Photo by Molly Rundberg

This picture was published on Oprah.com  for Gayle King’s Favorite cupcake from the 2011 NYC Vendy Awards.

I tested this Maple Bacon Cupcake recipe from the Cupcake Crew for Oprah.com.  When I test recipes for O Magazine they have me take pictures and send them in as well as the tested recipes. This way they can see what the recipe looks like and start thinking about the layout, photos and food styling.  They liked my shot so much they used it online with the recipe!  So, here it is, my first photo credit, I was surprised and proud to say the least.

Photo by Tony Cenecola of New York Times

Photo by Tony Cenecola of New York Times

All food styling by Molly Rundberg

Click for original New York Times article and recipes  Salsa Verde with Grilled Fish—Cuban Black Beans—Burger—Rye Pretzel- Rosé Gelatin–Meatballs— Buttermilk Ice Cream Sundae with Bourbon Caramel

Photo by Tony Cenecola of New York Times

Photo by Tony Cenecola of New York Times

Photo by Tony Cenecola of New York Times

Photo by Tony Cenecola of New York Times

Photo by Jens Mortensen

Food and Photo by Molly Rundberg

Gluten-Free Yogurt Banana Pancakes

1/2 cup white rice flour

1/2 cup teff flour

2 tbsp. ground flaxseed meal

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup non-fat yogurt  (not Greek yogurt)

1/4 cup low-fat milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 large very ripe bananas, mashed

Butter, for the griddle

Pre-heat griddle to medium-high heat, whisk your dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl and whisk your wet ingredients together in a small bowl. Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined, don’t over mix.  Pour ¼ cup full of the batter and cook until batter is bubbling in the middle and the underside golden brown about 2-3 minutes, flip and cook another 2 minutes until golden brown. Serve on their own or drizzle with maple syrup.

Makes 16 pancakes

Serves: 4

Food and Photo by Molly Rundberg

It’s cold, well it was. Spring is here so why would I want to remember winter? For all my complaining about winter, especially this past one, why look back? I don’t feel that you can fully appreciate warm beautiful spring/summer weather without going through the rough winters, maybe some people can. But I get something from the feeling in the air when it changes from cold to warm to hot, and freezing to brisk to humid, it helps me know that we are moving forward, moving on. When I think of the best of this winter, I think of this chicken chickpea stew. It brings back all the memories of meals with friends and family here in our apartment. It was a big hit and many wanted the recipe, that is the other reason I can’t move onto spring, at least in this blog until I posted this. I know it took me a long time, I’ll have to think of why. But here is the stew, now I will move on to spring, then quickly onto summer and it’s going to be a good one, I can feel it in the air.

Chicken Chickpea Stew

Note: There are major short cuts to this stew, like store bought broth and roasting 4 chicken breasts (season with salt and pepper) in the oven at 400º F for (30-45 minutes depending on how large they are) check with an instant read thermometer for doneness 165º F.

Serves: 6

Broth and chicken:

1 whole chicken, 4 pounds

3 medium carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

1 medium onion, roughly chopped

2 bay leaves

5 peppercorns

½ tsp. salt

1 cup parsley, and stems

1 head of garlic, cut in half crosswise

Stew:

1 small butternut squash, peeled and chopped

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. cumin

4 tbsp. olive oil

1 medium fennel bulb, chopped

1 inch ginger root, peeled and finely chopped

1 container of hummus, 8 oz.

1 can chickpeas, 15 oz.

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. pepper

½ cup chopped parsley

POACH CHICKEN:

Rinse the chicken, and take off the excess fat in the cavity, place chicken in a stockpot. Throw in all the other broth ingredients and fill pot with cold water to cover the chicken. If you have some fresh herbs (parsley, chives, cilantro) throw in a few of those as well, can’t hurt.

Bring to a simmer uncovered, check occasionally (it should take the broth 30-40 minutes to come to a simmer) skim foam off the top. Gently simmer for 30 minutes (do not let it boil). Turn the heat off and let the chicken sit in the hot broth for another 30 minutes. Take the chicken out of the broth and set aside to cool at least 15 minutes or until you can handle it easily, discard skin, and shred the meat, place meat in a bowl and cover.  Strain broth into a glass or stainless steel bowl with a fine mesh sieve (you only need 4 cups for this recipe, will have extra to freeze for a rainy day).

