Quiche Le-Whatever You Want

It's not every day I, your average American Josephine-The-Plumber, thank my lucky stars for the French. They are, as the stereotype goes, rude, snobby, condescending, and suspiciously skinny given their per capita cheese and wine consumption (damn you!).  But, I forgive them all their faults because they gave my city the Statue of Liberty...and because they are the proverbial Michael Jordan of world cuisine. Seriously, while the Anglos were building a Navy and the Chinese working on gunpowder, the French took serious pains to master the uses of everything delicious on the sweet and savory spectrum. Clap for the French.

Pastries and Julia Child aside, I find most French cooking fairly simple in terms of both ingredients and procedures, and these characteristics appeal to my cooking simpleton sensibilities. Rebecca, my birthday twin from high school (who took our formative French language class years to the exxxtreme and lives in Paris!), nicely details some of the fine French consumption habits, namely that the French get all omg sacre bleu when it comes to eating non-seasonally.

This week, we were inundated again by beautiful big leafy greens. In an effort to reduce the volume down to a manageable amount of food that can fit in mini-fridge, I'm taking cues from the French and turning some of these lovely seasonal greens into a quiche.  Quiche can really never go wrong: Crust, eggs, cheese, and hidden veg inside... What's not to like, it's an idiot-proof formula for deliciousness. As such, I hereby pay homage and say mayrcee bow-coop in my best Alabama accent to the Francais for the project I am pursuing with today's CSA bright lights swiss chard and last week's CSA summer savory. 

Ingredients

Seriously, this chard is too pretty.

-Bright Lights Swiss Chard
(err, or any big leafy green like spinach, kale, etc.)
-Red pepper, half of one, sliced thinly
-5 eggs
-Heavy Cream, 1/2 cup
-Cheese of your choice
 (I used 1/3 cup shredded cheddar and goat cheese sprinkles this time)
-Summer savory (this is fancy NY State fresh thyme)
-Pie crust (using whole wheat store bought)
-Salt/Pepper to your taste

  

 Faissez Le Quiche Comme Ca!

1. Preheat the oven to 425F.
2. Saute down the greens in a saucepan in a spoonful of olive oil. I like to add in some salt and pepper right here.
3. Drain the greens in a colander, press out the liquid.
 4. Evenly line those drained greens along the bottom of the pie crust, then layer the red pepper on top of them.

5. Mix up the eggs, heavy cream, summer savory, and any shredded cheese in a large bowl. Pour over the greens.
6. Top off the quiche with some goat cheese sprinkles around the surface.
7. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn down the oven to 375 and bake another 20 min.
8. Bon appetit.

ooey gooey quiche delight.

Spinach Gnocchi + Basil Pesto = I'm delightfully full but my kitchen is a mess.

I got to bragging today at work about that Golden Purlsane Potato Salad, to a fellow CSA member no less. She countered with having used the bunch of spinach in last night's dinner: spinach gnocchi. Gnocchi? You know, that potatoe-y pasta marriage of carbohydrates that comes in an over-sized maggot shape. Mmmmm, maggots.

I love gnocchi, maggot shape and all, but the thought of making it at home in mini-kitchen without robots and conveyer belts and maggot-shaped molds sounded daunting. When I've never made a particular recipe/meal/foodthing before and I can't immediately rattle off what would be all the ingredients (in my mind) and tool set, a large neon DIFFICULT light starts flashing in my brain. OMG, gnocchi? DIFFICULT.

But my perception of gnocchi was about to change. As it turns out, making gnocchi is not as hard as say, discovering the Higgs-Boson particle. How do I know this? Because when you Google "Spinach gnocchi," a Guy Fieri link is the 3rd return. Yeah, that red neck with bleach blond hair who works for the Food Network and plugs Chili's or Applebee's or whatever crappy chain restaurant he works for that is equivalent to eating out of the dumpster, minus the stigma. I contend that anything that dude can cook, I can whip up too (though style points to him for the flame shirt). 

So, as it turns out, apparently, you can make gnocchi at home and don't need some super complex pasta assembly line. But you do need patience. And upon a further bit of googling, I preemptively learned that you need to get the dough consistency correct, otherwise you're liable to make a pile of slimy mush.

