Molly celebrates her and her husband's third wedding anniversary by making a special brunch for the family that includes Shakshuka with Feta, Brussels Sprouts and Bacon Hash, Pocket Pastries with Raspberry Jam and more. Below are the recipes used in today’s episode: Grilled Cheese with Everything Bagel Seasoning: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/grilled-cheese-with-everything-bagel-seasoning-5301467 Roasted Potatoes with Paprika Mayo: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/roasted-potatoes-with-paprika-mayo-5301375 Pocket Pastries with Raspberry Jam: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pocket-pastries-with-raspberry-jam-5301403 Brussels Sprout and Bacon Hash: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/brussels-sprout-and-bacon-hash-5301483 Shakshuka with Feta: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/shakshuka-with-feta-5301374 Listen to cookbook author, food blogger and Midwest transplant Molly Yeh prepare dishes inspired by her Jewish and Chinese heritage – with a taste of the Midwest – explaining her recipes and tips along the way. Want even more of Molly’s recipes? Stream full episodes of Girl Meets Farm on discovery+. Head to discoveryplus.com/girlmeetsfarm to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Molly celebrates her and her husband's third wedding anniversary by making a special brunch for the family that includes Shakshuka with Feta, Brussels Sprouts and Bacon Hash, Pocket Pastries with Raspberry Jam and more.
Below are the recipes used in today’s episode:
Grilled Cheese with Everything Bagel Seasoning: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/grilled-cheese-with-everything-bagel-seasoning-5301467
Roasted Potatoes with Paprika Mayo: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/roasted-potatoes-with-paprika-mayo-5301375
Pocket Pastries with Raspberry Jam: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pocket-pastries-with-raspberry-jam-5301403
Brussels Sprout and Bacon Hash: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/brussels-sprout-and-bacon-hash-5301483
Shakshuka with Feta: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/shakshuka-with-feta-5301374
Listen to cookbook author, food blogger and Midwest transplant Molly Yeh prepare dishes inspired by her Jewish and Chinese heritage – with a taste of the Midwest – explaining her recipes and tips along the way.
Want even more of Molly’s recipes? Stream full episodes of Girl Meets Farm on discovery+. Head to discoveryplus.com/girlmeetsfarm to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Find episode transcript here: https://girl-meets-farm.simplecast.com/episodes/farm-brunch-anniversary
[MUSIC PLAYING] MOLLY YEH: On a farm, every day is an early day. Today, I'm starting off with a favorite speedy grilled cheese sandwich with a bagel twist. Then I'm getting ahead by prepping our anniversary celebration feast tomorrow with crispy roasted potatoes with paprika mayo, a Brussels sprout, and bacon hash, and my spicy tomatoey egg dish shakshuka with feta. And for a finishing treat, some cute pocket pastries with my white chocolate and pistachio butter.
Hey, this is me, Molly Yeh. I am a cookbook author and food blogger. This is my husband, Nick. And this is our home, our farm on the North Dakota, Minnesota border, the place where I eat, sleep, and breathe food. My food is a delicious mix of my Chinese and Jewish heritage and the taste of the Midwest.
Since my husband Nick and I are celebrating our anniversary this week, I thought it'd be fun to make a breakfast version of one of his favorite foods, the grilled cheese. It's a twist on a favorite treat from my days in New York City, the everything bagel. To start off, I'll add a nice pad of butter to my pan. I'll swirl it around. And then I'm going to toast my bread in this.
I have some thick-cut seedy bread. And you can use day-old bread in this because when you toast the bread in your skillet, it's just going to wake it back up and infuse more life into it. Now, as my bread toasts, let's cut some mozzarella. Nick grew up with the classic American grilled cheese, so I like to think that these days his life as a grilled cheese lover has improved.
My bread is looking beautifully browned and toasted. And now this toasted side is actually going to become the inside of the grilled cheese. And the reason that I do that is because it adds more crunch to the middle, it helps the cheese melt faster since it's already hot here, and it also adds more buttery flavor. I'll grab my scallion cream cheese. This is literally just some regular cream cheese that I've mixed with a couple of finely chopped scallions.
