Swiss Chard Sauté

Swiss chard stems and leaves quickly sautéed with a bit of onion and finished with a splash of vinegar. This side dish goes with a variety of meals and uses a large bunch of chard.

Buy ALL the vegetables!

Eat ALL the rainbows!

If you haven't seen Hyperbole and a Half's hilarious post, This is Why I'll Never be an Adult, (which provided me the inspiration for the intro to today's post) please do yourself a favor and pop over to read it. You can find it here, and I'll wait patiently while you read.  I've got a cup of tea handy.

Have you ever gone shopping--at the farmer's market, the grocery store, or Costco--and been struck with the desire to EAT ALL THE RAINBOWS? You buy more vegetables than your fridge can hold, convinced that this time, THIS TIME will be different and you'll magically find room for it all and eat everything before it spoils. That's the problem--buy too many bags of potato chips and they'll keep wherever you find space for them. Not so much for bags of Swiss chard. 

I rarely shop at the farmer's market since my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers do such a terrific job of keeping me in fresh veggies from June into December (and then I do a pretty good job of keeping myself in veggies for the intervening months, eating up the veggies I've put up in the freezer, the pantry, and the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve). Mostly when I hit the farmer's market I'm picking up honey, maple syrup, and the occasional mushroom. If I didn't have a CSA, though, I'd routinely come home with more produce than I could store.

This side dish is great for when your pile of new veggies exceeds your available fridge space. [While I'm doing my weekly post-CSA pickup vegetable triage, I leave Swiss chard on the counter. A lovely large bunch takes up so much room that I may as well sauté it up and serve it with dinner.] It's fast, requires very few pantry staples, and goes with a variety of entrees from fried eggs to Beetloaf. While it is a simple recipe, it's great to have a fast, easy, and basic cooked greens side dish method in your back pocket [next to your phone].

For other Swiss Chard recipes, please see my Swiss Chard Recipe Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index.

Winter Squash & Banana Muffins {Monday Muffins}

Working title Asante Sana Squash Banana Muffins*, these soaked oat, wheat and flax muffins have roasted winter squash with banana and maple syrup for sweetening. Like other banana-containing baked goods these are terrific the next day and make a great breakfast or afternoon snack.

I'm not a control freak in the kitchen. I usually welcome all the help I can get [and I'm still enjoying the fruits err vegetables of my niece's and nephew's labors over the holidays when I had them chop up what turned out to be 5 recipes worth of mirepoix aka onion, celery, and carrot. Oopsie. Well, Faster Kirsten miscalculated but appreciates the effort nonetheless. Tak, Albert & Astrid.] Sometimes, though, the help is not entirely helpful. 

Unless your kitchen is populated by creatures who haven't figured out how to open the fridge door or who haven't mastered lifting the lids off containers, you've probably experienced a 'helpful' and hungry kitchen assistant 'cleaning up' the leftovers that were actually planned overs. Perhaps you intended the various parts of the meal NOT to end up all in the same container [because, you know, the light sucked at dinner and you wanted to photograph your leftover lunch for the blog]. 

The addition of flax into my standard soaked oatmeal muffin recipe came because of a helpful kitchen mate. My spouse dumped a bunch of ground flax seed into the container of rolled oats, thinking it would boost the nutrition of his morning bowl of oatmeal. He was not quite satisfied with the results, so I offered to take the rest of the container off his hands despite knowing I couldn't use any of the results for the blog [he didn't measure the amount of oats remaining in the container nor the amount of flax he dumped in with them]. After making muffins, waffles and more muffins I decided the combination is pretty useful, so once I'd emptied the container I played around with the amount of flax seed and came up with this version.

I've made these muffins three times now, and even shared them with the terrific physical therapists working with my son. It's been a while since I've posted a Monday Muffin recipe [like, last year, man], so I figured I'd kick off 2015 with these. Since I'm using maple syrup and a banana for sweetening, if you've made any resolutions regarding granulated sugar these would still fit in with your goals. If, like me & Meghan you've still got a pile of winter squash in your basement . . . well, here's an idea of what to do with it that the family--and the physical therapists--approve.

For other ideas using Winter Squash, please see my Winter Squash Recipes Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

2014 Year in Review--the Photo Montage Palooza Edition

A mindless read for when you've got a moment to sit and visit with me

Why does everyone always end up in the kitchen?

I can't say that the year has flown by, but after hosting 4 amazing meals in 3 days for [and with help of] my extended family of 12 folks I can say that the last week has flown by. This wrap up post will be my last of 2014, and I'll be back on Monday, January 5, 2015, with Asante Sana Squash Banana Muffins. [You have to read it in the voice of Rafiki from Lion King. If you haven't seen Lion King you've got a week to bring yourself up to speed. And get an acorn squash. And a banana.]

