The Green Period

If I were an artist, this time of year would have to be characterized as my “Green Period.”  It seems that nearly everything seasonal that I have to cook with, especially if it comes in our CSA box, is green.  It’s easier to list the exceptions: strawberries, radishes, a few hot-house tomatoes, the white parts of scallions, a few chard stems…you get the idea.

And so I set out to try a recipe I had put aside for when such green things were back in abundance, one for tacos made with Swiss chard cooked with onions and garlic.  Now, usually I forgo publishing a recipe that didn’t live up to my unreasonably high expectations, or that I just found only so-so.  In this case, while I did find my attempt at this dish only so-so, I love the idea of the dish, the theory, the method, the very lifestyle of it.  I want to, again and again, eat sautéed greens wrapped in tortillas.  I want you to want to, too.

You see, I had a memory of some delicious sautéed greens with lots of garlic and perhaps some vinegar that I had made as a side dish at least a year ago. That’s what I wanted in my tacos. Earthy greens, really garlicky, a little salty.  I added to that memory of flavor with a big handful of cilantro, a bit of chile pepper, and a splash of lime juice.  Somehow, however, I missed my imagined mark.

These tacos weren’t bad, of course.  Since I sautéed my chard instead of boiling it, it maintained its character and avoided that canned spinach pitfall, the risk of which boiled green are always running. (The original recipe called for boiled chard.)  I just wanted more garlic, chile, lime, cilantro, and, okay I’ll admit it, salt flavor. Perhaps in a second run at this recipe I’d be more extreme, but I’m going to print it as I made it, knowing that it really was pretty good. Good enough to make again.  Good enough to promote the idea of stuffing tacos with sautéed greens forevermore.

I also garnished the greens in these tacos with some homemade fresh cheese, from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.  I used the same ingredients and technique as I did for the cottage cheese in this post, but drained off more of the whey and squeezed the fresh curds into a drier cheese.  It went quite nicely with the sautéed greens on my taco.  So did the tortillas I made (I’m more excited about the tortillas than about the rest of the taco).  More on those tortillas in another post.

So, I say enjoy your own little Green Period if you’re going through one now in your refrigerator or garden or farmer’s market or CSA box.  And put some green things in your tacos!

 

Tacos with Sauteed Greens and Fresh Cheese

Based on a recipe in Martha Stewart Living magazine

I like to include the stems with the sautéed chard.  Just finely chop the stems before cooking.

1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil

1 small yellow or white onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves or 2 heads green garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon minced fresh chile pepper (or to taste)

6 ounces chard (or other dark greens), chopped

2 tablespoons water

¼ teaspoon coarse salt (or more to taste)

1 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, chopped

1 tablespoon lime juice

fresh cheese and flour or corn tortillas for serving

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes, or until soft and beginning to brown, stirring frequently.  Add the garlic and chile and cook about 1 minute more, stirring constantly.

2. Add the chard, water and salt and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently, until the chard is tender and well wilted.  Add the cilantro and cook until the cilantro has wilted.

3.  Add the lime juice and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.  Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.  Serve with fresh cheese on tortillas

Makes about 2 servings.  This recipe can be doubled.

Other recipes like this one: Chard Tart with Feta Cheese and Olives, Chard Soup with Cilantro and Lime, Pasta with Kale, Summer Squash, Olives and Feta Cheese

One year ago: Wheat Berry Salad with Sugar Snap Peas and Lemon Vinaigrette

Two years ago: Rhubarb Yogurt Cake

Lime Bars

We all know that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. But what if life offers you limes at ten for a buck. Well, I suppose Margaritas come to mind first, but if you’re a dessert-lover like me, you might be thinking lime bars. I know I was.

I was probably thinking lime bars because I had this lemon bar recipe (and nice photos) in my mind when I stumbled across the good deal on limes. It seemed it would be a simple substitution of lime juice for the lemon juice. Harry, who is a Key lime pie fiend, was, of course, enthusiastic, but he wouldn’t let me stop at, “I’m going to make you some lime bars.” No. He, in all his Key lime pie fiend-ness, said, “You could make them with a graham cracker crust and they’d be more like Key lime pie.”

Blink. Blink. “Of course they would,” I said, but I was thinking, “Idiot! Why didn’t I think of that?” The important thing is that somebody thought of it and somebody made the bars that way and they were delicious.

The graham cracker crust does take the bars a little more toward the Key lime pie category. It is fairly thick and sturdy, sturdy enough to allow one to pick up small squares of the dessert with one’s fingers if desired. (We didn’t eat it in small squares.) And if you’ve really got Key lime pie on the brain, you could serve each bar with a dollop of whipped cream. I simply sprinkled powdered sugar on some of the bars, found that it didn’t make that much difference, except to hide the not-that-attractive top of the lime custard layer, and left it off of subsequent servings. No time!

