Try This Ingredient: Swiss Chard, Two Ways

At some point, every cook encounters scary food - sometimes it's the degree of difficulty, and sometimes it's an ingredient that is intimidating because of the amount of work it takes. Swiss chard is scary because it's hard to prepare, and also because it can have a very bitter taste. But it's just so pretty! I saw bundles of it at the farmer's market and knew I had to try it at least once.

The first step to preparing Swiss chard is to separate the leaf from the stem. You could wash it first, but these things are big! (If you do wash it first, dry it thoroughly before proceeding.) Cut carefully along the edge of the stem, on both sides.

Here is a picture of the separated stem on top of the leaf

Now remove any bad spots from the leaves and cut into strips about an inch wide, reserving stems. Put the leaf strips in a bowl and, if you haven't already, wash them under cool running water.

Swiss Chard Saute

2 cloves minced garlic

1-2 cups halved and seeded cherry tomatoes

6-8 chopped Swiss chard leaves

Salt and red pepper flakes to taste

Coat the bottom of a large pan with olive oil, and saute the garlic over medium heat until fragrant and soft. Add cherry tomato halves and cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the chopped chard one or two handfulls at a time (don't overload the pan) and wilt. Add 2 tablespoons of water if the pan is too dry. Add salt and red pepper flakes to taste.

I'm a big fan of "using the whole buffalo," so to speak. Swiss chard saute makes a great accompaniment to a lot of things (I think it would be good with steak or pork) but one of them is pasta with a creamy chard rib sauce, based on another of SimplyRecipes.com's wonderful dishes.

Pasta and Swiss Chard with Cream Sauce

2 cups chopped Swiss chard ribs

4 slices American bacon, chopped (optional for vegetarian or kosher fare)

2 T butter

1 cup heavy cream (or just milk if you're a fraidy-fat)

Approximately 200 grams of uncooked pasta (or rice for Celiac-friendly)

Salt and pepper to taste

Blanch the ribs in boiling water for 3 minutes; transfer to a colander to cool and drain. Saute the bacon in the pan until fully cooked; drain off rendered bacon fat. Melt the butter in the pan with the bacon; add the ribs and simmer for 3-5 minutes. Add cream and simmer until the mixture reduces by two thirds.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in a separate pot until just aldente. Drain and add to reduced sauce, stirring to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Try This Recipe: Manicotti and Family Time

I love my family. They are all completely mad, but I love them the way you love Alice in Wonderland. I also love it when people read my blog and give me feedback - so when my Aunt Jennifer messaged me about the scone post, I was over the moon!

Aunt Jenny wanted to talk not about scones, but about sourdough. Her grandmother, my great-grandmother, kept a sourdough starter alive for many years, and baked from it every week, something I never knew. (This is the same great-grandmother who played the violin, raised some of the most rambunctious boys imaginable - my father included - and switched them when they misbehaved. I think I would have liked Great-Grandma Vera, had I met her.) Apparently the desire for sourdough runs in the family, although not the ability to raise a starter.

One of her sons, my great-uncle Bill, turned 80 last week, and his party was Sunday afternoon, and I got to spend some time with clippings from my Dad's family shrub. I do mean shrub, not tree. For as far up as we can go, we go even farther out. Third cousins, step-cousins, cousins out your ears, and a smattering of aunts and uncles. And as crazy as that is, it was awesome.

I came away from the family gathering with three things: one, a culture of my Uncle Fred's sourdough starter, which he was nice enough to share, and which I will hopefully not kill. Two, a promise of alpaca fiber for spinning, knitting and reviewing in the mail from a cousin-cousin-cousin who raises them. Three, my father's uncle's cousin's wife's recipe for manicotti.

Pam's Manicotti for a Crowd

1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 cup water
6 eggs
A liberal pinch of salt

Pam says the key to good manicotti is to sift the flour twice; once as you measure it and again as you add it to the eggs and water in a blender or food processor. Let it sit for 30+ minutes. To cook the crepes, she recommends a good enamel omelet pan, over medium heat; oil the pan, and then blot the excess with a paper towel.

Her trick to the perfect size: measure the batter with a coffee scoop, which is just under 1/8 cup, or 2 tablespoons. Pour your batter into the hot pan and spread it out so it is uniformly thin. Let it cook until the crepe is dry on top, then flip it and give it just a few seconds on the other side. Stack them separated by wax paper.

For the Filling:

3 pounds of ricotta cheese (If you're feeling ambitious, try this recipe from Elise Bauer's blog.)

6 eggs

Parsley, fresh or dried

Salt

3/4 pound shredded whole-milk mozzarella

Pam says if you have any really good cheeses you like sitting around, throw them in, the more the merrier!