STEW BASE:

Preheat oven to 400ºF, toss butternut squash with cinnamon, cumin, 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, ¼ tsp. salt and pepper, preheat a sheet pan in the oven for 5 minutes then add the butternut squash and roast for 20-30 minutes.  It should be tender and sweet.

Heat a large soup pot and add remaining extra virgin olive oil and salt, and sauté fennel over medium heat until tender about 5-7 minutes, add the ginger and cook an additional 2 minutes. Stir in hummus, chickpeas and 4 cups of the chicken broth, simmer for 15 minutes.

FINISH:

Add all of the shredded chicken and butternut squash to the stew base, simmer for 5 minutes season to taste salt and pepper, garnish with parsley.

Optional: Serve over coconut rice

Photograph by Hector Sanchez - Food Styling by Molly Rundberg - Prop Styling by Ed Gallagher

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Make it a sweet one.

x-o-x-o-x-o

Photography and Food Styling by Molly Rundberg

My grandma Dorothea was a very passionate woman, she loved food and cooking, books and knowledge, pretty clothes and perfume, but most of all she loved her family.

Dorothea was an intelligent, well read, and generous lady. Her generosity came in many forms, but the standout was that she always thought of others. If there was a chance someone, anyone was going to come over; a visit from my sister and me, a friend, a handyman coming to fix something, she was going to bake, most likely Mandelbrot or chocolate chip cookies. One of the two was always fresh and always offered. Mandelbrot was something that she could still bake even when she was 89 and blind. It is similar to biscotti in its twice-baked method, but worlds away in taste and texture, at least Grandma’s was.  Mandelbrot means “almond bread” in German, but she always made hers with pecans and chocolate chips, not almonds and in my research I found this is typical for many recipes (many using walnuts). To me these cookies are tender, crumbly, not too sweet, perfect with coffee or tea and very easy to make.

Dorothea still cooked when she was blind. She started to lose her sight in her 70′s to macular degeneration, she couldn’t drive but she could cook and bake. She fought with her sight, and she refused to stop doing the things she loved.

She loved to cook, she loved to impress us with her strong will and determination to do and see things. Needless to say we were impressed, she was a woman who to her dying day was doing her best to live. She was, until dementia set in her last year of life, totally up with the news, current events, new books (books on tape), she had a cell phone and still loved stylish clothes, her passions for things always amazed us.

I loved to talk about food with my grandma; She was my first insight into the world of cooking. She would just whip things up and I was always aware that her and her cooking “had a thing going on” a great relationship. She respected the cooking process and in turn the process always reflected her passion and attention, in turn her food sang. She cooked like she could still see, using every ounce in her being to do things, to cook things.

Up until the last few months of her life I would call her whenever I made a brisket. Six years ago I was working as a private chef for a family and making my first brisket, and I realized I didn’t know what I was doing and called Grandma. “Grandma how do you make brisket?” she gave me her procedure, it was as if she was cooking it in her head as she told me. The brisket turned out great and eventually through many tests I made the recipe my own flavor-wise, but always kept her genius method. Every time I made it I would call her and ask her how she made her brisket, just as a ritual. I loved feeling her love for food and hearing all about it. I miss talking to her about food and for that matter life in general. It’s been nine months since she passed and I think of her everyday. But as long as I am cooking she is with me.

A few recipes from Grandma's collection

Photography and Food Styling by Molly Rundberg

Mandelbrodt with Chocolate Chips
3 cups AP flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/ 2 tsp. salt
1 cup plus 1 tbsp. oil
1 cup sugar plus 1 tbsp. divided
3 eggs
1 cup finely chopped nuts (Grandma always used pecans)
4 ounces chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease baking sheet. In a medium sized bowl mix flour,
baking powder and salt. In an other medium sized bowl beat oil, 1 cup sugar
and eggs, then gradually add flour mixture. Fold in nuts and chocolate chips then form dough into a 10 1/2″x 4″ loaf.
Mix remaining sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle over top,
bake 20 minutes.  Cut loaf in half widthwise then in 2 inch slices
turn cut side down and bake until golden about 15 minutes.

