Recipes

Pink & Greens Salad

March 27, 2014 by mollygilbert520 11 Comments

I live in Seattle now! Officially. There were two flights, a road trip through Portland (with doughnuts) and a few choice words to a less-than-stellar moving company along the way, but I’m writing now from my new home office (strewn with boxes and receipts and packing tape, but still) in Seattle. Because I live here.

In other big news, it’s raining.

Amidst the chaos of unpacked boxes, echo-y half-furnitured rooms, new streets to navigate and what feels like constant drizzle, I’ve been stress eating since I got here. Did I mention that BOX of doughnuts? Yeah. There’s been lots of pizza. And there was ice cream, too. Twice. Alone.

Yesterday I decided to take charge. I went to my happy place (Whole Foods). I stocked up on leafy greens and fruit and peanut butter. I color-coded my cookbooks. Then I made this salad, and it felt so good to get some actual health back in my routine. Roasted greens are the way to go. They wilt from the heat but keep their toothsome heft, their deep flavor intensifying and their edges crisping delicately. Tossed with some fresh herbs, a bit of quinoa, and plenty of soft avocado, tart grapefruit and a handful of meaty pistachios, and you’ve got yourself a lunch you can be proud of.

The boxes will get unpacked, and the furniture will fill in eventually. And the rain, well, it has to stop at some point, doesn’t it?

…Don’t answer that.

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Pi Day!

March 14, 2014 by mollygilbert520 2 Comments

What kind of person goes totally MIA only to resurface on the one day when everyone’s eating pie?

Me, mostly.

I’ve been neglecting this space and I don’t feel good about it, but I’m fresh off a whirlwind few weeks of travel and am in the middle of a bigtime move (oh hey, Seattle) so that is that and I won’t beat myself up about it. Instead I’ll have some pie.

Pie for pi! March 14th. 3.1415thingthingnumbernumbermorenumbersthing. Well. I’m better at the pie kind of pi.

This pi day, we have choices.

Smooth and creamy Buttermilk Chess Pie is a winner.

In California, strawberries are already peeking their way into the markets. Perfect for Sour Cream & Fresh Strawberry Pie!

Deeply Pecan Pie is a personal favorite. To me, it’s the pie-est of pies.

It’s easy to bring back memories of warmer weather with Indian Summer Peach Pie (frozen peaches work wonders), or maybe Jumbleberry is more your style? (Again, frozen fruit is totally cool.)

Does a Brownie Berry Tart count as a pie? What about as a pi?

I’ll go with yes.

It’s good to be back. Here’s to a lovely day of pi pie!

Banana Bread Hearts

February 11, 2014 by mollygilbert520 13 Comments

Been staring at that poppyseed salad for awhile, eh? My bad. Let’s change the scenery, shall we?

Banana bread!

It’s never not a good time for banana bread. Plus it happens to be a personal favorite of my Valentine, and I’m a sucker for that guy.

There are a million different ways to banana your bread, and I have yet to settle on “my” way. I think my way involves browned butter, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. It’s certainly a good start, anyway. This time around, I turned to the lovely Zoe Francois of Zoe Bakes, whose blog I’ve been following for ages and whose recipes are always second to none. Her original recipe is for Nutella Swirled Banana Bread (um, HELLO), but since I can’t keep Nutella in my pantry without terrible things happening (read: flabby jowls) I left it out.

What’s left is a banana bread for purists – strongly banana, faintly sweet and lightly spiced. The recipe makes two loaves — one for now and one for… slightly after now. If you’re feeling cutesy, it’s pretty fun to cut out banana bread hearts, dip them in chocolate, and trade them for smooches.

SMOOCH.

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Citrus Beet Salad with Creamy Poppyseed Dressing

January 23, 2014 by mollygilbert520 17 Comments

Hello! This is going to be a short one, since I’ve got exactly 24 days to turn in a manuscript and I’m generally freaking out.

How do people do this? Can I please get some help squeezing more hours into the day? What if my book really sucks and no one but my dad buys it? Baaaaeaifjdfjoiaealsdfjha FREAK OUT.

And yet, a girl’s gotta eat. Stress ice cream is a given, but with all the amazing citrus fruit now in season, a bright salad of beets and oranges and scallions, topped with light but creamy poppyseed dressing sounds about right.

Pre-cooked beets make it easy (thanks, Trader Joe’s). Fresh fruit makes it juicy. Poppyseeds make it snappy. It’s mood boosting and stress-relieving, because it’s fresh and bright but also because I can’t eat it standing over the sink, thinking of everything still left to do. Plates are necessary. Forks and seats at the table. A break from the crazy.

