

Top with more cheese, a few dollops of yogurt, a bit of harissa, a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of sumac, and a handful of fresh herbs. Enjoy! 

-yeh!