Mix until uniform in a large bowl. Depending on how stuffed you like your manicotti, each can take 1/3 - 1/2 cup of filling. Line it up, roll up the crepe around it and voila - you have a manicotti. This recipe makes roughly four dozen - Pam wasn't kidding when she said it feeds a crowd! If a large crowd isn't in the cards, you can always freeze them for easy dinner later.

To freeze the prepared manicotti, put them in a foil pan, ideally 12 in each of four. Cover with foil and put in the freezer. It's really that simple. When you're ready for that cheesy goodness, you can thaw them overnight in the fridge or pour sauce over the frozen manicotti and bake right away. (How long? What temp? Your Betty Crocker Sense should be tingling - 350 until the cheese is gooey and melted.)

Pam, the wonderful person and cook that she is, has promised to pass on other delicious recipes that I can't wait to try out and share with you - Mama Leone's one-skillet veal made student-friendly with chicken instead; a whole onion pink vodka sauce - with real vodka, so this one will have to wait until next month, when I'm old enough to buy vodka; and a tomato sauce slow-simmered with country spare ribs that sounds so good, I am practically drooling. In the mean time, I suggest you skip freezing the manicotti and make enough to feed your whole big family so you can sit down and talk about the recipes that they make, because you never know what gems you'll find.

Try This Recipe: Currant and Cream Scones

I love to bake. I have no idea why, but when I'm feeling blue nothing cheers me up quite like the smell of the baking process, from yeast breads rising to quickbreads baking. I especially love some underappreciated home-baked goods, like sourdough and scones.

Sourdough is tricky, and has a bum rap as being too tempremental to try at home, which I think is patently untrue. The key is patience. I'm too proud to buy starter so I make it from scratch, with varied success - I've lost starter to a terrible cheese-fishy taste, but I also won Best in Show for my sourdough at the county fair. Patience.

Scones also have a bad reputation that they really haven't earned. For as much as I advocate playing with things in the kitchen, the chemistry of scones is something that shouldn't really be fooled around with, and I think that's where people run into trouble.

There are three keys to good scones. First, always use real cream. A low-fat scone is a sweetened rock. Yes, you add butter as well but trust me, fats are essential to a light, fluffy scone. The Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking says that quick breads contain more fat and sugar than yeast breads because fat and sugar "along with gentle and limited mixing, are what give quick breads their tender crumb." My mother the chemist agrees. "Think about what happens when you heat sugar; it gets hard. If you coat sugar with fat, it keeps the sugar from clumping together and forming that hard crystal." Fat molecules also repell one another, so they allow the leavening agent in your scone (in this case an acid-base reaction between the cream and the baking powder) to work to the best advantage.

Second, keep your butter cold. Cut it up before starting and then put it back in the fridge until you're ready to put it in - and once you do, work quickly. My mother and I have speculated (with no assistance offered by our baking books) and while we aren't sure why, this is an absolute truth of scone baking. Softened butter will not do. (My completely untested theory is that the cooled fats don't have a chance to make the dough softer and spread out, so the leavening can push your scone up and not out.)

And finally, even if you don't feel it, act with confidence. A scone is a quickbread because making it should be - you guessed it - quick. Overworking the dough can make it hard and dense, so don't overthink it. Once it looks pretty uniform, stop, and move on to the next step, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, do not see if "just a few more stirs" will make it any better. Trust me, it won't.

Last night I made currant and cream scones from the aforementioned baking book, and so far enough friends have asked for the recipe that I decided to share it. Williams-Sonoma, please don't sue me.

2 c flour
1/4 c sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
2 t lemon zest
6 T unsalted butter cut into chunks
1/2 c dried currants
3/4 c heavy cream

Topping: excess cream, 1 T demerara or turbinado sugar, 1 t cinnamon

Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. Cut in butter until the mixture forms large coarse crumbs the size of small peas. Stir in currants. Pour the cream over the dry ingredients and mix with until dry ingredients are moistened.

On a lightly floured surface, press the dough together until it clings in a ball. Shape into a disc about a half inch thick and 6 1/2 inches across. Cut the disc into 6 wedges and place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper 1 inch apart.

Brush the wedges with the remaining cream. Mix the sugar and cinnamon, sprinkle over wedges. Bake at 425 until golden brown, 13-17 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Serve warm or store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two days.

Try This Recipe: Steak Marinade

After trying to be a vegetarian for so long, I am just not a big fan of steak. It's not that it's bad, I just tend to prefer a well-prepared eggplant to the average hunk of red meat. (Meatballs excluded. They are a weakness of mine.) Adapting yet another recipe from SimplyRecipes.com, I finally found a marinade that makes steak so good even I like it. Poor old Dad loves this one, because it takes steak and potatoes to a very good place that isn't too weird for him.