Perspective is a good thing! Also, oranges.

What do you eat when you’re stressed?

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Smoky Bacon Turkey Chili

January 8, 2014 by mollygilbert520 10 Comments

I imagine a “polar vortex” to be a swirling mass of polar bears. Or some sort of high-powered polar bear business conference?

…Am I close?

Living in California, you see, comes with some benefits. Fresh oranges and avocados, sure, but also a lack of swirling polar bear activity. Or bracing cold, for that matter. I don’t mean to rub it in. I’ve seen the crazy, Day-After-Tomorrow/White-Walker-Winter-Is -Coming-Style photos of the rest of the country. New York looks miserable. Chicago? Forget it. Meanwhile, I ran outside this morning. In pretty much a t-shirt.

In other news, I’m the worst.

In other other news, I made you chili! And as everyone knows, chili is where it’s at during a polar (bear) vortex. It’s a simple, one-pot, warm-to-the-bone kind of meal. It uses a lot of what may already be in your pantry. Plus there’s bacon!

The smoky bacon is what starts us off, and then the chili fills out with ground turkey meat and some spicy chicken chorizo. Smoke and spice get topped with sweet tomatoes and rich beer, and some creamy beans, too. Top it all off with a handful of green onions and shredded cheese, a scoop of cool yogurt and some chopped avocado for good measure? CHILI TIME. With chips. Let’s see what our polar vortex has to say about that.

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Roasted Cauliflower & Chickpea Salad

January 2, 2014 by mollygilbert520 13 Comments

New year, new salad. Isn’t that how it usually goes?

I was big into cauliflower in 2013, and even though that’s like, so last year, I’m sticking with the stuff. I like eating raw florets dipped in Trader Joe’s cilantro & lime yogurt dip (which, for those of you who don’t know, is the bomb dot com), though I also enjoy finding ways to get it all roasty toasty in the oven, too.

This here is a roasty toasty application. (That’s a thing.)

I’ve got a lot of big, exciting, scary things on the horizon for 2014. There will be a 30th birthday. There will be a cookbook. There may be a trip or two. My stomach is flopping and my fingers are crossed for it all.

But today? Today, there will be cauliflower and chickpea salad. It’s a start.

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Cookie Swap!

December 20, 2013 by mollygilbert520 4 Comments

We need cookies! Santa’s coming. At least, I’m pretty sure. All signs (read: twinkling lights, stockings by the fire, toffee crunch and cups of peppermint hot chocolate) seem to point to yes, anyway.

So, COOKIES.

We’ve made a fair number of cookies around these parts. Most recently some chewy gingerbread chocolate chunk ones! Check those. Wreck them.

But there are so many more cookies we can swap!

Since it’s Christmas, we can always go with some classic gingerbread cutouts. They’re sweet and a little bit spicy and kind of huggable, in a cookie sort of way. Y’know?

Christmas cookie hugs.

Speaking of hugs, WORLD PEACE COOKIES. All caps. All chocolate. All kinds of amazing.

A few years ago I made chewy, holiday-spiced snickerdoodles. Holiday-spiced! Yum. (I don’t think that’s actually a thing, but it was awhile ago and they taste great so what does it even matter? Santa doesn’t judge.) (He totally does judge — I mean, naughty or nice is his whole schtick. But I’m trying to make a point here so shhhh.)

But maybe Santa’s an oatmeal guy? That’s cool, Santa. (I realize that I’m talking to Santa like he’s reading this. Does Santa read blogs? I don’t know. I’m not sure where he’d find the time. Maybe Rudolph can weigh in here.) At any rate, we can do oatmeal! With doubly chocolate chips.

Shortbread is rich and crumbly for the holidays. And this one is studded with green pistachios for extra Christmas flair!

I’ve never met Santa, but on the off chance that he is Gluten-free (who’s not, these days?), I want to be ready. So I might have some of these gluten-free peanut butter chocolate chip cookies on hand come Wednesday.

My last suggestion are these spicy molasses & brown sugar cookies. They’ve got that crispy crust and that chewy crumb, all wrapped up with a round, warm, spicy flavor. To me, these just scream Christmastime.

CHRISTMASTIME!

…Yes.

So happy holidays, all! Good tidings (and cookies) to you. And to all a good night!