Grandma and my mom

Photo by Molly Rundberg

This Saturday we rode our bikes to Red Hook, not only was it the nicest weather here in many weeks, we were on our way to pick out cake at BakedNYC. I kept saying that Hamlet was going to do all the tasting (me not eating wheat and all), he had no problem with this “burden”.  I didn’t know until I sat in front of the cupcakes, but I was going to eat cake too. Well I survived a day of wheat, today woke up a little tired and with a sore throat but my day of wheat eating has come and gone and I don’t need to push it any longer, I have been down that road before. So on to the cake!

Here we have our take home cupcakes that we tasted, we are not having cupcakes but two round (non-tiered) cakes. We picked two flavors, what do you think we picked? Here is what we tasted.  The slice on the upper right is called “bananas” its banana cake with chocolate peanut butter mousse surrounded by a layer of chocolate ganache.  Top left: red velvet cake with cinnamon buttercream, top right: salted caramel chocolate butter cream with chocolate cake, middle left: is birthday cake vanilla butter cream and vanilla cake, middle right: coconut cream with citrus vanilla cake, bottom left: vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, bottom right: chocolate birthday cake with vanilla frosting

So which do you think we chose?

Food styling and photo by Molly Rundberg

I shall explain. Hamlet’s birthday (my fiancé) is a few days before Christmas. Instead of a cake this last year he wanted a tart, so I told him I would make him a pear almond tart, then I got sick on his birthday and one thing led to another and the tart was long forgotten about. About a week ago, in his sweet demeanor he said “so I would really like my tart.” This is one thing I love about him, he says what he wants and there is no confusion. And he was right, the man deserved his birthday cake, I mean tart. So a slow work week led to me walking around town a lot. A walk to Atlantic Avenue led me through the Thursday Borough Hall Farmers Market which led me to the berries for this tart. The pastry cream I made was smooth and not too sweet. The crust, almond meal, some gluten-free flours and lots of butter! And success, Hamlet has never been happier with a dessert, he loves my gluten-free desserts, I wonder why? Yes, they are as tasty as desserts made with regular flour but he seems to like them better, maybe he likes that I can enjoy them with him. Regardless, he said I should make another one immediately because this one won’t last long.  I wonder if it will last the weekend?

Happy Fourth of July!

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Food and Photos by Molly Rundberg

I realize it has been months since my last post, this could be considered a positive thing since it means that I am busy with lots of work. But it is hard  because my blog means a lot to me and should be as important as work. So I will do my best to post pictures and recipes as I can and try a bit of a different format. So here are some pictures from brunch this afternoon and recipes will follow in the next week or so.

These quiches were made in honor of dear friends, out-of-town from Austin, Texas. We had grapefruit mimosas, fruit, roasted potatoes/butternut squash and two quiches: a caramelized leek, bacon and gruyere and an asparagus, mushroom, sun-dried tomato, chèvre.  What a wonderful lazy rainy Sunday.

Note: the sun-dried tomatoes from Fairway Market are the best.

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food styling and photos by Molly Rundberg

Over Valentine’s weekend my fiancé and I traveled to Los Angeles for our engagement party. Initally our flight was canceled due to that crazy blizzard, so the only way we could make it to LA was to drive to Boston to catch a flight there. And that is just what we did. After a crazy hour trying to get out of New York City, we started to enjoy our drive up to Boston, I think realizing that this mini adventure was really the start to our many adventures together on our road to marriage. We had fun and after a long trek to Boston, then a long wait at the airport then an excruciating flight, we made it to LA. My mom picking us up with snacks and her warm spirit made us so happy to finally be there. Our party was the next evening,  and not only did we have a gorgeous two tiered lemon cake from Violet’s Cakes in Pasadena, but my mom also made a Gluten-Free Lemon Cake and a lovely lemon curd, then I came in and made a Swiss Meringue Buttercream and put it all together. I eat gluten-free, there I said it! Something I have struggled with my whole life and only this past year have I admitted it to myself and others. Yes it is difficult as a chef to be gluten-free and especially one that tests and develops recipes that have wheat in them but I have figured out a way of tasting and not making myself sick. There are many things in a gluten free life that are enjoyable and this cake is one of them, actually it is hard to tell the difference with this cake, it is amazing!

Our big cake! From Violet's Cakes (non gluten-free)