My New Food Blog!

OK, friends!

For years I've wanted to do this ... and sparked by a curiosity in other people's food blogs by my roommate, Keith, I've decided to take the plunge and start my own blog!

The deal is, this food blog will be part insight, part recipes, part garden stories ... a little like me: lots of parts to make up one idea. As most of you know, every summer I grow a rather large vegetable and herb garden and utilize a lot of that in my cooking. I create loads of fresh veg recipes to use what I'm able to immediately from that day's harvest and do a lot of canning, drying and freezing to put up what I can't use immediately ... and nothing beats a jar of tomatoes opened on a cold January day when you get to taste the sensation of August!

I think that cooking as a creative process is a must. One musn't be confined to a recipe book! Think of all of the colors and flavors and textures we like just WAITING to become a new recipe. It's not difficult at all. Once you've mastered a few techniques for cooking (which I'll discuss as well) and learn some basic "concepts", it's easy to create things without following a recipe!

OK ... here's our first go at it! Since it's early spring and there's not too much large activity in my garden except for greens ... my peas, spinach and swiss chard, I thought I'd give that a shot. Let's create a quick, easy, lowfat and healthy side dish from the garden (or the grocery store, as the case may be!).

Sauteed Swiss Chard

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tblsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup white or red wine (whatever's open!)
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 pound (approx) swiss chard leaves, center stems separated from the leaves
• (*cut the stems into 1" chunks, leaves cut into desired size)

Wash and dry the swiss chard leaves. Separate the thicker center stems from the leaves. Chop those into 1" pieces. Rolling large bunches of the remaining leaf parts, slice 1/2" slices to create strips of the leaves. (This is like a chiffonade for you fancy cooks out there!).

Preheat your skillet and to the hot pan, add the olive oil (and you DON'T really need to measure 2 tblsp of oil, just do 2 turns around the pan!) and the minced garlic. Once the garlic is sizzling (maybe 20 seconds) add the stems from the leaves. As these are thicker, they need to cook longer. Turn the heat to a medium and saute until the stems are softened. Add the rest of the chard leaves and season with the salt, pepper and crushed red pepper. Once the leaves start to wilt, add the wine and cook to your desired tenderness. I generally heat through for maybe 2 minutes as I like mine a bit more firm.

OK, now that we've done this ... you've learned a technique for cooking greens! You can use this same recipe with spinach, kale, mustard, turnip, even collard greens! Go the extra mile and do the same thing with fresh green beans ... the only difference is, they need blanched (boiled for 2 minutes to preserve color, shocked in ice water after draining and then dried on a tea towel) before you add them to the pan. If you want to turn your greens into something special, add a handful of chopped walnuts and a handful of dried cranberries. The possibilities are limitless. It's like painting ... but not only do you get color, you have texture, smell and taste! Be brave ... now go at it!