mollygilbert520

Pesto Pasta Salad with Slow Roasted Tomatoes

September 27, 2016 by mollygilbert520 Leave a Comment

Hello, friends! Fall has come to Seattle in all its glory, and I find myself invigorated by the crisp, sunny days, fire-colored trees, early sunsets, and ample opportunity to pumpkin spice just about everything (not sorry… well, ok, a little bit sorry.) Still, there are pieces of summer that seem to be holding on tight – as evidenced by the (still!) exploding tomato plants in my backyard – and I’m fine with that, too.

September always feels a bit in-between-ish to me – the sun hasn’t yet given way to the dark, misty drizzle of true Seattle winter, but days are shorter, new routines are starting, and everyone seems to be hunkering down for the season – which, at least in my case, means getting back into the kitchen. It feels time to stock the freezer with easy meals (this and this come to mind), time to bake too many cookies (I’ve got my eyes on these ones, next), that first can of pumpkin to use up (always a good choice), and all those tomatoes! They want to be roasted.

A big batch of puckered, candy-sweet, roasted tomatoes can (should!) be covered with olive oil and stored in the fridge, to use in myriad forms of deliciousness – eaten straight up, smushed over a hunk of crusty bread, maybe, or tossed into a frittata or scrambled eggs, layered in a veggie lasagna, or thrown into a quick pasta, either hot or cold. Maybe with fresh pesto, tangy olives, creamy cheese and sharp arugula? Yes, yes, yes and yes. As the air cools and days shorten around us, we’ll be happy to have these sweet, juicy remnants of summer at our fingertips.

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I Think Thursday 9.22.16

September 22, 2016 by mollygilbert520 1 Comment

Happy first day of fall! It’s my favorite. Bring on the cozy sweaters, steaming mug drinks, crunchy leaves and cheese-laden dinners. (#basic #sorrynotsorry).

Also, the links! For you, dear friends:

Full on soup season! Get into it with some Leek & Fairytale Pumpkin Soup.
GET CUTER, Ina and Jeffrey.
I’m pretty into this (see above re: cheese-laden meals.)
Must be nice! #upgrade
Too much? Or just enough?
Hehe.
15 Career Tips from Smart Women.
#ExpectoPatronum (Mine is a dolphin!)

I Think Thursday 9.15.16

September 15, 2016 by mollygilbert520 Leave a Comment

I’ve been remiss with the links. Let’s get back into it!

School (and work) lunches have arrived! Cherry Cashew Sesame Bars should do it.
What a great blow to humanity.
Maple Bacon Cinnamon Roll Cake? Yes, Joy, yes.
This is cool.
I love picking up this Perfect Protein Salad for lunch from the grocery store down the street – I’m so glad that Megan found the recipe!
How pretty are these?
Made me laugh.
I’d like to do Paris the way Ina does Paris, yes I would.
HAH.

Deb’s Plum Cake

September 13, 2016 by mollygilbert520 8 Comments

Leave it to Deb to get me back in the kitchen! I mean, when that lady says “jump”, I’m the first to ask “how high?” so it stands to follow that when Deb says “make this plum cake,” I know it’s in my best interest to bust out the butter and search for some plums.

Except, as luck would have it, I didn’t have to search very far, because my neighbor, Martha, happens to have a plum tree in her yard, and Martha also happens to be quite generous (in general, but also specifically in plums), so as it happened, just as soon as I got it in my head to make plum cake, there was Martha, bag of plums in hand, to save the day.

The cake lives up to the hype. It’s a cinch to make (you could easily do it in the short span it takes for, say, a 6-month old to wear himself out on his play mat… just saying), looks beautiful, and tastes like it should — perfectly sweet, warmly spiced, and happily damp with fresh plum. I find it a perfect segue from summer to fall, using both the last of the season’s sweet, juicy fruit, and also a generous dash of warm cinnamon.

I actually made two of these plum cakes in one day — one for some neighbors who just welcomed their own new babe, and one for my own family to gobble up in a single (yep, just one) day. What I’m saying is, we need more plum cake. (Once plums are gone, I may give this another try with pears, although I don’t think Martha has a pear tree. Shoot).

In other news, I feel like I’ve typed “plums” one too many times today and now I can’t look at the word without feeling like it’s spelled wrong. Plums. PLUMS. Plummmmms.

I think it’s time for me to go.

And as an aside, we haven’t given Calder much solid food yet but we let him sort of gum and suck on a (ahem) plum and it was both amazing and hysterical. Boy loves him some PLUM.

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Brown Sugar Roasted Strawberry & Coconut Popsicles

June 25, 2016 by mollygilbert520 3 Comments

Hold onto your sticks everyone, because it’s Popsicle Week!

This is one of my favorite weeks of the (virtual) year, actually, because in addition to getting to make slash eat delicious, frozen treats, we also get to mix and mingle with a huge community of bloggers with popsicles on the brain. I mean, have you seen this list of genius?!? So much goodness over there. We’re going to need more popsicle molds.

In previous years I’ve tried to mix it up, tackling everything from Date Shake Pops to Dark Chocolate Pudding Pops to Honeydew Agua Fresca Pops (not to mention the Watermelon Limesicles and Blackberry Root Beer Float popsicles that have shown up around these parts), but this year I wasn’t sure exactly where to go. Creamy or fruity? Chocolatey or chock full of coconut?

The answer, dear friends, is all of the above.

I settled on a creamy, coconut-milk-based, syrupy-roasted-strawberry and handful-of-white-chocolate-chips-for-good-measure-filled popsicle. They are PRETTY GOOD, if I do say so myself. They’re just subtly sweet, but packed with intensely strawberry-ish strawberries, creamy coconut flavor and a hint of brown sugar and white chocolate. Get into it!