Marinade for roughly two pounds of beef:

• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (add a little splash extra if you like apples and honey together.)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• a few grinds of black pepper, to taste

I like to pour it all straight into a two cup Pyrex measuring cup and fudge a little on the amount of honey and cider vinegar I'm putting in, because as long as you're in the ballpark it tastes great. Give it a good whisk (I'm not usually a tool snob but this little doohickey is perfect for the job) and let it sit while you lay out your steak in a pan. Whisk it up again, and pour it over top. Cover the pan and let it hang out in the fridge.

It's best if you let the steaks marinade overnight - for example, my brother is coming home tomorrow and I started marinading the steaks today - but if you have less time, keep them moving. Depending on how long you have, flip them every one to four hours, and try to hit each side twice with the marinade. (If you have less than four hours, you're too late.)

I cook steak in a broiler pan placed on the second position from the element. Depending on the thickness of your steak, each side can take 8 to 12 minutes. Wait until the fat is caramelized, flip the steaks, and then do the same for the other side. Test for doneness by cutting into the center of the steak and put them back in the oven if they are still very red; if the meat is more pink, take them out and let them rest for about ten minutes before carving. (If you can wait that long.) The same rules apply for steak on the grill. I prefer the oven because I can save the juices for gravy and feed some to my dog.

Another family favorite for steak marinades is bulgogi sauce. It is a pungent garlic and mushroom sauce usually used in Korean barbecue, and you can find it at Asian markets or the ethnic section of some mainstream markets. For vegetarians it also makes a great accompaniment for grilled vegetables.

Try This Book: The Art of Simple Food

If you haven't heard of her, Alice Waters is the queen of real, good food. In 1971 she opened Chez Panisse in Berkley, California, with the intention of serving only local, fresh, seasonal foods. Since then, Chez Panisse has grown remarkably in not only location (it now includes a second eatery upstairs and a stand-up lunch and breakfast cafe a short distance away) but in mission. In 1996, Alice started the Chez Panisse Foundation, with the mission of teaching schoolchildren about healthy eating and sustainable living by helping them grow, make and eat fresh, healthy food.

Alice has written almost a dozen cookbooks in total (that I know of!) For someone who is new to cooking or to cooking whole foods, I highly recommend The Art of Simple Food. It's clear and readable and she breaks down everything a new cook could want to know - from what it means to "dice" and how to do it, to how to make chicken stock, to more complicated recipes.

The first section is broken down by types of food - salad, soup, bread - and techniques - slow cooking, simmering, grilling - and rather than being very cut-and-dried, the clear directions are peppered with helpful, friendly commentary designed to give a beginning cook the best tools an experienced mentor can offer. The second section is made up of recipes, categorized by type, which are equally clear and often include recommended variations, again an aid to someone learning about new flavor combinations and menus. The whole book is organized around Alice's nine guidelines for good eating:

Eat locally and sustainably

Eat seasonally

Shop at farmers' markets

Plant a garden

Conserve, compost and recycle

Cook simply

Cook together

Eat together

Remember food is precious

Alice's advice and wisdom are a boon to any cook at any level, and The Art of Simple Food is a straightforward, clear and comprehensible guide to how to make good ingredients into good food.

Dinner Tonight: Updated BBQ

My dad is very steak-and-potatoes kind of guy. He took it remarkably well when I announced I was going to go vegetarian at the wizened age of 10. (It never really took, but when I went food shopping with friends a few months ago, one of them told me she'd never seen anyone get quite so excited about vegetables. I take that as praise of the highest order.) He's taken my culinary experiments over the last few years in stride, which is quite an accomplishment considering how far astray I have wandered from time to time - did you know that basil in brown butter tastes like lemon, especially when poured over breadcrumbs made from sourdough? And that lemony flavor does not go with butternut squash or zucchini at all. My family knows this, bless their hearts.

Sometimes, I take pity on my dad and try to reign it in for a regular steak-and-potatoes kind of dinner. That's what tonight's menu was supposed to be:

Burgers

Corn on the Cob

Cole Slaw

Potato Salad

Run-of-the-mill weekend barbecue fare, right? The problem is that I seem to have an inability to make anything quite the way I should. My boyfriend says I'm a "tweaker:" I will take something that is perfectly fine the say it is and find a way to tweak it. I am not sure that this is a good thing. So that menu morphed into this menu:

Pasture-Fed Hamburgers on Brioche

Roasted Corn

Purple Cabbage Slaw

Potato Salad with Cucumber and Chives

The burgers were from the great operation that is Lindenhoff Farm, and unfortunately my mother obscured the really nice flavor of grass-fed beef with a handful of mesquite chips - the smokyness destroyed the sort of grassy, nutty notes I was expecting, and dried them out a bit. I think cooking them under the broiler might have been a better choice, but it wasn't terrible.

