Saturday, June 28, 2008

Cooking Greens

This is my favorite way to cook green vegetables. I use this general technique for nearly everything, including escarole, kale, collards, brussel sprouts, and more.

Wash and chop or tear your greens to the desired size.
Put some olive oil and some chopped garlic in a pot.
Add the greens.
Cover and cook gently, stirring occasionally if needed until done.
No need to add water.

Garlic is optional.
Add other seasonings if desired. For example, caraway is nice with cabbage; cumin is tasty with brussel sprouts.

Grapefruit Arugula Salad

Prep and Cook Time: 15 minutes
This is from the World's Healthiest Foods web site.
www.whfoods.org

Ingredients:

• 1 pink grapefruit
• 1 large bunch arugula, (about 4 cups)
• 1 bunch watercress (about 2 cups)
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 2 tsp honey
• 2 tsp prepared Dijon mustard
• 1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
• salt & cracked black pepper to taste (use plenty of cracked pepper)
• ½ TBS coarsely chopped walnuts

Directions:

• Peel grapefruit and cut out each section between the membrane.
• Prepare arugula by tearing into pieces, washing and drying. Cut off tops of watercress and wash and spin dry along with the arugula. A salad spinner is the best way of doing this.
• Mix together dressing ingredients, toss with salad greens and grapefruit sections and top with chopped walnuts.
Serves 4

Monday, June 2, 2008

French Sorrel Eggs

From Diane Kanzler, Sweetfern Farm, Greenfield via Mary McClintock of the Greenfield Recorder

Wash a large fistful of French sorrel leaves Cut out center vein and stem by folding the leaf in half longwise and removing vein with a single cut.

Saute leaves in butter or margarine over low heat, stirring regularly until sorrel collapses and gets a bit mushy. It will reduce a lot (like spinach).

Scoop sorrel and any remaining butter into Pyrex custard cups. Break an egg into each cup over the wilted sorrel, salt and pepper to taste. If you'd like, grate fresh Parmesan cheese over each egg. Place custard cups into a double boiler with 1 inch of boiling water. (A large covered soup pot works well as an alternative; make sure the water level doesn't go over the cups.) Cook eggs until done to your liking. Cooking takes longer than you expect, but it's worth the wait!

***

I am a lazier cook than this recipe requires. I would probably change this to serving the sauteed sorrel with a fried or poached egg on top. Or perhaps a fried egg with cheese on top. In our house we sometimes put cheese on a slowly cooking fried egg, add a bit of water to the pan, cover and finish cooking the egg with steam.