These bars are pleasantly pucker-y (actually quite tart) and would be nicely refreshing on a hot and sunny summer day. I say “would be” because we haven’t had any of those in a while. Oh well, they’re good in any weather and quite easy to make, especially if you have a food processor in which to mix the crust. (If you don’t have one, you can crush the graham crackers and mix the crust by hand.) And I might as well be making them now, in the cold and rain. As soon as it gets warm and sunny, there could be something else that life might give me that I’ll have to figure out how to use. Like zucchini.


Lime Bars with Graham Cracker Crust
Adapted from a recipe in Baking Bites

Crust:
8 ounces graham crackers
2 tablespoons sugar
7 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 cup lime juice, strained of pulp
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

powdered sugar to garnish if desired

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Spray a 9-inch square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray (or brush with melted butter). Set aside.

2. Place the graham crackers in a food processor and process to coarse crumbs. Add the 2 tablespoons sugar and melted butter. Process until well mixed.

3. Pour the graham cracker crumb mixture into the prepared baking pan. Press into the pan evenly and firmly. Bake at 375 F for about 15 minutes or until golden brown on the edges. Remove from the oven.

4. While the crust is baking, combine the eggs and sugar in a medium-size bowl. Whisk together until smooth. Whisk in the lime juice and vanilla extract.

5. Pour the egg mixture over the baked and still warm crust. Return to the oven and bake at 375 F about 18 minutes, or until the filling is set and only jiggles slightly when shaken. Cool completely or chill if desired. Cut into squares to serve. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

Makes at least 16 servings. Cover and refrigerate leftovers for a few days.


Another recipe like this one: Rhubarb Custard Bars

One year ago: Szechuan Broccoli and Water Chestnut Stir Fry, Broccoli Stem and Kohlrabi Slaw

Two years ago: Sweet and Tart Broccoli Salad

Three Peas Please

Three bean salad gets all the summertime attention. (No? Well you’ve heard of it anyway.) Before the full-fledged barbecue season begins, however, there are peas that need their moment in the salad spotlight. Sugar snap peas take center stage, at least in my productions, and they deserve it. They’re fresh, sweet and tasteful, and, unlike some other stars we might know, always leave their outfits intact.

The first bag of sugar snap peas we got from the CSA were so super crisp and sweet that they only needed their ends and strings removed to be perfectly and comfortably edible. Sometimes, the pods of sugar snaps, which are more fleshy and tender than those of other peas, can be just a bit fibrous and stringy. If that is the case with your peas, you can blanch them (boil briefly, then shock them in ice water to stop the cooking) before using them in this salad (or any salad.)

Really, I could have eaten all of these sugar snap peas out of hand, like trail mix or potato chips, they were so tender and sweet, but I had had the idea for a three-pea salad for a long time, so I kept some aside to combine with English peas, yellow split peas, toasted walnuts and a walnut dressing. I totally cheated and used some frozen organic peas, which were nice and sweet as well. Fresh peas are pretty hard to find, even when they’re in season, and can lose their peak flavor very quickly once they are plucked from their vines. Packaged frozen peas are picked and immediately frozen while their flavor is just right and are usually a very good substitute for fresh peas, unless you have your own little field of peas from which to pick.

I wrote the recipe below to include cooked yellow split peas because I only used ½ cup of them, and it seemed silly to include instructions for firing up the stove and cooking so few peas. Instead, I recommend cooking up a whole pot of them, putting the ½ cup in this salad and freezing the rest to use in soups, curries, dals, other salads, or a second run at this salad. If yellow split peas are not convenient or desirable, you could probably use another variety of split peas or lentils. They add some starchy body to the salad in addition to their voice as third pea.

The walnut dressing is thick and creamy. It’s kind of a small volume to make in a full-size blender (I did it anyway), so maybe one of those miniature food processors would work better. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I was just thinking of how the crunchy sugar snap peas, sweet English peas and starchy yellow split peas were going to taste in a bath of walnuts and lemon flavor. They needed another accompaniment, and Parmesan cheese (I used Parmigiano-Reggiano) did the trick, adding a sharp and salty flavor and a bit more chewy texture to balance out the sweet peas and crunchy walnuts. I sort of twisted my knife through a block of Parmesan to get little irregular shards of cheese.

It turned out to be a very good show. Good enough to run again. This is good, because even though the Summer Solstice has come and gone, the weather in this part of the country has not been conducive to full-fledged summer eating. Sugar snap peas may have to be the stars for some time to come.

Three Pea Salad with Walnuts and Parmesan
The dressing for this salad is based on one in Farmer John’s Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables by John Peterson

If your sugar snap peas are a little tough or fibrous, you can blanch them briefly before using them in this salad.

¾ cup chopped walnuts
2 cups sugar snap peas, strings and ends removed, blanched if desired (measure after trimming)
1 cup fresh or frozen peas (thaw and drain well if frozen)
½ cup cooked yellow split peas
¼ cup Parmesan cheese coarsely crumbled (about ¼-inch pieces)
1 tablespoon walnut oil
2 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

1. Place the walnuts in a small skillet over medium heat. Toast for a few minutes, stirring or tossing often, until they are just beginning to brown. Set aside to cool.

