zucchini and feta pizza with fresh mint and preserved lemon (a.k.a. the yas queen)

happy pizza friday, dudes and dudettes!!! 

eggboy and eggmom are currently in the living room rehearsing--eggboy on trombone, eggmom on the piano--for their big show this weekend at the town heritage days! they're playing all-american tunes like yankee doodle and america the beautiful and i'm feeling like i should stand up at attention throughout this whole band practice (licking the lips, on the verge tears, michael phelps-style, you know?). but obvi i've got pizza on the mind since it's friday.

there is this magical zucchini that's been in our refrigerator for weeks now. it's massive and i don't think it's ever going to go bad. i bought it for this pizza but only ended up using a small part of it and so every day for the past five days i've intended on making the chocolate zucchini muffins from love and lemons' book but then a cold attacked and i've been trying to brute force this shit out of my system by way of vegetables and yogurt. or maybe it's allergies and then i think the yogurt makes it worse? oh screw it. i'm making those muffins today.

ok, so, the yas queen pizza is pretty much exactly this pasta but with pizza dough and zucchini instead of pappardelle. i made it over the fire on fourth of july and it was a crowd and twitter favorite. it is so bright and summery and a worthy departure from saucy pies.  

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the yas queen pizza

(zucchini, feta, fresh mint, preserved lemon, garlic, pine nuts, harissa, jazz hands!)

1. make a batch of jim lahey's pizza dough and give it its full rising. (feel free to use another dough but the temps and timings here are for jim's dough)

2.  preheat the oven to 500ºf, divde the dough in half, and flatten it out into a 10-11" circle on a floured surface or piece of parchment

3. top with a layer of thinly sliced zucchini (use a mandoline or vegetable peeler), brush it with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, top with a handful of crumbled feta, toasted pine nuts, chopped garlic, and chopped rinsed preserved lemon (you could also sub out a squeeze of fresh lemon after baking)

4. bake until the crust is browned and splotchy, begin checking for doneness at 7 minutes

5. sprinkle with fresh mint and splatter paint with harissa

6. enjoy!

and here is a very mediocre method of cooking a pizza over a fire (a.k.a. a cry for help): put a baking steel over a fire, either by propping it up with heat-safe bricks or a metal rack, and heat it up. slide your assembled pizza on and cover it with an inverted cake pan. this is kinda janky. check every so often to make sure the bottom doesn't completely char. when it's about to burn on the bottom and the top is cooked just past raw dough status, it's basically edible. top with mint and harissa. 

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-yeh!

a big green cobbler with leeks, gruyere, and split peas

ok hi from santa monica! i am here this week filming some videos with tastemade and generally worshipping huckleberry every moment i get. i've been wearing the half-bun and a nifty new pair of aviator sunglasses and i got a slight bit of tan, but so far no one has mistaken me for a local. i'm trying to figure it out. is it because i don't have a car and have been walking everywhere? am i acting and dressing like 76º is warmer than it actually is? or maybe it's my accent. syalad, syandwich, syanta monica.

that's ok! even if i was mistaken and someone asked me for directions, i would not know the answer. unless if it were to huckleberry. 

i'm mostly really excited to cook with california produce. and i'm thinking i'll just hide out here until our garden back home comes up with cucumbers and tomatoes and fairytale eggplants (new this year!). which brings me to this recipe, because it's likely my last recipe of the season that will require you to really cook the daylights out of vegetables before eating them...

did i ever tell you about the green party that my parents threw me when i was three? i only vaguely remember it because i was three, it might have been at chuck e cheese, but everything was the color green except for probably the food because that was back when i only ate macaroni and cheese. if i had been eating green foods though, this savory cobbler would have been a good contender for the menu. all it is is five different green things swimming in a pool of gruyere and topped with buttermilk biscuits. you can get with that, right? it's very leek-centric and has a nice scoop of dry split peas, which is a new ingredient for me! i tried them because this year is the international year of pulses (have you taken the pulse pledge yet??) and have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to have these little green dudes on hand to throw into soups and stuff.

if you'd like to add in any more green veggies to this cobbler that you have on hand or sub out the spinach for another leaf or the leeks for another allium, go right ahead. this is a very forgiving cobbler!

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big green cobbler

serves 6

ingredients

3 tb butter
3 leeks, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
Salt and pepper
1 bunch scallions, chopped, whites separated from the greens
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c flour
1 1/2 c vegetable or chicken broth
1/4 c heavy cream cream
2 packed cups spinach
1 c shredded gruyere
1/2 c dried split peas, cooked according to the package directions

Biscuits:

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 c whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
14 tb butter, cold and cubed
3 tb buttermilk
1 egg, beaten

clues

Preheat the oven to 425ºf.