Here's what I did to use up my bunch of spinach before it got too wilty, taking cues from my lab mate and amalgamating a bunch of recipes around the web. This makes about 6 servings, so I'm making plenty to have leftovers.

guilt-tripping spinach: "eat me, or i will promptly wilt"

Ingredients

-Spinach, 1 bunch, washed sliced finely
-Potatoes, 1.5 lbs, basically 2 large russet potatoes, peeled cut into 1" chunks
-Onion, 1 medium, 1/2 cut up into chunks, 1/2 fine dice
-Garlic, 4 cloves whole (mashed down to release juices), 4 cloves minced
-Parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup grated
-Flour, 11/4 cups
-1 egg
-1 egg yolk
-Olive oil, 2-3 tbsp
-Salt/Pepper

the basic ingredients. earth balance accidentally snuck in...

Protocol

Prep the potatoes

1. Add potatoes, chunky cut onion, and 4 cloves mashed garlic into a pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook 10 minutes.
2. Drain the potatoes in a colander, but then chuck them back into the hot empty pan for a minute or two. This will help to evaporate any lingering external moisture in the potatoes.
3. Mash the potato/onion/garlic mixture in a bowl. Let cool, then lay out the mixture on a cookie sheet to get further moisture evaporation. You want this mixture to be as dry as possible. While this is drying you can prep the spinach.

Prep the Spinach

1. Sautee minced garlic in olive oil on medium-high heat for 2 min, then add diced onions and sautee another 3 min.
2. Add spinach and cook another 3-4 minutes or until all the spinach has wilted down.
3. Drain in a colander. Press out liquid (you may have to wait for the spinach to cool a bit).

Prep the dough

1. Beat egg and egg yolk in a large bowl. Add spinach mixture, then mashed potato mixture and flour and parmesan cheese. I mixed this all up with my hands along with salt and pepper to my taste.
2. Roll out dough logs with an approx diameter of about 1/2" on a floured counter. I had to use quite a bit of flour to prevent the (very sticky) dough from burrowing its way into every nook and cranny on my fingers.
3. Cut 1" segments of the log. I rolled these nubbins into a ball, then pressed my thumb onto a side to get an over-sized orecchiette look.

Wishing I had a maggot-shaped mold...alas, ear shapes will have to do.

 

Cook 'em up

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
2. Chuck in gnocchi balls/ears/shapes, and cook til they float to the top (about 3 minutes).
3. Strain and bathe in cold water for 30 seconds.
4. Enjoy with your favorite sauce or cheese or both...




How I ate them: With a pile of homemade pesto (1/2 cup pine nuts toasted, 2 handfuls of basil, 4 cloves of sauteed garlic, 1/2 cup Parmesan, 1 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp salt)--> blended til smooth.

Blurry spinach gnocchi + pesto + a saison brew.  Mmmmmm.

Golden Purlsane Potato Salad: Better than Athlete's Foot Sandwiches.

This week's CSA delivery brought with it something called Golden Purslane. Having never heard of this soon-to-be-in-my fridge veggie, my hasty googling uncovered an interesting little NY Times piece on what is also known as "regelah" or "foot" in Hebrew from a few years back.  Admittedly, the pending arrival of a succulent weed with names that translated to "foot" in other languages, and the fact that it is often the discarded bane of many a gardener didn't exactly get me jazzed.

My natural skepticism had fully prepared me to chuck the "foot" flavored leaves into the "take 1 leave 1" veggie leftover bag when I got to the CSA pickup.  However, I could not in good conscience, orphan a veggie without a sample, especially since it turns out it's a rather cute veggie with leaves, stems, and bulbous little nubbins to boot.

Golden purslane leaves and grape-like nubbins for extra crunch.

I grabbed a quick nibble of a raw, plump leaf only to be delighted by an almost lemony flavored burst of leafy goodness.  The bite was accompanied by quite a bit of flavor, undoubtedly due to the fact that golden purlsane is a succulent, so its leaves are chock full of H2O, which in this case, packed extra lemony punch.  Turns out, though golden purlsane is unlike any green leafy veggie I've ever eaten, it's definitely not foot-flavored (though I'm not fully schooled in the many flavors of foot out there). In fact, it's quite delicious.

