Recipes are for suckers

Sometimes you get fancy recipes from Gourmet magazine. But sometimes you don't. Perfectly good food can be made by texting your friend Matt the day before Thanksgiving and saying "Hey, remember that time we had dinner and you made swiss chard with the stems in it? How did you do that?" He texted back some guidelines and away we go!

First, swiss chard (don't forget to wash it) - here are the leaves. Chop them up a bit so you don't get giant pieces of greens in your mouth.


And here are the stems - so pretty. I chopped them into pieces about an inch and half long. Why would you want to throw those away?


Now some chopped shallot (Matt suggested onion, but we had a lot of shallots).


That's pretty much it, you're ready to go!


Saute the shallot in some olive oil over medium heat - you want it to get soft, but not turn brown.


Then add the stems and cook until they're colorful (even more than they already are) and also turning soft.


Then add the leaves!


You may have to add them in batches - add some, let them wilt, add more.


Season with salt and pepper. I added some nutmeg too. Nutmeg is really good with sauteed greens.


That's it! Thanks Matt for your easy and delicious recipe.

Giving Lambchop a Fighting Chance

A few weeks ago, Zack read this article in the New York Times. "Did you see this?" he pestered me. "We should eat more like this." So I, being the accommodating girlfriend that I am, made an effort to make our meals more like this.

For those of you too lazy to read the article, it basically talks about the merits of eating less meat (not no meat, just less). Having grown up in the land of tofu, I feel pretty much the opposite of that sentiment. "Meat!" I grunt. "Bring it on. Extra bloody. I will suck on the bone marrow!" (No, I haven't had bone marrow yet. We should go! Yes, I mean you.) However, we're getting our CSA deliveries every week now, and I basically have more vegetables than I know what to do with, so I can see the merits of eating more veggies and less meat.

Tonight for dinner, I throw together what is rapidly becoming my go-to salad: baby arugula (thanks, CSA), cherry tomatoes, avocado, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and a few shavings of Parmesan cheese. It is really good, plus it uses up a lot of lettuce and I get A LOT of lettuce every week now.

I moved on to polenta (which you've all seen me make a thousand times. Click here if you feel nostalgic) with sauteed swiss chard. The more CSA veggies I eat, the more I feel like Alice Waters. Instead of cooking really complicated things, I just get really good produce and cook it simply. I sauteed half an onion in some olive oil, chopped up my beautiful rainbow swiss chard and threw it in the pan. After it wilted, I hit it with some salt and pepper. Super easy and delicious. Anyone could do it.

I finished my plate with some tiny loin lamb chops. I figured, if I'm going to eat less meat, it may as well be a really good cut. I just sprinkled some salt and pepper on them and threw them in the broiler. They sure were tasty.

Here's our meal after I ate half of it and then decided to take a picture with my cell phone. I miss my camera.

Find one thing, lose another

I got my second box of CSA veggies today. I am liking the CSA so far. You pay for it in advance, so after you pay a (rather large) lump sum, you don't have to give anybody any money and they just give you a giant box of freshly grown veggies. It feels like it's free (even though it's not).

I got some pretty things, my favorites being the strawberries and rainbow swiss chard. I took some pictures for you, and I was all set to post them (since I finally have internet in my apartment again), but then - I couldn't find the cord to my camera. Figures. I'm like a Buster Keaton character over here. Oh well. I stole this picture off the internet instead.


I made a great whole wheat pasta dish with my swiss chard. You can expect many vegetable based recipes in the months to come!