Now I'm going to sprinkle on my everything bagel topping with some poppy seeds, dried minced garlic, sesame seeds, and some dried minced onion. This is a great topping to have on hand that you can sprinkle on scrambled eggs, toast, any time you want that bagel flavor but don't feel like flying to New York. We'll add some mozzarella so that when it melts, you're going to get those nice beautiful cheese pulls. And now some tomatoes and some beautiful purple onions for some nice color and crunch.
Lastly, we're going to add some capers, which are going to add a salty snap. And I'm going to place them on top of the cream cheese so that they don't go flying everywhere. I love these little guys. Let's give it a little smash. And I'm just going to place it back. If your pan is looking dry, just add a little bit more butter. And you'll know it's done when the bottom is toasty, and the mozzarella is melted.
I can't believe that our third wedding anniversary is coming up. I remember our wedding like it was yesterday. It was beautiful and wintery, and we got married on the farm. And then, late at night-- I just remembered this. Late at night, we had grilled cheeses at our wedding. That's got to be a sign, right? So what could be more perfect than by celebrating our anniversary with a grilled cheese?
We'll cut it in half. We have the cream cheese, the melted mozzarella, the bright purple onions, tomatoes, and you can even see a little caper poking out. Beautiful. While this is still hot, I'm going to wrap it up and bring it out to Nick. Hey.
NICK HAGEN: Hey. How's it going?
MOLLY YEH: I brought you a grilled cheese.
NICK HAGEN: Oh, my gosh.
MOLLY YEH: I brought one for me too. I thought we could eat together.
NICK HAGEN: Every time you make a sandwich, I'm thinking this is the best sandwich you've ever made, and it cannot be topped, and then you show up mid-morning with another one.
MOLLY YEH: It's our anniversary tomorrow.
NICK HAGEN: Oh, my gosh. Don't tell my wife I almost forgot.
MOLLY YEH: Nick and I have some family coming over tomorrow for brunch to help us celebrate our anniversary. So right now, I'm just getting ahead by making my dessert, which is going to be a pistachio pocket pastry. The filling is going to be a white chocolate pistachio butter. And to make it, I'm just going to put some roasted pistachios and use unsalted if you can find them so that you can control the salt. But if you can only find salted, that's fine. Just add a little bit less salt.
I'll add some white chocolate chips here. And I love this recipe because you don't even have to melt the chocolate chips. As you blend them in the food processor, they're going to melt right down and get really creamy and nice. Now we'll add a little bit of sugar and some salt, which is going to amp up that sweetness, some almond extract, and some vanilla extract.
Now here's a secret. If you blend any nut for long enough, it's oils are going to come out, and it's going to make a beautiful butter no matter what kind of nut you're using. It always becomes kind of crumbly and chunky at first, and that's what you use if you're making like a pie crust. And then what happens is the oils in the pistachios start to kind of come out a little bit, and it gets more liquid and spreadable.
Let's just check on it. You want to make sure that it gets evenly blended. So if any little bits are stuck to the sides or the bottom, just make sure that you go at it with your rubber spatula to loosen it back up. Just a few more minutes.
I can stand here with my nose all day. OK, this looks great. I'm just going to transfer this to my jar. And I'm going to use some of it to fill my pastry pockets and the rest of it. I just can keep on hand to spread on toast or to put on ice cream, or just to eat with a spoon. Mhm, yum.
I'm heading to my auntie Elaine's house now to pick up some of her amazing homemade jam from my pastries. I grew up in a city, but I love living in the middle of nowhere. Life is simple here. It's cozy, especially in the winter and everybody here is just so sweet and welcoming. When I first moved to town, auntie Elaine was always teaching me about recipes of the region and different berries that she has growing in her garden, some of which I had never even heard of. So I figure, if I'm going to be using jam, I might as well be using hers.
SPEAKER 3: Hi, how are you?