So what to do with my lemony foot crunch? My laziness over at the NY Times article presented an interesting sounding link to Russian Potato Salad with dill and purslane.  With a bunch of colorful potatoes around the kitchen, this sounded like it had potential, so I went ahead and threw this potato salad together opting for a Greek Yogurt-Mayonnaise combo base.

 Ingredients

-Golden Purslane, 1 bunch, washed
-Potatoes, I used colorful new potatoes
-Scallions, 2-3 sliced finely
-Mayonnaise, 1/4 cup
-Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup
-Capers, 2 spoonfuls
-Fresh dill, half a handful chopped finely
-juice of 1 Lemon
-Loads of fresh pepper

Potato Salad Protocol

1. Boil washed, chopped up potatoes in water until soft (about 10 min).
2. Mix all ingredients in a big salad bowl. I used only the leaves and nubbins of the purslane and left out the stems which are extra lemony. I think a little stem action couldn't hurt, but beware too much lemony foot flavor :)
3. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Extreme close up of the final product.

Afterthoughts

 I love a good crunch in any meal. Onions and potato chips are my go-to essentials when I'm looking for crunch, but the purslane really did a nice job of tricking out the potato salad. I'm quite fickle when it comes to potato salad (or any summer salad with mayo for that matter) - too much mayo or too mushy a texture and I'm likely to trash it, but the amount in this salad is Goldilocks just right, and the purslane offsets the cream base with its mild acidity and crunch.  It might go well with tuna/chicken/egg salad as well, either mixed in, or as the "lettuce" on a sandwich. I enjoyed the 'tater salad as an accompaniment to a portobello burger bathed in blue cheese....mmmm...

Summer delights: portobello burger + 'tater salad.

Grandmama's Crustless Super Fluffy Ricotta Cheesecake Even a Hater Will Enjoy.

Mmmmm cheesecake, a dieter's delight. Luckily, I've engaged in a diet that allows cheesecake. It's called the "be a pig and then get your arse to the gym/pool/jog" diet.  I can't recommend this diet highly enough.

Cheesecake seems to be a huge fan favorite for sweet tooth(s) everywhere, but I never opt for it, given a dessert selection (then again, I don't have much of a sweet tooth). The consistency is often too brick-like and the cake itself I find overly sweet.  I'd rather have ice cream if I'm going to put myself into a dairy sugar coma.

That's where Grandma comes in to save the day.  In my likeness, Grandma isn't too fond of overly sugared desserts either (relatedly, an immigrant friend of mine with the baking acumen of a Taiwanese Betty Crocker says that whenever she follows an American recipe, she always cuts the amount of sugar called for in half...apparently, American baking recipes double as diabetes how-tos).  Grandma's cheesecake recipe saves the day through delicate, subtle sweetness and puffed fluffy like air-in-a-cloud consistency, thanks to a ricotta base.

This is obviously not a CSA-inspired recipe, BUT, as I've been away all week at a conference and most of the veggies were depleted in my absence, I figured I'd put up what I'm a-cookin' in the meantime. My disclaimer is since this is baking, the basic ingredient accuracy is somewhat important (ie, annoying), however, I will say this recipe is pretty flexible with respect to add-ons. I've added pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices for a Thanksgiving cheesecake, and I think chocolate/nuts/cinnamon would also work. Some folks probably like a crust on their cheesecake, but this one works pretty well without it. I'm considering throwing together a fresh fig compote as a topping this time....

                                                   Ingredients*

All the fatness one cheesecake can hold.

-Ricotta cheese, 1 Lb
-Cream cheese, 1/2 Lbs
-4 eggs
-Sugar, 1.25 cups
-Sour cream - 1 pint
-Lemon juice - 3 tbsp plus zest
-Flour - 3 tbsp
-Corn starch - 3 tbsp
-Butter, melted, 1/2 lb (ie, 2 sticks)
-Vanilla extract, 2 tbsp


*I've used fat free/low fat/full fat combinations on all of the dairy items, and it comes out a little differently each time, but always delicious, so feel free to sub wherever you see fit. This time I'm going light on cream cheese, because that's what Trader Joe's had yesterday...

