The Chard Didn't Char, Wilted Instead!

I couldn't find rainbow, but this chard was red and it worked. Except it wilted quick. I got it on Friday I think, so I probably should have used it sooner than today. It's alright. This smells good and you get to use stems!

It's all from this prettiness.







I left out the thyme and used extra rosemary instead, very good. Maybe one less egg?

This is what you'll be saying to them stems.

-Amanda

Bake Vs. Gratin

I say bake. This seems simple but actually takes quite a bit of leg work. Got it from here.

Swapped the rice for barley, just cause. Didn't feel like buying rosemary, so that go nixed. I must say I do like the idea of using the chard stalks.



Impressive NY Times. I clap for you. Just a little bit.

-Amanda

Is it Passover yet?

If you're ever out in Canoga Park, you should stop by Follow Your Heart on Sherman Way. It's this incredible vegetarian mini-market and restaurant; it's where I first was introduced to scrambled tofu at the tender age of 11. I don't think that's on the menu anymore, but their spanakopita is amazing. An order comes with two pieces--they're the same shape and size as samosas (instead of like a sheet cake slice), which I prefer since it holds in the heat better and ensures that you're biting into crisp phyllo on the outside and warm-textured-but-creamy-spinachy-goodness on the inside. And to top it off, they make them with whole wheat phyllo dough, which gives every bite so much more depth.

In any case, I'm pretty scared to work with phyllo dough, so you can imagine my excitement when I found a recipe for matzo spanakopita in Healthy Jewish Cooking by Steven Raichlen, a book I routinely check out from the library (Studio City branch in case you're wondering). Obviously it's geared towards someone craving spanakopita during Passover, but no matter. I made the recipe last summer with regular matzo, but this time I thought trying to recreate the whole wheat spanakopita from Follow Your Heart might be fun.
So, on Thursday Anna came over and we set to work. I was an idiot, and didn't think it was a problem that I didn't have dill. Herbs always enhance flavors though, and dill is always supposed to go in spanakopita. So if you make this, be sure to mix in about a 1/4 cup chopped dill into the filling. Fun fact: I read in my Trader Joe's cookbook that you can buy frozen herbs at Trader Joe's, which would be so much more convenient than having to worry about buying fresh herbs and having most of it go bad and so on.
Anyway getting to the recipe, we adapted this from Healthy Jewish Cooking's Passover Spanekopita and here we go:

16 ounce package of frozen chopped spinach
1/2 c. torn chard pieces (leftover from chard chips, though these aren't chips yet, still raw! oh yeah, and you can just replace this with more spinach too btw)
1/4 c. chopped scallions
1/2 c. matzo meal
1 c. fat-free egg substitute, or 1 egg and 6 egg-whites
1/3 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 c. fat-free ricotta (which is ridiculously difficult to find but yay for Whole Foods, the original recipe called for feta or Parmesan cheese)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Kosher salt to taste
Olive Oil for brushing
4 sheets of whole wheat matzo

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
2. Cook the frozen spinach according to the directions on the bag. Probably that means heating up 1/4 c. water to boil in a big pot. Then putting the frozen spinach in and simmering it for about 10 minutes, but you should check. Drain the spinach, then once it's cooled a tad, grab handfuls of it and squeeze the extra water out. It will be really squishy and gross. Put squeezed spinach in a medium sized bowl for mixing the rest of the filling.
3. Stir in the chard, chopped scallions, (please use dill and mix it in too!), matzo meal, eggs, lemon juice, cheese, pepper, and salt. You want to season this a lot, make friendly with the salt and pepper!
3. Take a 9 by 13 glass baking pan and spray/butter it. Put two sheets of matzo side-by-side on it and brush with the olive oil. We didn't have a kitchen brush so Anna decided to use the scallion tails for brushing. This is why Anna's amazing.


