mollygilbert520

Maple Sweet Potato Soufflé

November 23, 2011 by mollygilbert520 1 Comment

Well, they did it. Last weekend, two of my best friends in the world got married (hooray for Mr. and Mrs. Smooth!), and then threw one hell of a party.

It was a fancy affair; I made an appointment to get my hair did and everything. I got gussied up in a strapless black bridesmaid dress. I ate lobster tails and miniature grilled cheese sandwiches and did lots of Beyoncé dancing. Speeches were given, champagne was drunk, rugs were cut. It was an absolutely gorgeous evening, from the first notes of the ceremony to the last (boozy) drops of the reception. And getting to share it all with wonderful friends and family? Sigh. That’s the part that left me beaming on Sunday afternoon.

Today is Wednesday — it’s been three days since the party ended, and I won’t lie, it’s been rough. I miss the party. I miss my pretty hair. I miss Beyoncé dancing, and I miss my friends.

Still, I’ve found some things that help alleviate the general melancholy that follows a dreamy, friends and family-filled weekend. If you find yourself looking for something to fill a post-wedding weekend void, you could do any of the following:

Find a job that allows you to bake pumpkin cookies with 3-year-olds all day.
Go to Jen & Steve’s apartment, order deli sandwiches and debrief every detail of the weekend.
Think about how fun it would be to take a trip to Hawaii.
Sweat it out on the treadmill — you won’t want to, but it will make you feel better. Do it.
Hop on a train to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving with your (read: my) family.

That last one is the best I’ve got. Thank goodness for Thanksgiving. For family football games. For time together in the kitchen and at the table. For stuffing and roasted root vegetables, for sweet potato biscuits and Brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce and pie. And for maple sweet potato soufflé.

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Cranberry Oat Ricotta Muffins

November 16, 2011 by mollygilbert520 8 Comments

I’m supposed to say something about cranberries, about it being the season for using cranberries. And then something about ricotta, and how, cheese-wise, it completes me, and how I sometimes use my favorite spoon to eat it straight from the jar. Also oats. Something. Right? Something like that? In regards to these muffins?

Well, I can’t. Not at the moment, anyway. Two of my great friends are getting married this weekend and I’m far too excited to discuss muffins. Not that these aren’t excellent muffins — they are. They’re light and fluffy, dotted with tart and jammy cranberry pockets, slightly chewy from a handful of toothsome oats, with a subtle creaminess and a tang from the ricotta that is just… right. For breakfast, for a snack. Smeared with butter, or extra ricotta (extra, hah), or a smudge of jam. They’re special, these are.

But, at the end of the day, they are muffins. And Jenny and Steve are getting married this weekend! Married! To each other! I’m a little excited. Can you tell that I’m excited?

Okay. Whew. It’s only Wednesday, I should tone it down. Maybe make some tea. It’d go well with a muffin.

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Dorie’s World Peace Cookies

November 13, 2011 by mollygilbert520 14 Comments

I had another post planned for today, but then Dorie tweeted at me, you know, on the Twitter, and I got too excited to post anything but these cookies.

Dorie Greenspan. Dorie Freaking Greenspan! Author of Around My French Table and Baking: From My Home To Yours and contributor to Bon Appetit and, you know what? If you don’t know who she is then it’s time to get with the picture. Dorie Greenspan, people. Guru.

Yeah, so, she tweeted at me. No big deal. I started it. I’d been invited to a potluck dinner and was thinking about making Dorie’s famous World Peace Cookies for the event, so, naturally, I decided that everyone should know about it… in fewer than 140 characters. I took to Twitter.

On November 10th, I wrote: Attempting world peace. Cookies, world peace cookies. Wish me luck @doriegreenspan.

The @doriegreenspan part was just a laugh. Just one of those things, thrown out into the Universe, never to be retrieved. But then!

November 10th, from @doriegreenspan: @mollydunkncrumb Have fun making the World Peace Cookies and let me know how you like them. Would that cookies could bring world peace…

!!!

That response made my day. Hell, it made my entire week. She has no idea, but it did. And the cookies? So deep. So chocolatey. Dark and tender-crumbed and flecked with salt. The kind of cookies you eat with your eyes closed. Amazing.

If ever a cookie could bring world peace, this one would most certainly do it, I’m most certainly sure. In the meantime, though, I’ll be on the Twitter. With Dorie. No bigs.

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Mustard Roasted Potatoes & Pears

November 7, 2011 by mollygilbert520 2 Comments

My lips are numb, and there’s a good chance I’m drooling. I’ve just gotten home from the dentist, you see. After 27 years as a blissfully cavity-free person, my teeth have violently betrayed me and my tendency to “forget” to floss. Big time betrayal. I mean, I thought we were in this together, teeth! …Traitors.

Upon arrival at my twice-yearly checkup on Friday, I was informed that I had not one, but two cavities getting cozy in my chompers. Two. Cavities.

Naturally, I was horrified. I gasped and I grumbled, my world of clean, sturdy enamel shattered before me.

Not that I was dramatic about it. I mean, psh, whatever. Just a few cavities. Just a few needles and drills and fake things in my mouth. No big deal, whatevs. I totally didn’t tell everyone I came in contact with about my two cavities, and I definitely didn’t whine about my terror at having them filled. Nope. I mean, there’s no way I worked myself up about it so badly that my sister had to leave me a good luck note this morning, before she left for work.

Didn’t happen.

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

November 2, 2011 by mollygilbert520 7 Comments

Here’s how it went down on Monday night. My roommate and (incidentally) younger sister Casey and I bought three bags of candy to satisfy the trick-or-treaters we expected to come knocking. We live in an apartment building, so figured we wouldn’t get that many kiddos come to beg for candy.

