Celery Root Soup With Chard, Beans And Corn Chicos

5-6 oz. Rattlesnake beans
1/4 cup corn chicos
1 small boneless smoked ham (or a large ham hock)

Place the beans, corn, and ham in a large enameled cast iron pot (Staub 5 quart) and add 4-6 cups water. Place in a 225ºF oven and cook for 1 hour, reduce the heat to 200ºF and continue to cook until the beans are tender but not falling apart, maybe 2 to 3 hours, check every hour. The beans may take longer or shorter to cook, it depends on how old they are. Turn the ham over once or twice during the cooking process. When the beans are done remove the ham and set a side to cool. Reserve the beans, corn, and broth.

Olive oil
1 large leek, split lengthwise and cut crosswise into slices
2 large sprigs fresh rosemary, minced
About 16 sage leaves (2 large sprigs), thinly slivered
9 ounces chard, stems removed and cut into 1/4-inch thick slices, leaves chopped
2 stalks celery, cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
2 lb. celery root, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
Chicken stock
Tomato paste
Fermented dried Jarales peppers, pulp scraped from the skin, mashed, and reserved (toss the skins)

Warm some olive oil (1-2 Tbsp) in a large pot and sauté the leek until softened. Stir in the rosemary and sage, add the chard stems and celery and continue to cook until slightly softened. Drain the broth from the beans and corn, add the broth to the pot and set aside the beans and corn. Add the celery root and fish sauce to the pot and bring to a simmer. Cook until the celery root is nearly tender but still firm. Meanwhile dilute the tomato paste and pepper pulp in a cup of chicken stock. When the celery root is nearly tender add the chard leaves, beans, and corn to the pot and add the tomato paste mixture and more chicken stock to generously cover all the vegetables. Bring back to a simmer and cook until the chard leaves are wilted and tender. Chop the ham into 1/2-inch or so cubes and add it to the pot, simmer to heat through. Taste for salt and add more if desired.

Serve with a spoonful of your best extra virgin olive oil.

Roasted Peppers Stuffed with Ricotta and Spinach

Too many peppers this year! 70 plants, what on earth was I thinking. I've been preserving many of them but there's still loads of them so now I need to dream up ways of eating more of them now. So here's one dish that I whipped up for dinner recently that got rave reviews from Dave so I knew I needed to write it up because I won't remember how to make it again the next time he wants it.

Blanched chard can be substituted for the spinach. Sautéed chopped onions can be substituted for the dried onion. (I used dried onion for the sake of expediency). Chopped fresh sage or sage cooked in brown butter should be a nice addition to the filling. Or onion and sage sautéed together in butter or olive oil should be good too. Hmm, and since I just wrote a post about corn chicos, some presoaked chicos might be tasty too.

12 ounces ricotta, preferably sheepmilk
2 ounces freshly grated parmesan
1/4 ounce dried sweet onion, chopped (no need to rehydrate)
1/2 teaspoon mild pepper flakes
Freshly grated nutmeg
5 ounces blanched spinach measured after squeezing out excess moisture, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt (or more, I'm watching my salt intake these days)
9 or more roasted sweet peppers such as Ajvarski
Olive oil
Dry coarse breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Lightly oil a 8 x 12-inch oval gratin dish or equivalent sized baking dish.

Mix together the ricotta, parmesan, dried onion, pepper flakes, nutmeg, spinach, and salt.

Leave the roasted peppers intact but slit down one side so that they open like a book. Place a couple of tablespoons or so of the ricotta filling on one side of a pepper and fold the other side over to cover the filling. Repeat for the rest of the peppers using all the filling. Place the peppers in the baking dish with the seams to the side. Pack the peppers tightly into the dish so there are no gaps between the peppers, this keeps the filling from oozing out.

Scatter the dried breadcrumbs generously over the top of the peppers and then drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, until the dish is bubbling merrily all around the edges. Let sit for at least a few minutes or longer before serving.

Makes 3 to 4 main course servings or more as an appetizer.

Radishes Beyond Salads

Inspired by an article in San Francisco Chronicle about radishes.