MOLLY YEH: Let me give you a hug.
SPEAKER 3: And here's the jam.
MOLLY YEH: These look amazing. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 3: Bye-bye.
MOLLY YEH: Bye. I've got my raspberry jam. I've got my pistachio butter. And I've got my baking buddy Roxanne, my mother-in-law, who has made the long trek across the street to help me with my pastry pockets. Can I put you to work?
SPEAKER 4: Yes, by all means.
MOLLY YEH: OK, we've got some pie dough here. I'm using store-bought. But if you want to use homemade, go right ahead. And we're just going to cut out little squares. We're using a cookie cutter, but you could use a knife or a pizza cutter. And we have some pistachio butter with white chocolate in it. And we'll just take two spoons to get a nice little plop onto the center of my squares. And then just smash it down.
And I like creating a little divot because that'll hold the jam. So this is kind of like a PB and J, like a fancy PB and J.
SPEAKER 4: Well, a little story about Nick. I shouldn't reveal this, but he was a picky eater growing up. And I wanted him to try different foods.
MOLLY YEH: Just growing up?
SPEAKER 4: Oh, he still is? I would make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day, and I never changed that. I would hoping that he would want to try other things.
MOLLY YEH: Hoping that he would get sick of it?
SPEAKER 4: He was great with peanut butter and jelly.
MOLLY YEH: OK, beautiful plops, Roxanne.
SPEAKER 4: Thank you.
MOLLY YEH: Now that we have all of our pistachio butter on our pie crust squares, let's just add a little bit of jam. Now we're just going to give our pastries a nice light brush of egg wash around the edge. That's going to stick the two pieces of pastry together. We don't want to add too much. Otherwise, it's not going to stick, so just the light brush will do.
SPEAKER 4: I'll try to do my best.
MOLLY YEH: And now I'm going to come around and top them with another square of pastry that's the same size. If you're doing this by yourself, it's important to just do a few squares with egg wash first before you top them. Otherwise, your egg wash might dry. Now, if you're done with that, do you want to start grabbing a fork and crimping the edges? This is just going to help those pastry pieces stick together, and we'll lock that filling in there.
These are looking great. Now the last step before we stick them in the oven is we're just going to poke them with our fork to get a few holes that will release the steam in the oven. All right, these are going to bake in a 400-degree oven for about 20 minutes until they're nice and evenly browned on top, and then we'll be ready to glaze. While the pastries are baking, we are going to make a fun pink glaze using Elaine's jam.
All I'm going to do is take some of her jam, and we're going to press it through a fine mesh sieve just to get the seeds out. And I'm using jam here just to add more of that raspberry flavor. It also is going to make it a beautiful pink. But if you'd like, you can just go with a simple powdered sugar and milk glaze and add a little food coloring. And I'm just using a rubber spatula to press the jam through the sieve. Add a little bit of powdered sugar.
What we're going for is an opaque glaze that's kind of like the consistency of a thicker glue. We want it to hold its shape when it goes onto our pockets. It'll just look cuter that way. Should we check on the pastries to see if they're ready?
SPEAKER 4: Sure. Oh, they look nice.
MOLLY YEH: Great.
SPEAKER 4: Oh, they smell good too.
MOLLY YEH: Perfect. They're evenly browned around the edges. Let's try glazing. We'll just spread this over the top of our pastries. And before this glaze dries, why don't you just hit it with some sprinkles?
SPEAKER 4: OK, perfect. Oh, my gosh.
MOLLY YEH: Well, they're looking great. Should we taste one?
SPEAKER 4: Absolutely. You almost hate to disrupt they're beautifulness.
MOLLY YEH: Oh, that's what they're made for. Oh, they're so blinky.
SPEAKER 4: Oh, nice.
MOLLY YEH: Oh, look, OK, so we have the beautiful, yeah, the pistachio layer, the jam on top, and of course our bright pink glaze. Cheers, Molly. I got ahead with dessert yesterday, and I have some family members coming over later for brunch. So I'm going to get started on one of my favorite dishes to feed a crowd, roasted crispy potatoes with paprika mayo.