We were wrong. By 5:30pm our bowl of Three Musketeers, York Peppermint Patties and Take Five bars was running low – dangerously low, some might say. So Casey, excellent roommate and sister that she is, ran out to the corner store to re-stock our candy bucket.

She was gone for about fifteen minutes, during which time a few boatloads of adorable pirates, strawberries, mickey mice and, my favorite, one pint-sized Justin Bieber came and depleted our stock, almost entirely. Returning with a bag each of miniature Kit-Kats, Milky Ways, and M&Ms, as well as four (!) large packages of regular-sized (!) Reese’s peanut butter cups, we high-fived while refilling our bucket, eager to please more of our adorable trickster/treaters.

We sat on the couch with our candy bowl brimming, waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. One group of haphazardly costumed teenagers, clearly too old to be going through the trick-or-treat song and dance, came knocking unabashedly. They took handfuls of loot and went on their way. We shrugged and wondered who’d be next. Batman? A pumpkin? Baby Cookie Monster?

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Chicken Noodle Soup

October 31, 2011 by mollygilbert520 3 Comments

Oof. A weekend of cold, wet feet, madman dancing and minimal sleep, wonderful as it was, seems to have turned me into a bit of a sick chicken.

Stuffy nose, stuffy ears, stuffy head. Scratchy throat and achy bones. Sniff, cough, sniff sniff honk. …Dammit.

Only cure for this, of course, is chicken noodle soup. Headsick, heartsick, hurtsick, any-kind-of-sick-sick, it’s my opinion that chicken and noodles will probably help. Here’s hoping this herby, oniony, chickeny version will land me back on my (warm, dry) feet by morning.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
5 stalks celery, chopped
4 medium carrots, chopped
3 quarts (12 cups) chicken stock
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
5 scallions, white and light green parts only, chopped
2-3 cups cooked egg noodles
1 rotisserie chicken, shredded
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

In a large stock pot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the chopped onion, celery and carrot, stir to coat with olive oil, and cook until slightly soft, about 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the stock, and bring to a simmer. Add the fresh herbs, scallions, cooked noodles, and shredded chicken, and season with more salt and pepper. Cook until chicken is hot, and adjust seasoning to your liking. Serve immediately.

Yields 5 – 6 quarts soup.

Laura & Peter

October 31, 2011 by mollygilbert520 12 Comments

I’m coming down with something and don’t have a recipe to share today, but quick, before the Nyquil kicks in, I thought you should know about this wedding.

Laura and Peter, my lifelong cousin and brand new cousin, respectively, were married this weekend at the beautifully hilly, wooded and woodchipped Miquon School in Philadelphia.

They’d spent months planning their day, from the sunflower-strewn outdoor ceremony on rustic wood benches to the cozy, tented reception beneath the October foliage, champagne-flowing and music ringing through the trees above.

The booze and the music cooperated. The weather, on the other hand, did not.

The Miquon School saw heavy rain, then sleet, then snow, and then, just for good measure, more rain and freezing sleet, all day on Saturday, the day of the wedding. It rained through the ceremony and sleeted through the reception, and decided to stop just when the party was over. Of course.

You’d think an outdoor wedding would be diminished, if not entirely ruined, by a freak October nor’easter. In this case, you’d be wrong.

photograph by the amazing Joe Foley

We swapped heavy boots for pretty heels, hid our formal wear under downy jackets, wrapped our fingers around cups of hot spiked cider during the ceremony, danced around chilly drips through the tent during the reception, and y’know what? We loved every minute of it. We snuggled on wood benches through the beautifully intimate ceremony. We ate macaroni and cheese. We listened to Teddy sing Bruce Springsteen while Laura and Peter had their first dance. We cried, kind of a lot. Peter wore Converse sneakers and an incredible smile, and Laura was a stunning, stunning bride. We lifted them both in chairs, and then danced around the beer bottle. So much happiness, so much love. So much scotch and soda.

Joe Foley Photography

Snow and all, couldn’t have been better.

Brown Sugar Vanilla Bean Pudding

October 25, 2011 by mollygilbert520 1 Comment

So apparently I have a problem.

I’ve started taking perfectly non-Halloweeny snacks and turning them black and orange.

See? Do you see this? What is this about?

This should have been a simple jar of pudding. Just pudding, made with milk and brown sugar and a vanilla bean, creamy and simple, from scratch.

But no.

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Homemade Vanilla Marshmallows

October 19, 2011 by mollygilbert520 7 Comments

Those things up there? They’re springy. Stickyish. Sweet and sugared, square and bouncebouncebouncy. Those, my friends, are marshmallows.

They’re actually Halloween-themed marshmallows, on account of they’re orange. That’s on account of the food coloring which, of course, is on account of the upcoming jack o’lanterned holiday. So, you know. Themes.

I’ve been wanting to make my own marshmallows for awhile now. When I worked in the kitchen at Liddabit Sweets, I made marshmallow all the time – sticky, gooey stuff we’d spread as filling for some sick (like, si-hiiiick, in a good way) candy bars, but until now I’ve never tackled the at-home marshmallow set. Now that it’s done, it’s going to be a thing. I’m pretty sure of it. I’ve got long lists of mallowy flavors in my head, so I’m just saying: consider yourself warned.

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Roasted Acorn Squash & Arugula

October 16, 2011 by mollygilbert520 13 Comments

As I sit here on my bed, otherwise known as my office, Sunday light streaming through my window and Sam Cooke bopping from my speakers, I can’t think what to write. My toes are tapping and I want to go outside. I suppose I’ll just get straight to the squash.

I know come February I’ll be entirely sick of it, but I can’t help it – I’ve started in on the cool weather squash. Smooth or nubbly, dark green or deep orange, long-necked or squat – I need the squash. In my kitchen. Pretty much now.

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