2. Coarsely chop the trimmed snap peas (I cut them in half or thirds). In a medium-size bowl, combine the snap peas, peas, yellow split peas, ½ cup walnuts, and Parmesan cheese.

3. In a blender jar or mini food processor, combine the remaining ¼ cup walnuts, walnut oil, lemon juice, water, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth, adding additional water if the mixture is too thick to blend. Pour over the snap pea mixture. Be sure to scrape as much of the dressing out of the blender jar as possible. Mix well to coat.

Makes 4-6 servings. Store leftovers for a day or two in the refrigerator.

Another recipe like this one: Wheat Berry Salad with Sugar Snap Peas and Lemon Vinaigrette

One year ago: Rustic Homemade Crackers with Thyme, Green Bean and Shiitake Salad with Creamy Wasabi Dressing

Two years ago: No-knead Bread

Garlicky Carbonara

Our CSA has its own blogging diva (Peggy at Cook Out of the Box), an experienced cook, ingredient expert, and veritable walking encyclopedia of home-cooking knowledge. Her “Inspiration” posts help us subscribers, who are often a bit panicky at the site of a box full of seemingly unrelated and occasionally unfamiliar fresh ingredients, out of a lot of scrapes. Or, in the case of a recent post, out of some scapes as well.

In last week’s CSA box we received a bundle of garlic scapes, which are twisty curly stems that bear the immature flowers of the garlic plant that will grow up to give us the garlic bulbs we all know and love. They taste like mild garlic and are easy to chop up and sauté to add to just about anything that might usually contain garlic and onions.

Alongside those great scapes many of us also received a bunch of garlic chives. I’ve heard of these, and even tried to grow them (without success), but I don't recall ever eating them before. With flatter leaves than common chives, they look more like grass blades, and they really taste like a combination of mild garlic and mild onion. Subtler than either, mellow and delicious. Assuming you like garlic.

Peggy, in her Inspiration post, suggested tossing sautéed garlic scapes and garlic chives with pasta and Parmesan, creating a sauce with a bit of pasta-cooking water. I almost made just that recipe, but then I remembered that I had some bacon, purchased for BLT sandwiches featuring the fabulous lettuces we also got in our box. I would take the garlicky pasta idea, add bacon and eggs, and make it into a carbonara.

If you’re a genius of Italian cuisine, you’ll probably be turning up your nose at my version of this dish. You will see clearly from the photos that I did not achieve a delicate, creamy slurry of barely-cooked eggs and cheese. Those are quite obviously curds of scrambled eggs nestled amongst the pasta, bacon and green things. All I can say is that I tried. I transferred the hot noodles right to the pan along with hot pasta water, hoping they would quickly heat the eggs without overcooking them. It looked pretty good in the pan, but I’m afraid in the time I took to take the photo, I may have lost some of the intended traditional carbonara texture. Oh, the sacrifices I make for The Messy Apron.

Anyway, guess what. I don’t care. The dish is still delish. The meld of egg, cheese, bacon, and mellow garlic flavors is still delightful (perhaps even addictive), and if you’re not that hung up on perfect texture, the leftovers are great, too. All in all, a fabulous use of pantry and refrigerator staples and a couple of unusual ingredients from the CSA box. Of course, a real Italian chef would probably use Pecorino Romano cheese instead of Parmigiano-Reggiano in this dish, but, since I’m not even a fake Italian chef, I’m not beholden to culinary tradition and am free to love the dish just as I made it. Imperfect as it may be.

Pasta Carbonara with Garlic Scapes and Garlic Chives

3 strips thick-cut bacon (or 4 strips of thinner bacon)
8 ounces uncooked long pasta (I used linguine)
salt for cooking pasta
½ cup finely-chopped garlic scapes
½ cup finely-chopped garlic chives
3 large eggs, beaten
¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese (preferably Parmigiano-Reggiano), divided

1. Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-low to medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from the pan and set aside on paper towels to drain. Chop or crumble when cool. Remove all but about 1 tablespoon of the rendered bacon fat from the pan. Return to medium-low heat.

2. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in boiling salted water until tender. If possible, time the cooking of the pasta so that it is ready to go straight from the water to the pan (see step 4).
3. Add the garlic scapes and garlic chives to the bacon grease in the heated skillet. Cook 4-5 minutes or until the garlic scapes are tender, stirring often.

4. Remove the cooked pasta from the cooking water and transfer it directly to the pan with the garlic scapes and garlic chives. Toss briefly. Add the eggs, ½ cup Parmesan and about ½ cup pasta-cooking water. Turn off the heat and toss just until the eggs start to thicken. Serve immediately topped with the remaining Parmesan.

Other recipes like this one: Pasta with Yellow Squash, Corn and Bacon; Spaetzle with Cabbage, Bacon and Onions

Two years ago: Eggs Benedict Salad