My recent harvest of jumbo Long Scarlet radishes and a few White Icicle radishes prompted me to do some experimenting.

Grilled Radishes and Chard Stems
I thickly sliced the roots on the diagonal and tossed them and some sliced thick juicy chard stems with some olive oil and stir fried them in the grill basket on the BBQ. Cooking mellowed the hotness of the radishes and D couldn't even tell what they were, just that they were good!

Radishes Grilled in Foil Packets
Took one especially large radish and thickly sliced it on the diagonal, closed it up in some heavy duty foil with some butter and fresh tarragon and put it on the BBQ. They were finished in 40-50 minutes (?), wasn't keeping track of time, but it was as long as it took to stir fry the radishes/chard stems and then indirectly roast some salmon on a plank. These were really tasty too.

The Long Scarlets had some beautiful leaves, slightly prickly, but still tender. Sliced those up and sauteed them with the leaves from the same chard (Peppermint Stick) plus some pitted halved cherries and garlic - used butter and olive oil. Finished with salt, pepper, and cherry balsamico. Good again, the radish leaves lost their prickle and heat. Delicious. Going to experiment with the fresh cherries again, add them later so they don't get too soft, but I love the sweet cherries in the mix.

Beet Greens Quiche with no Crust (updated 4/21/14)

Beets are very closely related to chard, they are really just chard plants with skinny stems and fat roots, but the flavor of the greens is stronger than chard. I prefer to use them in dishes that incorporate other ingredients to offset that stronger flavor. Here's a new recipe that I came up with to use the first beet greens of the year, it's an adaptation of a spinach quiche recipe baked without a crust - both a time and carbo saver. I baked these in individual serving sized ceramic souffle dishes since a quiche without a crust would be messy to try to serve in slices. You could bake the filling in a partially baked tart shell (use at least a 10-inch quiche or pie dish), if you do that bake the quiche at 425 for the first 15 minutes and then turn the heat down to 350 and continue baking for about 30 more minutes. You could also substitute an equal amount of chard or spinach for the beet greens.

Update, April 21, 2014: I've modified the recipe to reduce the amount of custard mix because I found that I often time had too much filling for 4 ramekins but not enough for 5. I've also added an option to substitute stock for milk in the custard because the last time I prepared the dish I didn't have milk on hand so I tried the stock instead and the end result was delicious.

About 1 1/2 pounds beet greens, or chard or spinach
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 small onion, sliced thin, or one large spring onion including green tops
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk or poultry stock
3/4 cup creme fraiche, or cream or milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
fresh grated nutmeg to taste
4 ounces grated gruyere or swiss cheese
smoked sweet or medium hot paprika

Preheat the oven to 325F.

Wash the beet greens and trim off the tough stems. Place the wet greens in a large saute pan over medium heat, cover the pan and cook until the leaves are wilted, turning them a few times to cook them evenly. Drain in a colander, allow them to cool until they can be handled, squeeze handfuls to remove excess moisture, and coarsely chop.

Saute the onion in the olive oil until the onions are translucent. Add the chopped greens to the pan and saute for a minute or two to dry them a bit more. Portion the onion-greens mixture into 4 individual sized souffle dishes (my dishes have an interior size of about 4 inches by 1.25 inches) and place the dishes on a baking sheet.

Beat the eggs, milk, creme fraiche, salt and nutmeg together. Pour an equal amount into each greens filled souffle dish, top each dish with 1 ounce of grated cheese, and dust the tops with the paprika. Bake the souffles for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the custard has set and the tops are golden brown and puffed. Serve immediately, or cool and reheat later.

Lemony Chard with Carrot, Cumin, and Raisins

I didn't weigh or measure anything when I prepared this dish but that shouldn't matter too much. I started with a bunch of chard that weighed in at just over 3 pounds, 1.75 pounds of which were stems and separated the leaves and stems. This dish used only the leafy green parts and only a little more than half of that. The leaves were prepped by cutting them off the stalks, stacking the leaf halves and then cutting those halves in half again both crosswise and lengthwise, stacking them again and cutting crosswise into about 2" X 1/2" ribbons. But you can chop you leaves any way you like. I spun the chopped leaves in a salad spinner to remove the excess washing water; this prevents the end dish from being too watery.

