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.