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium high heat and add the leeks, zucchini, a pinch of salt, and a few turns of pepper and cook, stirring, until the leeks are soft and translucent, 7-10 minutes. Add the whites of the scallions and the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Stir in the flour and cook for another minute, and then add about half of the broth. Cook, stirring, until the broth has thickened, and then add the other half of the broth and then cook until thickened. Stir in the cream and spinach and cook until the spinach has wilted. Stir in the cheese, the peas, and all but a handful of the scallion greens and then reduce the heat to low. Let it simmer, stirring occasionally, while you make the biscuits.

To make the biscuits, whisk together the flours, 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. Fold in the remaining handful of scallion greens and then mix in the buttermilk until the mixture comes together to form a dough. Turn it out onto a floured work surface, pat it out to 1/2” thick and then cut out round biscuits, re-rolling scraps as needed.

Pour the green 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. Bake until the biscuits are golden brown, begin checking for doneness at 25 minutes. Enjoy!

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-yeh!

thank you so much to usa pulses and pulse canada for sponsoring this post! 

pita ribollita

i opened up the camera on my phone so that i could video tape myself hitting send on the email with my manuscript, went to hit send and then realized i hadn’t written anything in the body of the email, put my phone down, typed “attached!” and hit send without remembering to pick my phone back up. i think holding onto that video would have been kind of hoarder-ish anyway. then i tweeted, took my first shower in a week, and went to the town’s new fancy restaurant with eggboy and ate a schnitzel with rosemary fries and two ramekins of ketchup. it was my first time wearing shoes and interacting with non-egg humans in a very long time and it all felt like how your eyes feel when you step out into the sun after being in the dark for too long, but my good heavens, that relief. like descending into a hot tub on a cold winter day. and the joy of being able to spend the next day sitting on the couch in my underpants eating potato chips, watching the today show and kelly and michael, and then to even entertain the possibility of going on a weekend ski trip or cooking my way through zahav… 

ok, i’m not off the hook yet, i still have the other half of my photos to take, which are due in april. but for at least these next few days i’ll be zoning out and decorating for valentine’s day and, oh, putting away our chrismukkah bush.

how have you been?? what all is new? did you watch grease live?? i’ve watched it twice so far and cannot stop listening to “magic changes.” which i’m grateful for because i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to listen to sia again without reliving the stress of my deadline. 

anyway, i am in severe need of vegetables because for the two entire weeks leading up to my deadline, i ate almost exclusively pita with salted butter. it was sort of like how steve jobs wore the same exact outfit every day so that it was one less thing to think about. so here is a really warming, vegetabley soup that’s got a bunch of torn pita in it since homemade pita is queen of my bread box rn, and it’s flavored with hawaij for soup, the savory sister to hawaij for coffee, that’s got cumin, turmeric, and cardamom at the front and center. this soup is kind of like what would happen if chili took a trip to the middle east and had to leave all of its meat behind at customs, ya dig? and i’m pairing it here with lemon ginger kevita because it’s a perfectly refreshing partner to hot soup, and say it with me now, “pita ribollita with kevita!” you know how i feel about a good rhyme… oh and this soup happens to be even better heated up the next day, so if you want to make a big pot for your super bowl part this weekend, you can totally make it a day in advance and then just reheat. easy peasy. 

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pita ribollita

makes 8 servings

ingredients

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for serving
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 large carrots, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons hawaij for soup
1/2 teaspoon aleppo pepper
Black pepper
2 bay leaves
1 28-oz can chopped tomatoes
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 14-oz cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups chopped or torn pita, fresh or day-old
plain greek yogurt or labneh, for serving
chopped fresh parsley, for serving

clues

in a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. add the onions, carrots, celery, and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring, until the vegetables are soft, about 10-15 minutes. add the garlic, hawaij, aleppo pepper, and a few turns of black pepper and cook for 2 more minutes. add the bay leaves, tomatoes, broth, and beans and bring to a boil. cover and simmer for 20 minutes. stir in the pita and cook for 5 more minutes. taste and adjust seasonings as desired. ladle into bowls, top with a drizzle of olive oil, a plop of yogurt, and a sprinkle of parsley. 

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and serve with lemon ginger kevita! kevita is a sparkling probiotic drink that i pretty much lived on while i was writing my book, and the ginger in this flavor goes so well with hawaij for soup. also the company was started by a friend of lily’s! yayyy! i feel very country bumpkin that i didn’t find out about it until very recently but i’m hooked now because it’s way tastier than drinking plain jane fizzy water, not too sweet, and it’s healthy because of all of the probiotics. 