A note about meyer lemon peels - unlike "regular" lemon peels, they are sweet, even the white pith. Don't just use the thin zest in this dish, be sure to use a good amount of the white part. You could use the peel from both lemons if you like, I only used one because my husband will only tolerate just so much citrus peel in his food. (Even the rats know meyer peels are tasty, I've often found completely skinned lemons hanging in my meyer lemon tree, the rats leave the juicy parts behind.)

• Chopped chard leaves - I guess about 8 cups or so
• About 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and grated on the large wholes of a box grater
• 1/4 of a medium sized sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 2 small meyer lemons, remove the peel from one lemon in thick strips with a vegetable peeler and cut the strips crosswise into slivers, reserve the juice of both lemons
• About 1/4 cup golden raisins
• Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Make a sofrito by heating a few tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet, at least 12 inches, over medium heat. Add the cumin seed and let them sizzle briefly. Add the carrots and onion and saute for a few minutes. Cover the skillet and turn the heat to low; cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the carrots become tender. Uncover the skillet and add the lemon peel and raisins, stir to mix and then add a few handfuls of the chard, toss (tongs work well for this) to mix the chard into the sofrito, continue to add handsful of chard, tossing to turn the raw chard to the bottom on the mix, until you can't squeeze anymore chard into the pan. Cover the skillet to help the chard wilt, tossing occasionally, until all the chard is wilted. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper and add lemon juice to taste. Serve immediately.

Makes about 4 servings.

You can make this with both the leafy greens and the stems. Separate the leaves and stems and prep the leafy parts as above. Cut the stems crosswise into about 1/4 to 1/3-inch slivers and add them to the sofrito. Then finish cooking the dish as above.

Savory Chard Stems Braised in Their Own Juices

Chop about a dozen chard stems crosswise into 1/4 to 1/2-inch slices. Heat a couple of tablespoons olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Toss in 2 cloves of minced garlic, 2 chopped fresh chiles (I used a couple of Argentina chiles, photo on Nov 12 post), and a handful of pine nuts. Cook for a minute or two. Add the chopped chard stems and sprinkle with a pinch of salt (helps to pull the liquid from the chard). Cook for a few minutes until the chard starts releasing its liquid. Turn the heat to low and cover the pan. Allow the chard to braise in its own juices for about ten minutes. Season with a splash of vietnamese fish sauce (my secret savory sauce - good stuff!) and a couple of splashes of vinegar (sherry), and a pinch of sugar. Cook a bit more to allow the flavors to meld.

Chard Stem Gratin

1/4 pound pancetta
1 pound chard stems (I'll use 1 1/2 lbs next time)
1/2 cup cream
chopped Italian parsley
fresh ground black pepper
fresh grated nutmeg
2 ounces gruyere, coarsely grated
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs

Cut the pancetta into thin slices and then into 1/2 inch pieces. Cook in a medium size saute pan over medium heat until crisp. Remove from the pan and set aside. Drain off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat from the pan. Reserve another tablespoon of the fat on the side.Cut the chard stems on the diagonal into about 1/2 to 1-inch pieces, a mix of sizes is nice. Saute them briefly over medium heat in the pancetta fat. I used a little salt at this point but won't next time I make it because the final dish was a little salty for my taste. Add about 1/2 cup of water to the pan, cover the pan, allow to come to a boil, turn the heat down and cook until tender. I think it took about 10 minutes. Most of the liquid should be cooked away at this point.

Put the cooked stems into a lightly oiled 6-cup gratin dish. Sprinkle the pancetta bits over the top. Add the cream to the dish. Grind fresh black pepper over all. Grate a bit of nutmeg over all. Sprinkle with the parsley, I used a few tablespoons. Sprinkle on the grated grated gruyere. Toss the dried bread crumbs with the reserved pancetta fat and sprinkle evenly over the gratin. Bake at 450 F. for about 30 minutes, until the top is crispy and nicely browned.