I just have some potatoes boiling in some really salty water. This is going to help season the potatoes, and it's also going to draw the starch to the surface of the potato, which will make it crispy in the oven. And I'm using red potatoes, which are great roasting potato. They say creamy on the inside. And crispy on the outside, but you can certainly use Yukon gold or russet potatoes as well.
I'll just drain my potatoes in a strainer. And as these drain, I'll just get some butter melting. I'll use about 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. If you'd like to use olive oil or another oil, that's fine. I just love something about butter in the morning. Now, as that is melting, I'm just going to pat off my potatoes to get any excess moisture off of them. This is also to help them get crispy. Anything in the name of helping my potatoes to get crispy.
I'll just dump them onto a sheet tray. I'm going to add a little bit more salt and pepper to the top of these. Potatoes really like a lot of salt. So it's going to seem like it's a lot of salt at first when you're boiling them and seasoning them, but once you taste the potatoes, you'll know. The squeaky one. I'll get my butter on here. And then we'll just give it a little toss to get these nice and coated with the butter and my seasonings.
This is kind of my version of a potato salad because I like them to be really, really crispy, really salty, and really mayo-ey. It's a hot salad, I guess, but we tend to bend the definition of salad in the Midwest. Now I'm going to pop them in the oven at 450 degrees for about 45 minutes, and I'm going to toss them halfway through so that they get nice and brown all over. While these are baking, I'm going to whip up my sauce. I'll grab some mayo here, sugar. And then I'm just going to start with about a cup of mayo.
I love mayo so much, and the Midwest is the perfect place to love mayo. I'll add some basic white vinegar. And this will really balance out the flavors here. It's a little bit of heat from some paprika that we're going to add. And then we're also going to add a little sugar. And then I'm going to chop up a couple of shallots to add to this. This sauce is great for sandwiches great for salad dressing. So I'm actually making a double batch of this just so that I can have some extra on hand for later. I'll just give it a little stir, taste it, mhm, it's great.
While my potatoes are cooking, I'm moving on to the next dish for brunch. I'm starting on my Brussels sprout and bacon hash, which is an awesome side dish because it scales super, super easily, and it makes the house smell like bacon. So to begin, I'm just going to shred up my Brussels sprouts really, really thinly. I get so excited when I see them on the stock like this at the store because that means that they're going to stay fresher longer. They'll be sweeter that way. And even though they look weird, I promise they're just the same Brussels sprout that you would find in any other form.
And so you just pop them right off, and I'm going to use my sharp knife here to cut them vertically. And then I'll lay them down and cut them horizontally as thinly as I can. And you can use a food processor, but I find it therapeutic to do it by hand. So once I have these shredded, I'm going to have my bacon crisping up in my pan. This is thick-cut bacon. I always make extra so that I can snack on it. And I'm just going to transfer it to a plate with a paper towel.
Now in my pan, I have this bacon fat leftover, and I'm actually going to use that to cook my Brussels sprouts. Now I have an onion here, and I'm just going to cut it in half. So if there's anything better than the smell of bacon cooking, it's the smell of an onion cooking in bacon fat. And I'm going to add a pinch of salt to this. Once my onion is starting to look soft and translucent, I will add my Brussels sprouts.
I was a Brussels sprouts hater for a really long time. But once I started having them with bacon, all of that changed. So my onions are nice and soft. I'm going to add in my Brussels sprouts. I'll stir them up to get them coated evenly with bacon fat. And what we're looking for with these Brussels sprouts is a bright green color and some brown bits all around. That's how we'll know that they're done.
So once my bacon is cool enough to handle, I will just give it a rough chop just so that their bite-size pieces, and then we'll add that in. All right, I'm just going to add a little bit more salt and pepper. Don't go too crazy with the salt because our bacon is going to be quite salty already. But we will need some salt to bring out the flavors and the Brussels sprouts. Now I'll add some freshly cracked pepper. Give it a little taste to make sure your seasoning levels are correct. Perfect.
