Mother-Daughter Chard Challenge

The Picky Eater was home on furlough for a few weeks recently and was cooking in overdrive, trying  to take advantage of all the great summer produce. One Sunday we were entranced by the baby chard offered by a vendor at our farmers market, which led her mother to conceive of the Chard Challenge. We purchased a double bag of chard and were off to the races, as it were, with a week of green & purple tinged leaves flying around the kitchen.

While it may be true that my daughter is a certified picky eater, the chard challenge provided ample evidence that her mother is a certified picky cook. While the Picky Eater whipped up a delicious white bean and chard soup with ease, her mother ran through three different recipes and used up about 6 pounds of chard, not to mention quantities of onions, eggs, butter, etc, and countless hours of her time before she got it what she thought of as right!

So, let's start with the Picky Eater's recipe, which will provide good hearty eating from now until next spring. Just be sure to cook the beans a little longer than she did- apparently she likes them crunchy, not soft and toothsome, as her parents (and the rest of the world) do.

Roasted tomato sauce
5 medium tomatoes
1 shallot (peeled)
5+ cloves of garlic (peeled)
Salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roast the tomatoes, shallot and garlic until they have caramelized and slightly shriveled about 40 minutes. If the garlic or shallots get really dark before the tomatoes are done, pull them out so they don't burn.  Chop the lot up with a mezzaluna or food processor (if doing it by hand, remove large bits of skin), add more salt if you think it needs it.

Infinitely tastier than something from a can!

White Bean & Chard soup  [dorm substitutions in brackets]
Makes 4 servings

1 carrot
5-6 cloves of garlic
1 rib of celery
1 teaspoon olive oil
4 sundried tomato halves
1/2 pound white beans
Enough water / stock to cover plus 2"
1/2 chard bundle, stems removed

Chop the carrot and celery up fine, then saute them and the garlic cloves (left whole) in olive oil over low heat until they are soft and slightly fragrant.  [If you're working with limited facilities, I suggest buying dried vegetable flake and substituting about 1/2-1 tablespoon and adding that when you add the beans.]

Add the beans, chopped tomato mixture, and stock / water (I use one can Swanson's chicken stock and add water until it's the right height) [powdered stock or bouillon cubes work well if you make them 1/2 the concentration the directions say].  Simmer (BARELY and UNCOVERED) until the beans are the consistency you like (creamy but not mushy or crunchy).  If necessary (depending on the saltiness of your stock) add additional salt after ~1.5 hours of cooking, when the soup starts to smell like beans and not like vegetables.  You may need to add more liquid, just keep it from going completely dry.  Relax.  This is really flexible.

When the beans are just about done, chop the chard leaves into long strips.  When the beans are actually done, add the chard ribbons and stir around until wilted.  Remove from heat. [Let cool, ladle into 4 plastic bags and freeze.  You can reheat it over the next 2-4 weeks for dinners]

Nothing to it, right? Prepare yourself for my travails.

I started with the "Torta d'Erbe" from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It used a yeasted pastry crust, which only required a quick rise, no pre-baking, and was less rich than a traditional pastry dough. Filling ingredients were chard, sorrel, scallions, parsley, ricotta, eggs, milk, gruyere cheese ... I was good on everything but the sorrel and ricotta, so I decided to omit them and go for a quiche style filling.  Cross checked the recipe against a Leek & Swiss Chard Tart from Smitten Kitchen.  So far, so good.  Crust rolled out like a breeze, filling went together, no sweat. Popped it in the oven.

Looked like a photo from Bon Appetit coming out of the oven. Took a couple of bites.... disappointment! Soggy bottom crust more or less ruined everything else, and the chard had an unappealingly strong metallic taste. Should I try it again- pre-bake the shell? Paint the bottom using Dijon mustard or beaten egg white as a sealant? Forget it? Time to move onward and upward.