I think they’d be Calder-approved, too, if he could, you know, eat things. He mostly stared at them in confusion, if we’re being honest, but I think I detected a glimmer of pop-citement in those baby blues. Gotta teach them young, right?

Happy #PopsicleWeek, everyone!

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Sour Cream Bran Muffins

June 6, 2016 by mollygilbert520 7 Comments

HELLO! Well, wow. It’s been awhile. It seems I had a kid (!) and everything else (cooking, writing, showering…) fell by the wayside. I’m officially one of those people. Yikes.

But! Lest you think all you’re going to find here is a terrible iPhone picture of a pretty delicious muffin, I’d like to introduce you to someone:

OH hi there! This is Calder. He’s my son and I’m keeping him forever. Incidentally, he’s also a pretty delicious muffin.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly how much of the little guy I want to put out there on the internet, but let’s start here. Calder likes: fresh air, hiccups, the sound of the vacuum cleaner, midnight snacks, bouncing. Dislikes: long car rides, crib naps, wearing socks.

Though I’ve not spent much time in the kitchen, the past three months (three months already! bah.) with this little man have been the most delicious ever – so thanks for bearing with my absence around here.

Before Calder was born, I loaded up my freezer with a few simple meals and snacks (including this soup and these meatballs) that I knew I’d want around post baby, and these muffins proved an excellent call. Parading under the guise of good health (I mean, bran muffins), these are light and tender crumbed cakes packed to the gills with sweet fruit and rich molasses flavor.

In the early days when the babe needed to eat every five seconds (or so it seemed), leaving me ravenous at all hours, my nighttime routine included pulling two (or, uh, three) of these muffins from the freezer and setting them by my bedside — they’d thaw just in time for that first, late night nursing session, and I’d descend hungrily on the things after my sweet boy had gotten his fill (of milk, not muffins… little guy didn’t know what he was missing).

I’ve made a few batches since the first to restock the coffers, as it were, and served them, warm from the oven and slathered with butter, to last-minute brunch guests (instead of shoveling them in my mouth at 2am, say), but these muffins will always remind me of those first few amazing, exhausting, terrifying and exhilarating weeks with Calder.

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I Think Thursday 3.3.16

March 3, 2016 by mollygilbert520 2 Comments

Aaaaaand it’s Thursday again! My due date has come and gone, the cherry blossoms are already blooming in Seattle, and it’s both lovely and very confusing. We need links!

It’s Shamrock(ish) Shake season!
Wondering if I’ve had this baby yet?
I mean… this seems kind of amazing.
John Oliver, straight crushing it. #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain
I made this last week to stock my freezer, and it’s delish.
All caught up on And Eat It Too? #InAPickle
What it’s really like to work in Hollywood (if you’re not a straight white man).
I know have baby on the brain, but this is fascinating.
Made me laugh.

I Think Thursday 2.25.16

February 25, 2016 by mollygilbert520 Leave a Comment

Happy Thursday, friends! How’s your week? I am officially 39 weeks pregnant and haaaaangin’ in there. Days like today were meant for LINKS:

Tis the season for Meyer Lemon Yogurt Mousse. The creamiest!
I don’t know, I kinda like her? At least, I’m intrigued.
Bon Appetit shot their entire last issue with an iPhone.
This hurts my heart, somehow.
Made me laugh (#HGTV)
I know I don’t have an actual kid yet but ARE YOU KIDDING ME with these?
Pasta rules, per the (very thorough) J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.
This is pretty fun. #oscars
I don’t know about this, you guys.
Super interesting.

I Think Thursday 2. 18.16

February 18, 2016 by mollygilbert520 4 Comments

Happy Thursday! This has been a week of chasing deadlines, cleaning house and stocking the freezer with turkey meatballs (#nesting). Here are some fun links for your weekend!

The aforementioned turkey meatballs. These are winners!
I love carpool karaoke (and Sia).
I may be a little behind the times here, but Valentine’s poems for married people are pretty hilarious.
That Parmesan might not be Parmesan! Yikes.
Are you all caught up on And Eat It Too? Our latest episode focuses on CHOCOLATE. And Tom Hanks.
This salad from Amanda looks so bright and refreshing!
Guys! The e-version of my cookbook is only $2.99 this month! (Click the link and scroll down for retailers)
An interesting look at the environmental impact of online shopping/delivery. Color me guilty.
Chocolate swirl brioche? OKAY.
I kind of wish I hadn’t read this?

My Favorite Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

February 12, 2016 by mollygilbert520 4 Comments

Sugar cookies! I won’t lie – in general, they’re not my favorite. They always look cute, and are fun to make and decorate, but flavor-wise, I always thought we could do better. I mean, give me a choice between a fatty chocolate chip number and a perfectly iced sugar cookie, and there’s no mistaking which one I’m going to choose (the former, for the win every time).

There’s something inherently nostalgic about the sugar cookie, sure, but why are they always so bland? Or overly sweet, or pale and pasty and just kind of fake-tasting?

We can do better!

Here, I present to you: sugar cookie redemption. These are simple and just sweet enough, perfectly buttery, light and tender-crumbed – you’ll enjoy eating them as much as making them! And that is saying something.

So, yes, these are the “caramelized” version – let’s not go straight to “burned,” okay? (I mean, I can barely see my toes anymore, so give a girl a break…) But you’ll do better than I will, and might actually set a timer so you don’t get to chatting with your mom on the phone and completely forget about the COOKIES IN THE OVEN. So. That’ll be good.

And, if you’re celebrating Valentine’s day this weekend, these little guys are perfect for cutting into hearts and busting out the cute sprinkles (if that’s your thing), or maybe just, not? It doesn’t matter. Either way we have cookies.

My Favorite Cut-Out Sugar Cookies…