This is my second Year in Review post, because I've completed my second full year of blogging.  I still enjoy it and have learned so many things from so many wonderful bloggers. This year I realized that I need to give myself permission to take breaks. When I do, I come back recharged and with the energy to implement changes I've envisioned. This Year In Review will be a bit different than last year's primarily because I still need to update some of my spreadsheets, but instead of trying to get the gumption to do those I figured I'd just go with what I've got ready. Let's get to the details.

First, a comparison of my statistics for the past year--first from Google Analytics (the real, accurate stuff) then from Blogger (which includes spam bots and is just not accurate, but that's what I see when I sign in so I'll throw it up here as well).

People came to my blog in 2014 looking for recipe ideas for produce--fresh tomatoes, green tomatoes, garlic scapes, kale, spinach and leeks. You also came looking for recipes for tomato soup, buttermilk pizza crust, make ahead mashed potatoes, healthy muffins, celery soup, fig pizza and leftovers. 

My top 10 search terms, according to Google Analytics, follow this trend:

But those are just the most common search terms--there are some gems if you read through all 4000 search terms that brought folks to the blog this year.  The most memorable search term for 2014 was my guinea pig ate a pepperoni. Here are the Honorable Mentions, in alphabetical order:

"Monday morning is fine with me" [yes, the quotes are included]

are turkey, ham and chicken excellent Thanksgiving items for a compost bin? [Umm, no. Not the way I make my compost, at least.]

are garlic scapes available year round? [sadly, no, but here are recipe ideas for you]

best damn vegetable tray [here are some suggestions]

chicken feets and beetroot soup [I don't have any chicken feet recipes. Yet.]

dwarf peach tree harvest [although we have a dwarf peach tree, only the certified wildlife harvest it]

fall lasagna; roasted mushrooms, butternut squash, spinach and caramelized onions layered with fontina and herbed ricotta [that sounds amazing. what time is dinner?]

food photography behind the scenes [yeah, I like to peek behind the scenes too]

forgot salt in muffin [I hear ya. Usually I forget the sugar.]

green vista farms zucchini hawaiian pizza brats casserole [what an interesting combination, do let me know how it turns out]

help I don't know how to cook with my greens from farm! [you've come to the right place.]

homemade sugar smacks [this recipe will definitely disappoint you then]

how to make a chocolate milkshake without ice cream [well, you could try using beets]

how to make a sweet potato casserole with white irish potatoes [I haven't tried this one before]

how to put pesto on a pizza [I use a spoon generally, and fling it carefully]

is adding cheddar shredded to my grilled cheese a good idea [Yes, yes it is]

Monday with Hatch chiles [I've read Tuesdays with Morrie]

my lou malnati's pizza arrived defrosted [you can order pizza? Cool, thanks for letting me know]

overabundance of turnips [story of my life. Here's some ideas]

play bacon and cabbage song [could you hum a few bars?]

pumpkin liver sausage dip [what an interesting combination, let me know how it turns out]

show the picture of kohlrabi [you can find one here]

turnip greens recipes that kids will eat which is not pizza or macaroni [I'm working on that one, myself. So far this is the best I've got.]

visit parade.com for sheila's snappy ginger slaw recipe [thanks for the tip]

wow me a meatloaf [Ok, here ya go.]

www.drunkenpizza.com [there's a website? Here's a pizza]

That little spike in the first graphic?  That's from the debut of my Clickable Collages of Recipe Suggestions. I posted it on G+ and folks popped over to check it out. I've got suggestions for what to do with produce, like beets, garlic scapes, or green tomatoes, as well as recipe ideas--like hummus or grilled cheese.

What am I most proud of? My newly revamped Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.  I'd had the idea of what I wanted for quite some time, but didn't have the ability to create it until September.  My son has asked me to tweak it--to add categories for, say, chicken or liver instead of just fruits and vegetables. I think his suggestion is a great one and will be working on it.  Here's what the landing page looks like now:

Clicking on, for example, Garlic & Garlic Scapes brings you to the collection of recipes using those items, as seen here:

I really like folks to be able to find my recipes, so I'm delighted with the changes I made. I'm also pleased that this recipe index is used by you folks--more than a thousand views this past year:

At the beginning of 2014 our household animal collection consisted of 3 dogs and a composting guinea pig. At the end of the year we have 3 dogs (we've substituted Robert Barker for Wee Oliver Picklepants) but no composting guinea pig. I've earned over the $100 Google Adsense payout threshold twice, so the hosting fees are covered for a while. I pushed out of my comfort zone participating in #AppetizerWeek, #IceCreamWeek, and most recently #ChristmasWeek. This fall I got interested in spiffing up my Pinterest presence, and created the Farm Fresh Feasts board where I've shared every post, in order. It's been fun to look back at the changes over the months/years (gulp).

At my 4th amazing meal in 3 days (which was Thanksgiving dinner, you can see the Make Ahead Irish Mashed Potato Casserole in the slow cooker) I got a round of applause. If you've read this far--give yourself a round of applause too! See ya in 2015!