Spent more time marking recipes in Veg Cooking for Everyone while waiting to pick up Picky Eater at dance class. Couldn't decide which to go with. The Picky Eater suggested trying a variation on a giant spinach, mushroom and ham turnover (Pantin aux epinards, Simone Beck) in From Julia Child's Kitchen that I had reminisced about making in the distant past. Okay, let's try it with the yeasted pastry and chard. Had some Canadian bacon to substitute for the ham. Stop at the grocery for a couple more pounds of chard and extra gruyere. Make the pastry, cook the chard, make the onion flavored bechamel, saute the mushrooms with the ham and cooked chard. Roll out the pastry into a 12" x 18" rectangle. Spread out the filling (which is looking a little meagre.) Seal, brush with egg wash, and bake the tart.

Pantin unfolded.

Kitchen looks like a disaster area.

Looks impressive coming out of the oven. Proof (or lack thereof) is in the eating- filling to pastry ratio is too slight, as expected. Chard still tastes tinny. Time to admit defeat? Never!

A little more filling would have been nice.

Guests coming over for dinner on Sunday. Another chard opportunity. What about gnudi, aka gnocchi verdi from Canal House Cooking vol. 7, substituting chard for spinach and serving with tomato sauce in lieu of sage butter? Splurge on artisan whole milk ricotta. Dig some homemade tomato sauce out of the freezer. Prepare mixture the day before. Poach immediately before serving. YES!! They don't disintegrate during cooking, the tomato sauce is light and doesn't mask the flavor of the gnudi, which isn't metallic. Wish I had chopped the chard more finely. Success at last!

Gnocchi aka Gnudi Verdi
Love the word gnudi! It refers to the fact that these are basically a ravioli filling standing on their own, not encased in a pasta prison.
Adapted from Canal House Cooking volume 7 byMelissa Hamilton & Christopher Hirsheimer
Serves 4-6

This dough must be refrigerated 3 hours or more (overnight) before cooking. Once you have the chard prepared the dough comes together very quickly.

2 pounds fresh chard leaves
1 1/2 cups (16 oz) whole milk ricotta
1 Tb melted butter
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
Salt & pepper 6 Tb of flour

4 Tb additional butter, melted
Grated Parmesan
Fresh tomato sauce (recipe below)

Cut away the leaf sections of the chard from the stalks, and discard the stalks, Wash the chard leaves in a colander without shaking dry, and place them in a large saucepan. (The water clinging to the leaves is enough to cook the chard in.) Cook over medium heat until just tender. When cool, squeeze the chard  dry by the handful over the colander. Finely mince and place in a large bowl.

Mix together the chard, ricotta, 1 Tb melted butter, Parmesan, and eggs with a rubber spatula. Season to taste with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Sift the flour through a sieve into the chard mixture and use the spatula to mix it just enough to incorporate the flour. The dough will seem soft and a little sticky.

Refrigerate in a covered container for at least three hours, or make it the day before and refrigerate overnight.

About 20 minutes before serving heat the tomato sauce over low and keep it warm. Fill a wide pan with water to a depth of about 3 inches. Season the water with salt and bring it to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Adjust the heat to keep the water barely simmering. Fill a measuring cup with cold water and pull out two tea spoons. Retrieve the chilled gnudi dough. Dip the spoons in the water and use one to scoop up some dough. Use the other spoon to shape the dough into an oval dumpling shape aka quenelle. Hold the spoon in the simmering water for a second and the gnudi will slide off and sink to the bottom of the pan. Cook 6-10 gnudi at a time until they float to the surface and feel firm, about 4-5 minutes. Hold the gnudi in a buttered & covered casserole in a warm (250 degree) oven until they are all cooked, serving as soon as possible.

To serve, smear a generous spoonful of warm tomato sauce on the bottom of a flat soup dish. Attractively arrange 3-5 gnudi on top, drizzle them with a little melted butter, and toss on a sprinkling of grated Parmesan and a bit more salt and pepper.

Forming / poaching the gnudi.