Chewy Gingerbread Chocolate Chunk Cookies

December 13, 2013 by mollygilbert520 2 Comments

Gingerbread chocolate chunk cookies! They’re the tenderest things, with the perfect chew. The way they yield when you first bite them is an eye-closing thing. And then the gingery spice hits you and the chocolate chunks put up a fight with some richness and heft. So good. I’m pretty sure Santa wants these cookies. He must! With a tall glass of milk and extra helpings of coziness and goodwill.

Well, eff Santa, because I accidentally ate all the cookies and now they’re gone.

…Oops. I’m sorry, Santa.

But am I, really? I mean, I’m a Jew with a Christmas tree, so I’m sort of an expert in sending mixed messages/disappointing my elders, anyway. Ah, well.

Kids, don’t be like me. Don’t just eat the cookie chunks out of that pint of ice cream, and then put it back in the freezer. Don’t accidentally kill all the plants you own. Do wear real pants instead of leggings sometimes, and please, for the sake of Christmas, save some effing cookies for Santa.

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Chicken Pot Pie

December 6, 2013 by mollygilbert520 9 Comments

I feel like I often use the weather to introduce my recipes. It’s kind of standard protocol. It’s fretfully hot? (It’s Not). Popsicles! Or hey! It’s cold! (It is cold, even in California these days, jeez.) We need sweaters. Mugs of tea. And chicken pot pie!

It makes sense — warm, rib-sticking fare for chillier weather — but really, weather talk? Has it come to that? We’re all friends here, after all. We can talk about our ups and downs, the joys and heartbreaks and embarrassments of it all. I just read a lovely essay about heartbreak here, actually. Heartbreak comes in many forms, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

Chicken pot pie can help with heartbreaks.

And embarrassments? My life is full of them. I’m really good at tripping in public, over nothing but my own (normal sized, you should know) feet. In college I majored in American Studies but if you asked me who our 5th President was, I’d have to Google it. And the other day while clothes shopping I ran into a girl I went to grade school with — I was half-zipped into a too-small dress and had just popped my head out of the fitting room to ask my sister for help, and oh hey! There she was. Tall and svelte and beautiful, smiling and ready to catch up on 20 lost years of friendship. I thought I should hug her but didn’t want to risk ripping the dress/being naked so instead I just took an awkward half-step forward and stood there, grinning dumbly. She asked me about my life and then I think I asked her if she had checked out the sale section? Awesome. Oh and also, last week I forgot to wear deodorant to a group exercise class.

Embarrassments? Check.

Joys are better. My current joys include going on chilly runs with my dad and sister before eating too much cheesecake. Watching my new niece, Matilda, and hoping she’ll fall asleep on me. Cozying up with cheeseball Christmas movies on abc family. Or nailing a cookbook recipe on the first try! Joy.

Chicken pot pie is a joy, especially one that’s homemade but simplified (rotisserie chicken meat and Pillsbury crust, holler). I made this for Matilda’s new parents a few weeks ago, and it was so heartwarmingly good that I made it again the very next day. It makes enough for two medium-sized pans of pot pie, so we ate one and I stashed the other in the freezer, where it will keep for a few months (if it lasts that long), ready to ease the next heartbreak, soothe the inevitable embarrassment, or celebrate the next joy — maybe just a chilly evening with friends and family.

Joy to you, friends! And chicken pot pie.

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Cran-Raspberry Pie

November 25, 2013 by mollygilbert520 12 Comments

More cranberries! Fresh ones. Because they’re beautiful gems and they taste good with raspberries in a pie. Or a tart? I can’t decide what this is, really. It’s kind of half and half. A halfsies situation.

The important question is, do you want to go halves on this thing?

I think this little number would make a nice addition to our regular line-up of Thanksgiving desserts. It’s pretty and seasonal and sweet/tart satisfying. It could go in between pumpkin and pecan, maybe? Kitty corner from good ol’ apple betty? We could call it crazzberry pie. Nice ring to it, eh? The crazzberries taste like crazzberries!

…Sorry. I’m excited. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! It’s the one time of year that the whole family comes to town and, drinks-wise/food-wise/fun-wise, we go to town. My family is big and loud and kind of nuts, and on Thanksgiving I just feel the luckiest. There’s a lot to be thankful for.

Thank you by the way, for being you. For stopping by from time to time and getting chatty in the comments. For you and for so many other things, I am thankful. I hope your holiday is filled with love and laughs, and plenty of pie, crazzberry or otherwise.

(…Also stretch pants. She’s a brave yet uncomfortable gal who wears jeans to Thanksgiving dinner. Just saying.)

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