Procedure

1. Pre-heat oven to 325F.

Mmmmm...I'm getting hungry...

2. Beat eggs until thick and lemon colored, add sugar and lemon juice.
3. In a large bowl, combine ricotta and cream cheese. Slowly mix in egg mixture and some zest.
4. Add flour and corn starch and mix. I don't have an electric mixer, so I have to beat out the lumps with some extra elbow grease. A few dry mix lumps doesn't mess it up, I promise.
5. Stir in melted butter and vanilla, and then finally the sour cream.

6. Pour into an ungreased 9" springform pan and bake 40 min to 1 hour, or whenever the top-middle looks cooked through (can check with the toothpick test).

7. After the cooking has finished, turn off the oven and let the cheesecake equilibrate in the (off) oven for 1 hour. Then place in fridge overnight (can remove the springform rim after one hour in the fridge).

Betty Crockerowitz in the hiz-ouse.

Final product + Cool Whip + Fig Compote

Afterthoughts

So I threw together some fig compote (fresh figs chopped up, sugar, a cup of water, cinnamon, and two lemon slices (skin included) into a saucepan, reduced to a hot syrupy delight), and served that atop the cheesecake with a spoonful of cool whip. The cheesecake was a hit amongst friends, and though the level of sweet was spot on mild, the consistency of the cake was still a bit heavy for my taste. I think this was the first time I made it with mostly full-fat products (I usually go no fat on the sour cream and low to no fat on the ricotta), and that may have contributed to its heft.

Remaining Greens Soup

It's Friday, and we've done a pretty good job of clearing out the whopping pile of greens that arrived in Monday's CSA bundle. The chard and spinach went to a delicious pie, the remaining spinach and mustard greens were thrown into a frittata, and the (lettuces, arugula, and some mizuna) were all used up in side salads. That left over pretty much all of the Chinese Cabbage and some Mizuna.

What to do... Luckily (err or not...), I seem to have come down with some kind of sinus-cold that I am boldly fighting with vitamins, water, rest, and the following healthalicious-get-better soup I threw together. Nothing too innovative here, just a good way to get those greens down deliciously* and not wasted!
*Deliciousness not guaranteed, my taste buds are off.

Ingredients

almost done soup!

-Bouillon/stock/soup base - I use Better than Bouillon for quick throw-together soups, especially when I'm sick and can't be bothered fussing with real-er broth bases or making my own.  If the butler were here today, I'd be forcing him to make me some broth from scratch. This time it was chicken base.
-Carrots - chopped up so they cook reasonably fast
-Greens - this time, Chinese Cabbage,  Mizuna, and Cilantro
-Garlic - used up the remaining garlic scapes

 

Ready, set, cook

1. Dilute broth as indicated in a saucepan, throw in chopped carrots and garlic scapes.
2. Bring to just under a boil, toss in the greens, and turn off the heat. The greens will cook in about 1 minute (and not turn to complete mush...yuck, mushy veggies are the bane of my existence!)
2. Enjoy in on the 3rd hottest day of the summer (yet) and kick the crap out of any cold trying to get the best of you!

please let me be able to breath through my nose again.

Afterthoughts

This soup definitely could have benefited from some kind of dumpling or matzoh ball. Hopefully it just makes me better and then I can just stick my foot in my mouth and munch on that.

Moroccan-y Leafy Green Savory-Sweet Pie

Bright Lights Swiss Chard + Garlic Scapes

I'm a complete sucker for savory-sweet combinations. Sea salt + (insert sweet thing here, but especially dark chocolate) is like kryptonite for my waist line. I've also had a recent fling with chutneys as the condiment of choice in a savory dinner. Mrs. Ball's, despite her unfortunate moniker, makes a mean chutney of sweetness that sends any lamb dish into OMGYUM land.