Fresh Tomato Sauce
(from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison)
Makes 2 1/2 cups

3 pounds ripe tomatoes, quartered
3 Tb chopped fresh basil or 2 tsp mixed dried Italian or Herbes de Provence
Salt & pepper
2 Tb olive oil

Put the tomatoes in a heavy saucepan with the herbs. Cover the pan and cook the tomatoes over medium-high heat, keeping an eye on them to sure that they don't scorch. When they have broken down, after about 10 minutes, remove from the heat, cool slightly, and briefly puree the tomatoes in a food processor. If the sauce is not as thick as you want, return it to the pot and cook over low heat, stirring often until it is the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the olive oil.

Freezes nicely.

"The Picky Eater" Becomes "The Picky Foodie," Part 1

The Picky Eater has been home for just a fortnight prior to resuming residence and a summer internship blowing things up in a chem lab at her college. (At least that's what I like to imagine that people do in chem labs; in reality they probably sit hunched over computers just like everyone else.)
During her visit she has unquestionably earned her foodie credentials, whipping up a dizzying array of tofu veggie meals for herself, baking cookies, cakes, etc. and even making a few meals to share with her famished parents.

Ratatouille Tart- easy with frozen puff paste

But, her pieces de resistance were the dishes that she whipped up for Mother's Day in Modesto with aunts, cousins, uncle and grandma. I was REALLY impressed! Especially because for the first time in years I did not have to cook a single thing! I was happily relegated to shopping for lox, bagels, olives, and strawberries while the Picky Foodie made a colorful ratatouille tart from a favorite blog, Smitten Kitchen, with her own oven roasted tomato sauce; and a fabulous, tasty, and EASY apple cake, an Apple Sharlotka, also from the Smitten Kitchen.
The ratatouille tart was made with some excellent store bought puff paste and thin slices of green & yellow summer squash, red bell pepper and Japanese eggplant. The oven roasted tomato sauce, a recipe from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, our home vegetarian bible, was far superior to the commercial stuff. This is the recipe:
Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce
2 1/2 lbs. tomatoes, halved
1 onion,thinly sliced
4 thyme or marjoram sprigs
2-3 Tb olive oil
Salt & freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put the tomatoes in a single layer in a baking pan with the onion & thyme. Drizzle the vegetables with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until they are soft, shriveled, and falling apart, about 45-60 minutes. Remove the herb branches and puree in the food processor. taste for salt and pepper.

Smitten Kitchen's Apple Sharlotka

Unfortunately, we didn't get a photo of the baked Apple Sharlotka before it was devoured, so here's one that I filched from Smitten Kitchen.
From what I can glean, the Picky Eater is spending quite a bit of time reading food blogs when she should probably be reading how to blow things up in her chemistry book. At this rate, I may forget how to cook!!

Tomato Festa

The Picky Eater appears to be happily installed at college with no complaints (so far) about the cuisine. She did evidence a certain degree of envy on a recent Skype call when informed that the tomato crop had come in and that we were in the midst of a "Tomato Festa." The momentum (mine) flagged after about three days, but hope springs eternal that it will revive this weekend. We certainly have a bumper crop this year- cherry, yellow, and huge beefsteaks. What, no Roma pomodoros? Sadly, they suffer some sort of wilt in our garden, and have been banished forever.

1st tomatoes, the start of a lifelong love affair!

The Daddy (his preferred title) has been growing tomatoes annually since the Picky Eater was a toddler. (See adorable picture of the P.E. with her 1st tomato crop.) All in all it's wonderful, but as often with the Picky Eater there's a complication- the fresh full bodied taste of homegrown tomato sauce has put her off most anything made from a can, even when it is heavily doctored up. So, by and large, with one huge exception which will feature in another post, the Picky Eater rejects tomato sauce out of season, eschewing the pallid stuff you get from Mexican tomatoes in January.

And then there is the basil. Basil can easily overwhelm. Just one plant, which is probably as much as you actually need over a season if you are not of the preserving persuasion (and I am not!), seems too risky; but the inevitable three or four plants make what at the time seems like a lifetime supply. And, while a touch of basil is divine, the obligation to use it all, every day in everything savory for three or four months, is not.

Just one last word about basil before I move on. The best way to use it right off the plant is to snip some leaves, rinse and dry. Then remove up to about four leaves at a time, stack them, fold the stack in half lengthwise and snip thin strips with a pair of kitchen scissors.