-yeh!

thank you so much for sponsoring this post, kevita! all opinions are mine. kevita makes 11 flavors of their sparkling probiotic drinks which each contain (4 billion cfu’s) and 6 different kombuchas made with fermented green and black tea leaves. their kombucha also contains probiotics, as well as b vitamins and organic acids to boost energy. all of their drinks are dairy free, gluten free, kosher, non-gmo, organic, and vegan and you can click here to see where you can find some! (i get mine at target!) click here for more information on kevita!

garlic sesame broccoli rabe with panko crusted chicken

sugar beet harvest is more than halfway done! i couldn't believe it when eggboy told me this news yesterday. he's expecting it to be over by friday, making it a contender for the smoothest harvest in my three-harvest history on the farm. it is at once a joy, because once it ends there will be more eggboy time for me (!!), and a shame because i've been liking the weirdness of the harvest schedule and the excitement of having all of the extra workers and their significant others around.

a typical day for eggboy this past week has been a midnight to noon shift in the fields and then another few hours being a man about the farm. a typical day for me this past week has been:

6am: wake up! before the sun! eggboy is long gone, which is kind of lonely at first but then i realize that 1) he has left me coffee and it's already cooled to a temperature where i can chug it at the speed of light, and 2) i can do all of the beyoncé dance workout videos on youtube without anyone seeing me.

7am: let out the chickies! this is normally eggboy's job but i've been doing it this week and getting a perfect shot of cold crisp air in the morning as i shout with glee, good morrrrrrning chickies! as if they are all at summer camp and i am the camp director wishing everyone a swell morning over the p.a. then i count them to make sure they're all there. and then i take in the creamsicle sunrise. 

sometime before noon: make a baked good for all of the drivers to enjoy when they get off their shifts and then run it out to the sweet table that i've set up in the workshop. this is extra fun! it makes me feel like i have a little bakery.

sometime between noon and 5pm: have lunch with eggboy. by this time he is exhausted and trying to adjust his eyes to going to sleep, so he wears sunglasses. and i don't know if he lost his or what but he's been wearing my iris apfel ones and it's completely absurd.

5pm: tuck eggboy into bed, do a little more work, and then parrrrrrrtay. either with all of my new cookbooks and prime time television, or with the other "harvest widows," as i think we're called. but i hate that name. so i'm just gonna say emily and sheila. 

nightfall: put the chickies to bed. another job that eggboy normally does but that i've been doing this week. it's a little scary to walk the five feet outside into the dark spooky nighttime but it's making me a stronger lady. 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

meals this week have been a lot of things that don't have to be eaten immediately. sweets that can sit out in the shop at my little pop-up bakery, soups kept on the stove, quiche (lots of quiche)... and salads of various types. this broccoli rabe + chicken salad is inspired by a tasty situation that i had multiple times at lemonade in los angeles this summer. theirs was pineappleish and coconuty with some green beans scattered within, but when you zoomed out the main takeaway was that it was crunchy, salty, sweet, and vegetabley. so good. so while my version is sweetened with honey, flavored with a variation of mum's magic sesame sauce, and greened up with broccoli rabe, all of the elements i loved about that lemonade salad are there. yeah, it's essentially fancy chicken nuggets cut up and tossed with sautéed broccoli rabe. and yeah, it is perfect either hot or cold. so make some for supper and then pack the leftovers for lunch! 

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Garlic Sesame Broccoli Rabe with Panko Crusted Chicken

makes 4 servings

ingredients

Chicken:

2 large eggs
1/4 cup honey mustard
3/4 tsp kosher salt
10 oz boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into strips
3/4 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds

Broccoli rabe:

Salt, to taste
10 oz broccoli rabe, chopped into 1-inch pieces
2 tb flavorless oil, like canola
4 cloves garlic, minced

Dressing:

1 tb soy sauce
1 tb sesame oil
1 tb honey
2 tb tahini
a pinch of crushed red pepper

clues

Chicken:

Preheat the oven to 375. Line a baking sheet with parchment and set it aside. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, honey mustard, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and submerge the chicken. Cover and let marinate for 5 minutes at room temperature. 

In a separate dish, mix together the remaining 1/4 teaspoon of salt, the bread crumbs, and the toasted sesame seeds. When the chicken is done marinating, using tongs, work a few strips at a time to transfer it to the bread crumb mixture. Coat all sides of the chicken in the bread crumbs, and then transfer it to the baking sheet. 

Lightly spray the tops of the chicken strips with cooking spray and then bake for 20 minutes, until lightly browned and cooked through. 

Let cool slightly and then chop into 1-inch pieces.

Broccoli rabe:

While the chicken is baking, prepare the broccoli rabe. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the broccoli rabe. Cook for 1-2 minutes and then drain, rinsing under cold water to stop the cooking process. Pat the broccoli rabe dry.

Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute, and then add the broccoli rabe with a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, for 5 more minutes. Taste and add additional salt if desired.

Assembly:

Whisk together all of the dressing ingredients.

Place the broccoli rabe and chicken in a large bowl and drizzle on the dressing. Toss to coat. Serve warm or cold. Enjoy!

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-yeh!

thank you, andy boy broccoli rabe, for sponsoring this post!