Spread the spinach filling evenly on top. Brush the other two sheets of matzo with olive oil and place on top. Sprinkle the tops with salt (not too much now!) and bake for 30 minutes until the top crust is golden brown (this is a little bit more difficult to tell with the whole wheat) and the filling seems set. Let cool enough so you don't burn your mouth and enjoy!





And like Anna said in her post before, we made chard chips again only seasoned thanks to Anna's suggestion. She though it would be good to do half a baking sheet with onion powder and cumin and the other half with Garam Masala and sesame seeds. My favorite was the onion powder and cumin--amazing!

Chard Chips and Madeleines Sitting Pretty in the Oven

So yesterday I found a madeleine pan at Sur la Table--lots of excitement. It was two dollars cheaper than the one at Williams-Sonoma. And last night I decided to try my hand at madeleines. I found some recipes for creative ones like honey spice and chocolate cinnamon, but I decided to go with a basic vanilla for my first go.
Not a good go.
Disaster is, in fact, the most appropriate description.
Hindsight is a beautiful thing, isn't it? Well,
a) I should have let the butter cool COMPLETELY before combining it with the rest of the batter, bad move number one.
b) Nearly every recipe you that you find for madeleines will say that you should let the batter sit in the refrigerator overnight before you bake them. There's a reason that there's near consensus on this fact!
c)Do not overfill them--less is more. You will have a terrible time taking the madeleines out if you overfill them--and they will be ugly. And honestly, madeleines exist to be pretty, so in essence you'd be bringing a good-for-nothing madeleine into the world. Do you want to be responsible for that? Yeah, no.
d) Some recipes say not to butter the pan; that they'll be "prettier" if you don't. Lies. Butter/spray the pan like crazy, otherwise you'll have a mess like mine.
Anyhow, most recipes make more batter than you need for a 12 standard size madeleine pan, i.e. the one I bought. So if this is the case for you too, most recipes make two batches (24 madeleines). Lucky me, this meant that I got a second chance with this batter. I refrigerated what was left of the batter overnight and a then a half day. Not much was left considering my earlier mistake with butter. At the bottom of the bowl was reconstituted butter slabs. They looked like soap. Ew.
But the five madeleines that I was able to recover came out beautifully! Small success but I'll take it.

Madeleines
2 eggs, 1 egg yolk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla (this might be fun with almond extract too)

1 cup sifted powered sugar

3/4 c. flour

1/4 tsp. baking powder (remember powder, soda=soap)

1 stick butter (melted and COOLED, again if not cooled=soap in shape though, not flavor)

Steps
1. Melt the butter. Let it cool.
2. Meanwhile, beat the eggs with the vanilla in a mixer on high speed for 5 minutes. Add the sifted powdered sugar slowly. The batter will start to look really shiny and pretty now. Let it beat for at medium speed for about 5 minutes.
3. As all this beating is going on sift the flour and the baking powder together in a small bowl.
4. Fold the flour mixture in parts to the pretty egg and sugar mixture.
5. Once that is done fold in the COOLED butter. Seriously, if it's not cooled completely it won't combine with the egg and flour mixture.
6. Refrigerate the batter for at least a couple of hours. Preferably overnight.
7. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray your pan like you'd spray bug spray at a huge cockroach coming at you (sorry bad imagery when we're talking about food).
8. Don't fill them all the way. Only 2/3 of the way at most. Bake for 10 minutes.
9. Let them cool a few minutes in the pan. Then carefully loosen them with your fingers. Knives can deal a madeleine major damage.
Et voilà!




And as for the chard chips; they're like kale chips only with torn up pieces of red and green chard, left over from the red lentil and chard curry Anna and I made on Saturday. Just tear up chard into bite-size pieces rinse it, pat dry, and drizzle with a teeny amount of olive oil. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. Enjoy! Oh and some of them might look super burnt. They're still good, at least I think so. But then again I like marshmallows burnt to a char, so don't necessarily take my opinion on that.