Swiss Chard Happiness

 I love Wednesdays because that is when my organic produce is delivered, and this week I received a beautiful bunch of Swiss Chard. Additionally, I have been having a wicked beet craving, so naturally I thought about goat cheese, and knew what I wanted. This recipe is an adaptation from Epicurious (which by the way, I do miss when it was just Bon Appetit recipes).

3 Beets
1 Bunch of Swiss Chard
1/2 a small onion
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 bunch of scallions, sliced
Soft Chevre
Pinenuts (Toasted)

First, preheat oven to 400°F. Wrap the beets (after cutting the green off first) in foil and roast for about an hour, until soft and peelable. Peel, then dice into bit size pieces. Put your beet bits in a bowl in the fridge. Be wary of beet juice in this process.

 Next stage, de-stem the swiss chard. To do this, fold Swiss chard leaves in half lengthwise and cut stalks away from leaves. Then coarsely chop the leaves (about one inch), and slice the stems thinly across their bow (crosswise). Keep them in seperate piles. 

To begin the cooking, boil a large pot of water and salt, bring to a boil. Add leaves and blanch for about a minute. Heat oil in heavy large pot over high heat, I used my DeBuyer monster. Add your stalks and saute until tender, about 8 minutes. Add the onion, scallions, and garlic. Keep sauteing.  Turn the burner down and simmer until it's all nice and saucy, probably 10 minutes...ish...Add your chard leaves and stir. Season with salt and pepper. 

Now you can plate from here, by putting your leaf conncoction on a platter and decoratively sprinkle the beets, pine nuts and chevre about. Or you can add it all to the pot and put it on your plate next to a hunk of crusty bread. Your call.

Rustic Pear Galette

I know this is dreadfully early for me to be posting, you'll survive I'm sure. On the bright side, I do have pictures. So I was rumaging around in my freezer and found some pie crust that I made not long ago. Pie crusts freeze beautifully by the way. So I thawed it out when my produce box from Door to Door Organics showed up (Love!). This left me with a disturbing number of pears, red, bosc, d'anjou...it was excessive. Solution? Rustic Galette (aka lazy pie).

You will need:
- 2-3 pears, firmer is better
- 1 home made pie crust (like for one side)
- Sugar
- Cinnamon
- Flour (for dusting)

 Let's Begin! Preheat over to 350. So we take our room temperature pie crust, put it on a floured surface and roll into a rough round.

 Then we flip the round into our baking vessel. I am using a metal pie tin. You can do this on a baking sheet too.

Now we are going to slice up the pears. After using the slicer/corer, I then halfed or third'ed the slices so they are thinner. You will notice I did not peel my pears. I like the color and frankly was just being lazy. It's your call.

I arranged my pears in a pretty overlaping pattern. No real point besides presentation, but it does help if you have the round edges to the edge of your crust for the next part.

We then fold the edges over the pears, creating the side wall crust. Sprinkle the pears with sugar and cinnamon.

Then you slide it in the oven and walk away for say....20 - 30 minutes, keep a weather eye on it. The crust should be golden and firm, the pears soft and juicy. And it should smell excellent.
Let it cool for a moment, this is important.

Not Quite a Spanish Omelet

I have been MIA for a while, I realize this. I could make excuses, like I was in Roatan for 10 days, I had finals, my aunt has engaged me in biological warfare vis a vis a virulent virus causing flu like symptoms. Regardless (note the correct usage of that word), I had a quick dinner post for when you haven't gone grocery shopping in a while and require something more substantial than that sad lonely can of chicken noodle soup forgotten in the back of your pantry.
Now a traditional Spanish omelet involves potatoes, onions, and eggs. I do not particularly eat potatoes other than sweet and thus do not typically have them laying around. Therefore this involves onions and eggs, a little EVOO, salt and pepper. As a side note, I do have a number of sweet potatoes laying around but wasn't feeling brave enough to make them into my omelet. Another time.

Ingredients
-  2 - 3 medium yellow onions
- 6 large eggs
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Salt and Pepper to taste

To start, peel your onions, half and quarter them, then slice into approximately quarter inch thin strips. Then heat up a large saute pan, like my sexy DeBuyer stainless steel monster (aka not teflon coated). Add enough EVOO to thinly coat the pan. Add onions and saute. I like to allow a touch of carmelization, but you want the onions to cook down so they are soft and translucent.
Remove the pan from heat. Break all the eggs into a bowl and mixed them, adding a little salt and pepper. At this point you want to take a non stick pan, preferably with nice rounded up eggs and add a sprinkling of EVOO and heat up. Add the onions to your egg mixture.
Once the non stick pan is warm/hot, add egg/onion mixture. It should begin setting up fairly promptly. Once the eggs are a little set, turn down the heat slightly. Grab a dinner plate.
Once the eggs start to lightly brown and the egdes are fairly cooked, but the center is still runny (like should be pretty runny), carefully place the dinner plate over the pan so it fully covers your omelet. You may want to run a spatula around the edges to help ensure none of the omelet is sticking to the pan. This will make the next stage easier.
Pick up the pan and walk over to the sink. Put your hand on top of the plate and smoothly and quickly flip the pan over so the omelet lands on the plate. This takes practice. Don't be alarmed, this is why we do it over the sink. Now turn pan right side up and then slide the omelet off the plate back on to the pan so that the runny uncooked side is now down on the hot surface of the pan.
It started to take on the resemblance of a crust-less omelet to me at this point. Continue to cook this bad boy.
After about 3 - 5 minutes, your omelet should be fairly set. Run a spatula around the edge and slightly under to make sure your egg pancake is pretty firm. Slide it onto a dinner plate and walk away for about 2 minutes. Maybe sprinkle some cheese on it if you are feeling dirty.
Slice it like you would a pie. I like hot sauce and ketchup on mine. Also makes an excellent sandwich with any left overs.

You want pictures? Tough. I'll take some next time I make one.