What a gorgeous fall weekend here in Central Ohio
October. Wow. How’d that happen?
Rees menu for week of 10/4/10
After a week of travel and exciting new jobs, I’m trying to get back on track this week. Thanks to my three good friends who went to North Market to pick up my CSA for me last week!
Last week, I was in St Lous visiting family, but my handsome hubs picked up CSA for me. I already ate all the chard, apricots, and blueberries from last week. I still have some beets though, so I’m including them in this list. And can I just say for the record that I absolutely LOVE my farm, Wayward Seed? I can. I do.
Here’s what we got this week:
Wayward Seed veggies are back in business this week. Excellent news.
CSA, Week of June 26:
This is very similar to my Stuffed Shells. It’s an example of what I like to do to make things easy, but avoid having the same old thing all the time: Take one recipe that you like and tweak it so it’s just a little different, based on your mood, availability of ingredients, or whatever.
You can make one big 9×13 pan of this, but I made two 9x9s and popped one in the freezer for next week. This one has a few steps, but a lot of them you can do simultaneously (brown the meat while the pasta is cooking, mix the cheese filling in between stirring the meat, etc).
Swiss Chard Lasagna
Boil your pasta. Wash your swiss chard and separate the leaves from the stems. Blanch the leaves, then squeeze all the moisture from them that you can (wait until they’re cool!). Chop the leaves finely, and place in a mixing bowl. Trim the stems and chop. Add these to a skillet with the ground sirloin and cook them together over medium heat until the meat is browned and the stems are softened. To the mixing bowl with the chopped chard leaves, add the ricotta, cottage cheese, eggs, romano, salt and pepper. Mix well. Now, layer it all in a pan. First some sauce, then noodles, then cheese, then meat, then sauce, and keep going. Layer up to the top of the dish, finishing with sauce at the end. Bake at 350 for about an hour. If you’re going to freeze it, freeze before baking.
Inspired by Rachel, I’m going to start posting weekly menus and linking back to Mindful Menus. It never works out to plan for Sat and Sun, so I’m skipping those days. They are free-for-alls at our house.
Rees menu for week of 6/14/10
Yay! It’s finally here – the first day of CSA pick up. Here is the first of what will be many weekly posts to help plan a use for every item in the CSA bag so nothing goes to waste. I always make a list of everything I get, then the way (or possible ways) to use it during the week.
CSA, Week of June 12:
Yum!
Every year when greens come in season, I make this over and over until I think I can’t possible eat any more frittata. But then winter comes and goes, and I start to see Swiss Chard on the market stands, and I start my frittata making all over again. My mom was kind enough to give me some chard from her garden today. This was the result.
Swiss Chard Frittata**
Start a medium pan of water to boil on the stove. Put your oven on broil, and put a rack at the topmost position. Wash swiss chard and remove stems. Chop stems finely and add them to a small oven proof skillet (mine is about 8″) with the olive oil. Sautee over medium heat until the stems soften a bit. Add the garlic. In the mean time, once your water comes to a boil, drop in your chard leaves and boil for about 1 – 2 minutes. Chard is pretty tender so won’t need much cooking. Remove it from the water, drain, and leave to cool. Get your eggs ready while that cools. Break them into a little bowl and beat them pretty good with a fork – until frothy. Then take your cooled chard and squeeze all the water out. Squeeze out as much as you can or else your frittata will be runny. Chop the chard and add to the eggs, stirring well to break up clumps of chard. Add the eggs/chard to the stems and garlic in the skillet. Keep cooking, stirring it around, until the eggs are about half cooked (2-3 minutes). Put it under the broiler for about 3-4 minutes, until it is puffed up and browned on top. Remove it from the oven, then sprinkle on the Romano. It will melt onto the top (you could pop it back under the broiler for 45 seconds if you wanted). Loosen the frittata from the skillet with a spatula and move the whole thing to a cutting board. Let it cool for about 5-10 more minutes, then cut into quarters and serve, sprinkled with red pepper flakes. You can add some salt if you like, but I think the Romano adds plenty of saltiness. This is also good at room temperature, and reheated the next day.
*To make this with fresh spinach, skip the stems step.
To make it with kale, cook it longer and toss the stems.
Beet greens or mustard greens should work about the same.
Arugula would also work nicely, but shouldn’t need cooked at all.
**Note that I misspelled “Frittata” in the first version of this post… might still be some that I missed. Don’t spell it, just eat it.