I've been using chutneys and other tricks (apples and blue cheese in salad FTW) to try to incorporate savory-sweetness wherever possible, and veggie-based dishes are no exception. This week's CSA delivered a whopping 6 types of leafy greens, a volume my Oompa Loompa-sized mini fridge is unequipped to hold.  Here is a snapshot of about 1/100000th of these greens:

To accommodate mini-fridge, I decided de-volumize those greens by turning some of them into a savory-sweet pie.  Cali's blog features a great recipe for Swiss Chard, Raisin, and Pine Nut Tart which she adapted from Gourmet. I have doubly adapted her adaptation to suit my own gluttonous savory-sweet (and recipe ADD) ways. My adaptation of an adaptation draws on some Moroccan influence with the cinnamon and cumin flavors a la Tagine.

Since this is the first recipe I'm posting, my disclaimer is extreme flexibility in anything I cook...This recipe can have so many substitutions I don't know where to begin. Meat, no meat. Cheese, no cheese. Garlic/Onions, or not. Zest, no zest. Do whatever suits your taste. Or whatever you have lying around that needs cooking.

Swiss Chard knows neon is tres chic in 2012

Ingredients

- Choose your own adventure Leafy Greens. This time I used a  bundle of Swiss Chard and half a bundle of big leaf Spinach. 
- Raisins - up to one cup or whatever suits your taste. Dried cherries would probably work.
- Pine nuts - about a half a cup, toasted.
- 2 Pie Crusts, store bought is just fine. When you have a NYC-sized kitchen, making dough and rolling it out is pretty ambitious if you aren't June Cleaver or Martha Stewart.
- Ground lamb / lamb meatballs / lamb sausage
- Feta cheese  - I recommend French Feta.
- Garlic - This time I used garlic scapes.
- Onions/Shallots - I omitted this time around, didn't have any in the kitchen.
- Olive Oil
- Cinnamon, Cumin, Fennel seeds, salt, pepper
- Heavy cream - I used a spoonful of Trader Joe's Soy Creamer

Prep the filling

1. Pre-heat oven to 375F.
2. Hydrate the raisins: bring the raisins in a cup of water to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer 10 min.
3. Saute the greens in olive oil / garlic / onion / shallot mixture. Drain the water out once sauteed (I press mine with a paper towel in a colander).
4. Lightly saute any meat products - I made little lamb meatballs full of toasted pine nuts, parsley, fennel seeds, cumin, and broke them up into a ragout style.

Ready, set, cook

1. Mix the greens, raisins (drained), meat in a bowl.
2. Fold in the feta.
3. Add in to your taste cumin and cinnamon. I do about a spoonful each.
4. Mix in heavy cream
5. Line a 9-inch pie pan with one of the pie crusts, and fold in the filling.

 

almost done. damn this looks yummy already.

5. Use the other pie crust to cover up the pie. I use a fork to seal the edges, then slice a few pretty vents in the top.
6. Bake at 375F for 45 min or until that top crust looks crusty delicious. I pull the pie out 10 min before done time and add a little earth balance (fake butter) to the top for that golden crusty look.
7. Eat up! For some extra sweet-savory oomph, I enjoyed this with Trader Joe's Fig Butter.

time to feast.

CSA Goodness.

For the first time, I was able to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this year. For those not in the artisanal-organic-local-chic know, CSAs link farmers to consumers by delivering their produce in bulk directly to their neighborhood. There are numerous crunchy and economic benefits to CSA membership, but rather than bemoan the consumption of apples in NYC grown in Chile (guilty) when NY state itself produces some of the best apples in the world, I'll let you do that on your own.

I have toyed with the idea of joining for several years, but living a solo, itinerant lifestyle (with poor organization with respect to CSAs requiring on the ball early sign up) precluded all previous attempts. Luckily, cohabitation and a CSA with a very-last-minute sign up has allowed me to partake this year!

The CSA is now in week 2 of the season, and I'm completely jazzed by the plethora of leafy green delights we've been getting (see photo of week 1 below). I'm going to dedicate this blog to my CSA creations, which inspire me to harness those ingenuity fibers to make sure I maximize and eat all that I get.*

Mizuna, Napa Cabbage, Bok Choy, Red Leaf Lettuce, Mustard Greens, Green Leaf Lettuce OH MY!

*And I only have a small cube fridge in my kitchenette, which means storing 6 heads of greens in their raw, ripe form is not possible.