Creamed Greens
November 19, 2012 - Written by DianaThis recipe is a great way to use up greens – any kind of greens for your Holiday dinner. My market bag not only has greens in the form of collards, kale, chard, spinach, but there was bok choy last week and we even have greens on root vegetables – beet, turnip and radish. What to do with all of those greens. Cream them up. When we were little my grandmother made creamed spinach with the frozen spinach and mushroom soup. This is my version – using all different types of steamed greens, and leeks. As a plus I took the bok choy – the greens were steamed and the more sturdy white part was sauteed in the oil along with the leeks for extra flavor. My version uses a roux and also chevre instead of cream of mushroom soup.
My husband said he never had creamed greens or spinach, usually he had the canned spinach. I never liked canned, and frozen is okay, but nothing is as good as fresh, even if you are cooking it up. However, if you are creaming your greens, you can use frozen – stay away from canned. It’s just not nice at all.
It takes …
Orzo, Asparagus and Garlic Scapes in Garlic Scape Pesto
May 29, 2012 - Written by Diana
What to eat when it’s hot outside ? A salad with pesto as the dressing is better than mayo or heavy dressings and parts of it can be made ahead of time to be combined sometime later before you eat. Both my husband and my son enjoyed this for dinner, my husband loved it so much he finished off whatever was leftover that same evening.
I received garlic scapes in my market bag and used it in the pesto and the salad itself, chopping it into pieces about one to two inches in length. I cut the asparagus and the leeks to the same size as the garlic scapes (though they weren’t used in the pesto). I prepared this again with more asparagus for our Memorial Day family gathering, but I have broccolini that would work well and so would fresh peas.
Garlic scapes are substituted for garlic in this dish, I used it in the pesto and the salad. They are the seed heads that shoot up among the garlic, cutting the scape off is supposed to lead to a bigger head …
Rutabaga Au Gratin with Leeks and Sage – Battle Spherical
March 28, 2012 - Written by Diana
So many spherical things, what to do, what to do, spherical ingredient, or spherical dish?… I had to decide quickly because the month was winding down for this month’s Culinary Smackdown – Battle Spherical. Rutabaga, mango, oranges. Are oranges too round to be spherical? Is a lime more spherical? Looking up sphere – it has to be perfectly round, well, then mango isn’t spherical, or lime, but the rutabaga was pretty darn round (Drat – now I remember that I forgot a photo of a rutabaga before so that you could see how round it was.
My son’s friend was over and asked what I was peeling and I told him it was a rutabaga – similar in taste to a turnip. It is a swede turnip, or a yellow turnip and a cross between a turnip and cabbage. The skin is thin, but difficult to peel because it’s so big and round. I just used a big knife to skin it. Then I sliced it thinly and cut the slices into pieces. Since this is a play on another classic – potatoes au gratin, think …
