Creamed Swiss Chard with Back Bacon--A Lovely Leftover to Have

When my first child was around 6 weeks old, my in-laws came to visit and meet their first grandkid.  They took us out to a steak place.  A Very Fancy steak place.  The kind of clubby, dark wood, tuxedo-shirted server place where you can't see much less hear other people in the restaurant.  The kind of place where the steak has its own price, and the side dishes each have their own price and the prices are . . . well let's just say my in-laws took us out for dinner. And the food was delicious and the company was convivial.

I will not tell you how, because he was our first, we were unbuckling the giant rear-facing carseat and lugging that giant monstrosity into the fancy steak place. (No, not the kind that snaps into/out from a base with a handle so that you can sling the sleeping baby, still buckled, over your arm like a basket.  The other kind of rear-facing car seat that can eventually be turned around and used as a front-facing car seat. We were dumb.  First kid.)   Let's just say that I felt exceedingly out of my element.  And the food was delicious and the company was convivial.

I had creamed spinach as my side because, even though I was ravenous all the time, I couldn't see paying that much money for a baked potato.  Baked potatoes I can do at home.  But creamed spinach . . . that was something I hadn't made before.  I always like to order things I don't try at home.

I love creamed spinach.  My mom used to make a cheater version with a box of frozen spinach and a can of cream of mushroom soup that was da bomb.  If creamed spinach could be da bomb to a kid.  Well, the taste memory of it is da bomb to me--it wasn't too rich like most creamed spinach I eat these days.

It surprises me that, as much as I grow Swiss chard and get Swiss chard from my farm share, therefore I've got piles of Swiss chard waiting to be used at any given time, I never thought about making creamed Swiss chard.

But for some reason--um, I'm blogging about how I feed the family from the farm share, that's the reason ;) --I decided to try my hand at creamed Swiss chard.  I got inspired by this recipe but veered off course a tiny bit to use what I had on hand.  As usual.

The recipe is pretty easy to make-I worked it so that I cooked everything in one saucepan, which kept the dishes down.  We ate it alongside a flank steak and rice because I remembered that fancy steak dinner.  We don't normally eat steak.  The interesting thing to me was what I did with the leftovers.  I'll blog about that in another post, but let me just say 'mock lasagna' and leave it at that. Well, I'll tease you at the end.

Kohlrabi Greens, Manchego, Potato and Bacon Pizza with Red Onion and Rosemary (Pizza Night!)

Today's pizza happened because I baked bacon.  It's my favorite meat, and I tend to not to cook it often because I cannot help myself around it.  Know your triggers.
I always bake bacon--it works best for me.  If I cook it in the skillet, I have too much spatter to clean up.  But baking my bacon means I can easily freeze the cooked strips, drain the baking pan into my Bacon Grease Storage Device, and be on my way to making delicious pork-flavored goodness.  Or something like that.

It wasn't enough for me to use two vegetables from the farm share (roasted garlic and new potatoes) like I'd planned for this pizza.  When I saw the pretty greens on this week's kohlrabi (I knew I needed the kohlrabi themselves for sushi) I figured they'd add a nice pop of color to the pizza.  I didn't figure on the unintended Kale Chip Side Effect.  After I sliced this pizza, I couldn't help but grab the little tufts of greens that were stuck to the slicer--they tasted just like kale chips!  My daughter did not complain about the relative dearth of green on her slices, so I think it worked out well for both of us.

This pizza uses Manchego cheese, a sheep's milk cheese from the (Man of La) Mancha region of Spain.  I got mine at Costco.  Why?  The French Green Lentil Effect.  I'm all about the Effects today.  I was looking for gruyere, but found Manchego instead.  Rachael Ray mentions Manchego now and again, so I should buy it, right?  Apparently she thinks Manchego cheese plays nicely with potatoes.  And now I do, too!  I have a lot of Manchego now, shredded and stashed in my freezer for future use.

Mindless Sweet Potato Hash (introducing the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve)

It's been several weeks since my last CSA delivery.  The spinach has been eaten mostly in pizzas, the cabbage went into breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and the carrots and celery jumped into both hummus and soup (not at the same time, they divided into teams and the cool kids went to the hummus and the rest went for the soup).  The eggs are so long gone that I've had to buy eggs several times!

However, I still have some unprocessed CSA produce to cook with.  On CSA days, once I get home from pick up, I perform "vegetable triage".  What vegetables are most perishable?  They go in the fridge, right in front, so I can cook with them first.  What else is perishable?  In the crisper for a few days.  Something that I know I won't cook in the next week (like the week I got turnips with greens, kale, mustard greens, and cabbage?  We eat greens, but come on!) gets put up in the freezer for later cooking. [I chopped the turnip greens, the kale, and the mustard greens together, then blanched them, spun them dry, and packed them into quart size freezer bags.]  That leaves the longer-storing produce.

Ready to go in the oven!

All Fall, unless I was roasting it for this or that, I have been piling up the pumpkins, balancing the butternuts, stacking the sweet potatoes, and arranging the acorns in the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve.  It's in a cold corner of my breakfast nook (55 degrees Fahrenheit on a sunny January afternoon!) and though it's chilly to sit here and write about it, it's a pretty good spot for semi-long term storage.  Cool, definitely yes.  Dark, not so much, but there's no sunbeams slanting in either.

Once I've used all the more perishable produce from my farm share, I turn to the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve for inspiration.  Another source of inspiration is from the leftovers I am blessed with.  During the holidays we had a nice time with the relatives, and I came home with leftover pork steak.  This is a new cut of meat to me, and since we rarely eat a steak, quite a treat to have some leftover delicious cooked pork steak.  I literally lay awake planning a pizza using the pork (stay tuned!) but I had a lot to work with, so I decided to try my hand at making hash.

I consulted my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook for advice, and loosely adapted their Corned Beef Hash to what you see here.  The best part was when I read the oven baking directions.  How simple is that?  A bit of cooking on the stove, then chuck the whole mess in the oven (ok, BHG said to transfer to a casserole, but I skipped that bit by starting with an oven safe cast iron skillet).

This tasted great, used up both leftover cooked meat as well as some items from the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve, and was mindless to make.  If you've got leftovers (of the meat or winter squash variety) consider this dish.

Do you perform vegetable triage?
Do you like getting leftovers from relatives?