Hopefully I haven't over-billed the so-called "Tomato Festa," which consisted of me cooking a series of tomato dishes meal after meal for about 2 1/2 days. The results do offer some recipes worth sharing. Initially it started with pizza. Pizza with a fresh tomato topping, naturellement. What, use canned tomato sauce? Mais, non! So, I began with an unbelievably easy and yummy sauce from Vegetable Harvest by Patricia Wells:


Rustic Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce
"Garden-fresh" (her words, not mine; farmers' market tomatoes would be fine) tomatoes
Salt
Oregano (dried)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Core and halve the tomatoes horizontally. Put them cut side up in a baking pan lined with aluminum foil. (I didn't use any foil and it was a mess.) Sprinkle generously with salt and oregano. Roast until the tomatoes are very soft, about 40 minutes. When cool, puree the contents of the baking pan in a food processor until smooth. Can fester in the refrigerator about one week, or in the freezer for six months.
I am planning to throw another batch in the oven as soon as I finish here.

I will not burden you with the pizza recipe. Despite detouring to Sur la Table for an Emile Henri baking stone, and using the delicious sauce, fresh tomatoes, smoked and plain mozzarella, basil, and proscuitto, it had limited success due to crust issues which I hope have been resolved. But, the photo looks like something right out of Bon Appetit, doesn't it?

To compliment the pizza, I put together a corn and tomato salad. In a rush, I was franticly looking for the recipe, which I was sure was in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Not finding it, I went ahead on my own, and didn't locate the recipe until the next day- mainly because it turned out that her version was for a hot pasta! Just goes to show the versatility of veggies.

Fresh Corn and Tomato Salad
2 ears fresh corn
3-4 largish tomatoes
2 scallions or 1/2 small red onion
1 jalapeno pepper
2 Tb chopped cilantro
1 Tb slivered basil
olive oil
salt/pepper

Cut the corn kernels off the cob and dump in a medium size bowl. Core and dice the tomatoes in large chunks and add to the corn. Chop and add the onion, jalapeno (watch your eyes and wash your hands after handling), and cilantro. Stir together and douse lightly with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Serves 2-3.
We decided to forego adding anything acidic to the dressing, but a Tb or two of lime juice might be nice if you have it lying around.

Just took a look at the Picky Eater's Facebook page. She claims that she has joined a cult of naked girls- I think that it's time to stick my head in the sand! Boy, I'm feeling way too sedate. Back to tomatoes.

Later in the week I threw together a batch of Julia Child's Provencal stuffed tomatoes. (Mastering the Art ... , vol. 1, but also usually found in any respectable French cookbook.) They are quick, yummy, and a great way to use up stale bread, in addition to your extra tomatoes.

Tomates a la Provencale (excuse the lack of punctuation, too lazy to figure out how to insert it)
for 6 people

6 large, firm (3" diameter) tomatoes
salt/pepper
2 cloves mashed garlic
3 Tb minced scallions or shallots
4 Tb minced fresh basil & parsley or just parsley (I used just basil)
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp. salt
pinch of pepper
1/4 c. olive oil
3/4 c. or more fine dry bread crumbs (Julia calls for 1/2 cup, but I really like to mound the filling)
A shallow, oiled roasting pan to hold the tomatoes in one layer

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Core the tomatoes and cut in half through the middle. Poke and squeeze out the seeds and juice. Sprinkle the tomato halves with salt and pepper. Stir together all the other ingredients except the baking pan (haha!!) Stuff portions of the filling into the tomatoes, filling the crevices and pressing down a nice mound on top. Arrange them in the baking pan without crowding. Bake on an upper rack for 10-15 minutes, until the tomatoes are tender but haven't collapsed and the filling is browned on top. (If it isn't browned, briefly run under the broiler before serving.

These are delicious with grilled meats and good leftover, either warm or cold.
Disclaimer: This recipe text was reworded from the original.

Tomato discussion to be continued with a recipe for my current obsession- Panzanella. Stay tuned.