Fried Eggs and Greens

I'm sorry that I don't have time to post a real recipe tonight, but we're leaving for the airport at 5 am, and I have to finish packing!

Tonight's dinner was AMAZING, and we'll definitely be making it again. I'll post a recipe then (although Dan made it on the fly, so hopefully we'll be able to re-create it).

Here's a photo:

Ingredients:

- Olive oil
- Greens from pearl onions (basically scallions)
- Spinach
- Beet greens
- Eggs
- Parmesan cheese

We ate it with bread (I made mine into an open-faced sandwich) and put a little balsamic vinegar on top for extra flavor. So good!

It was loosely based on a recipe I saw recently (possibly from Martha Stewart?), which I will find for you when I have more time. Sorry! Have a great week... will write more when we get back!

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Citrus Fish and Beet Salad

Tonight's dinner included "mystery" fish and the beet salad I posted about yesterday. I'll get to the details in a minute, but first, an explanation about the "mystery..."

So I'm not sure if we just ate tilapia or flounder, but it was an error on the part of the clerk at the fish store today. Or possibly that the fish was mislabeled? I asked for tilapia, and then decided that the flounder looked better. So I told her that I wanted flounder instead, but she reached for (what I thought was) the tilapia. I said, "I actually wanted that one" and pointed to what I thought was flounder. She said that was the tilapia, and although I showed her that the signs said the opposite of what she gave me, she charged me the price for the tilapia (which was lower than the flounder). The woman in line behind me was laughing at the entire exchange! Regardless, I made some sort of white fish tonight as a main dish to eat along with our beet salad.

Now, back to dinner...

First of all, I was excited because it was the first time that I cooked fish myself! (yes, I know, some of you are probably cringing at this statement, but Dan usually does all of the prep involving raw things. EW. Tonight he was doing yard-work though, so it was all me. YAY!)

To season the fish, I used fresh orange and lime juice, garlic, salt, pepper and fresh cilantro. I also left the squeezed orange and lime in the pan. Somehow not that much of the flavor actually came through in the cooked fish (although Dan disagrees with me, he enjoyed the fish more than I did). I also made a side salad using red lettuce from the CSA, almonds, orange, and some of the leftover dressing from last night's salad.

We expected the beet salad to have a lot more garlic and lime flavor than it did. I think next time I'd use a lot more dressing, or perhaps not leave it overnight before we eat it. The cucumbers actually soaked up more of the flavor than anything else. Hmm...

As you can probably guess, we were both kind of disappointed with tonight's meal. I guess you win some and you lose some, right?

At least it all looks pretty!

My rating: 6.5/10
Dan's rating: 7/10

PS - For those of you who are curious, I'm not sure that I like beets anymore than I did before. I did like the striped beets better than the regular ones, but I still don't think I'd choose them over something else. Again, Dan disagreed with me - he really likes them!

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Swiss Chard, Scallion and Garlic Frittata

Egg dishes are another staple in our household. Because of this, we often try to limit the number of whole eggs we use when cooking. We've discovered that if you replace some of the egg with just whites, you usually don't notice the difference. (I find that it's a lot easier to separate the whites from the yolks if you use a separator - they're really cheap and you can find them at most stores that carry housewares.) If you find that this dish is not flavorful enough, feel free to use all whole eggs. Just lower the amount accordingly...

Frittatas are really simple, and they're great because you can use any combination of ingredients you'd like. I'm a breakfast person, I would eat it for every meal if I could, so to me this is the perfect dinner-time dish. If you ask my sister though, she'd think you were crazy! She doesn't like eating breakfast in the morning, so she'd hate this meal as supper. To each his (or her!) own - you decide for yourself.

I didn't list the amounts of most of these ingredients because we were making it up as we went along, but it really doesn't matter... oh, and the first four ingredients below came from our CSA!

INGREDIENTS:

- Swiss chard, leaves and stems separated and chopped
- Garlic scapes, chopped
- Scallions, chopped
- Parsley, chopped
- Salt and pepper
- 2 eggs plus 4 egg whites
- Skim milk
- Good quality Parmesan cheese

PREPARATION:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease frying pan (we used cooking spray, but feel free to use your favorite kind of cooking oil or butter) and heat to medium or medium-high. Add scallions, garlic scapes and stems of Swiss chard (they take longer to cook than the leaves do). Cook until tender (about 5 minutes). Add salt and pepper to taste.

2. Combine eggs, egg whites and skim milk in a small bowl and whisk until mixed.

3. Add Swiss chard leaves and parsley and cook until the greens are starting to wilt. Add egg mixture to frying pan. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes or until egg begins to set.

4. Transfer to 9 in. pie plate (unless using oven-safe pan, in which case you can just place it directly in the oven). Cover with parmesan cheese and bake for 10 minutes.

5. Serve with English muffins or toast. Enjoy!

This dish had a bit of a "woodsy" flavor that would definitely have been enhanced with the addition of some mushrooms - the whole time we were eating it, I kept wishing I had some in the house!

My rating: 9/10
Dan's rating: 8/10

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Greens and Beans

I forgot to put up this post last week - Dan did make one other recipe using greens from our CSA. This is a recipe that we now make on a fairly regular basis - it was given to me a few months ago by an old friend. Thanks, JG! (this recipe is taken directly from an email she sent me - step 4 made me laugh out loud...)

INGREDIENTS:

- 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic (but feel free to add more), chopped
- 1 bunch of fresh greens, such as kale, swiss chard, collards, broccoli rabe, etc- cut into thin ribbons
- 1 + 2/3 cups vegetable stock (or water)
- Two 14.5 oz cans cannellini beans, drained
- Salt and pepper
- Red pepper flakes

METHOD:

1. Heat oil in a 12-inch saute pan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, increase the heat to med-high, and cook stirring frequently for about 5 mins.

2. Add the greens and stock/water to the pan, stir, cover, increase heat to high.

3. When the mixture comes to a boil, add the beans, and salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste (you can also add the red pepper after cooking, if not everyone likes spiciness). Stir, cover, reduce heat to med-high.

4. Cook until the greens are tender- timing will differ based on the greens you choose. Start checking tenderness after 5 minutes. Unless you're using collards, in which case you might want to do some laundry before checking.

5. Serve topped with grated parmesan (if you want), and crusty bread.

Feel free to make this recipe your own - we usually mix it up a bit with various beans and different types of greens depending on what we have - this time Dan used both red and white beans.

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Mediterranean Salad

Tonight we used the mixed greens and carrot from our CSA to make a great salad! It also included almonds, feta cheese, kalamata olives, cucumber and red pepper.

The dressing was olive oil, pepper, and 12-year-aged balsamic vinegar from Fiore Artisan Olive Oils and Vinegars in Bar Harbor, ME. We stopped there on a trip last summer and sampled all of their oils and vinegars. Delicious!

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