I'm going to add a juice of half a lemon. And I like giving it a little squeeze to release the juices. Now the lemon here is important because it's just going to add the right amount of acidity to really amp up the flavor on this dish. It's going to bring new life to it. It's going to make it brighter, beautiful. Even more sizzles. I love it. Now for the last step, I'm going to add some hot sauce. And I'm going to take it easy on the hot sauce because, as I've learned in the upper Midwest, not everybody likes things to be very spicy.
So I'll just add a little at this point, and then I'll let my guests add more if they want. This is looking great. My bacon is crispy. It smells amazing. I'm just going to stick it into the oven and keep it warm until it's time to serve. Since you can't have a branch without an egg dish, I am making one of Nick's favorites, shock sugar, spicy tomato-ey eggs that he cannot get enough of. So to begin, I'm going to heat some olive oil, and then I'll add my chopped onions. This is about 1 and 1/2 onions.
Once my onions are soft and translucent, I'll get my spices in here. I have some cumin, some paprika, and crushed red pepper. I'm just going to start with a cumin. Adding these spices at this step is going to toast them a little bit and help wake them up. Crushed red pepper and then some paprika. Now I'm also going to add some garlic, lots of garlic. Smokiness plus garlic is a match made in heaven. I love that smell.
And now I'm going to add harissa, which is a Moroccan pepper paste. Harissa comes in a paste or a powder, and you can find it at most supermarkets. But if you can't find it, feel free to sub any hot sauce you want. Now I'm going to add some tomato paste. We'll give that a little stir. I'm going to add 1 and 1/2 cans of tomatoes, and we're going to pour the liquid from the can in there as well.
So I'm just going to let this sauce simmer for a little bit until it starts to thicken. If I need to make it a little bit more hearty, you can add some couscous or some little pasta in with this. If you need to let this simmer on the stove for a little bit because maybe you have a farmer husband who says he's going to be in 20 minutes but an hour later, he's just bringing the tractor on in, it's perfect for this. All right, let's just have a little taste. You can add a little bit more salt. Beautiful. This sauce is thick and delicious, and it's ready for the eggs.
So what I'm going to do here is I'll just create little wells for my eggs. We're putting them directly into the sauce. And I'm making the wells just so that the egg whites don't spread all over the top. Now, these eggs are going to cook until the whites are firm, but the yolks are still runny. I love it when the yolk mingles with that sauce. It is so delicious and creamy and good. And I also like dipping bread into a runny yolk. So make sure to keep a close eye on it so that you can stop it from cooking before the yolks overcook.
Now I'm nearly there. I'm just going to grab my potatoes out of the oven. They are golden brown and crispy, just the way I like them. I'll grab my sauce out of the fridge. And I'm just going to use about half of my paprika mayo and then serve the other half in little bowls for people to add more if they'd like. So pour it right over the top, and I'll stir it around and get them nice and evenly coated.
And to serve, I'm going to chop up some chives, which will add some nice color and crunch and flavor. And there we go. These are already. My eggs are looking great. You can jiggle it to see that the yolks are still runny. Perfect. I finished things off with a little salt and black pepper, the squeaky one, a drizzle of olive oil, a good sprinkling of fresh parsley, and a crumbling of sharp feta.
This is ready to serve.
SPEAKER 5: This looks amazing.
SPEAKER 6: It's going to be great.
SPEAKER 7: Oh, here it is.
MOLLY YEH: Thank you all so much for coming today. We are so honored to celebrate our anniversary with you. All of you were in town? You were in town too, but you didn't come to that dinner.
SPEAKER 8: I'm so sorry I missed it.
SPEAKER 4: Yeah, how did that happen that you weren't--
MOLLY YEH: Was it Thanksgiving Weekend?
SPEAKER 9: That's what dreams are made of, right there.
SPEAKER 10: Happy anniversary.
NICK HAGEN: Happy anniversary.