The brioche was leftovers. (Who has leftover brioche? Nutcases like me who bake for fun. Try it sometime. Punching down dough is cheaper than therapy.) The taste was good, but never again in my life will I use slices instead of buns. That was just a dumb idea.

To roast the corn, I peeled back but did not remove the husk, cleaned off the silk, and then put the husk back in place. I tied the tops shut above the ear, and let them sit on a cooler part of the grill and just hang out for almost an hour, as the coals caught and got ready for the meat. Next time, I would like to soak the whole ear, husk and all, in water for probably about half an hour before doing that. The corn cooked ok, but the husks dried out very quickly, which allowed the mesquite smoke in. Mesquite corn is interesting, but not something I am rushing to try again.

The cabbage salad was absolutely stellar. I used purple cabbage (why? 'cause it's what we had) with slivers of carrot and green bell pepper, tossed with salt, pepper, olive oil and sweetened rice wine vinegar, also known as sushi vinegar, in an adaptation of this recipe from Simply Recipes, which I love. (Ok, a really loose adaptation.) I loved it, especially since a mayonnaise cole slaw would have just turned everything pink, but this allowed all these beautiful colors to really pop. Dad was not of the same mind or palate, but he did at least enjoy...

The potato salad. A similarly loose interpretation of Alton Brown's cold potato salad, it was made with a half dozen russet potatoes from the farmer's market, a cucumber from a friend's garden that I threw in because it was getting kind of punky, and the small half of a small sweet onion, finely diced. I dressed it with mayo, mustard powder (a little more than called for,) and garlic, as per the recipe, but I substituted the parsley and tarragon, which I didn't have, for some fresh chives from the garden. It worked really well, even dad liked it. But at the end of the day, steak and potatoes is not something I do very well, because steak and potatoes can get too darn boring, and the kitchen should a playground!

PS - I did has cheesburger by putting some of Highland Farm's delicious French feta on top of my burger - yum!

Where I'm Coming From + Fresh Frittata

Hi there, and welcome to Try This! My name is Anne. I'm a third-year college student from outside Philadelphia, transplanted to Long Island for school, and I love good food. I started this blog because I love good food and I really want to share that with other people - after all, when you mix good food and good company, you've got a party!

My aim is to share what I know, what I try, and what I learn about cooking. I've already got interesting stories to share, thanks to my crazy family. My mother is Italian-American and celebrations in my family revolve around the kitchen and the loud, happy frenzy of making and eating food together.

Six years ago we informally adopted my "brother," then a Korean exchange student whose father wanted him to get an American education, who is now my annoying kid brother and just part of the family. Tommy brought a new set of flavors into our kitchen, and while Italian and Korean cuisine are literally half a world apart, they stand united in the universal language of garlic, which is all it took to win me over.

My latest influence has been my reading. A friend and I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and to complement it I have been working through The Real Food Revival by Sherri Brooks Vinton and Ann Clark Espuelas, and next on the list is Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food. Right now, in the middle of Pennsylvania's summer bounty, a doable drive from not one but two wonderful local markets, I can honestly tell you that the red-pink watery chunks at my school's salad bar bear only a nominal relation to the sweet, tangy, succulent, earthy tomatoes I can get right now. Sustainable agriculture makes perfect sense to me on two fronts. I told you before, I like good food. I also like it when no one is poisoning me or my planet, so fresh and local is a double win.

In a nutshell, this is about turning real ingredients into real, good food, and doing it with the innovation required on a student budget in student space. This is going to be interesting.

For now, at least, I'm home, and that means I have funds, access, and equipment that make good food easy. This was dinner last night. The corn was from Thornbury Farm, the cheese from Highland Farm, the eggs from a childhood friend who raises chickens, and the basil from my own backyard.

Fresh Basil and Sweet Corn Frittata

olive oil for saute

1/4 sweet onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 tsp minced garlic

3 cups fresh sweet corn kernels (roughly 3 cobs. I recommend saving the cobs for vegetable stock if you plan on making your own.)

6 eggs

2 T milk

1/2 T baking soda

salt and pepper to taste

1/4-1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

1/4-1/2 cup crumbled French feta sheep cheese (or fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, whatever you like)

Coat the bottom of a large, oven-safe skillet with olive oil and put over medium heat. Preheat the oven to 350 on the "broil*" setting. When the skillet is hot, add the onions and saute; once the onions have begun to soften, add the garlic and corn. Saute until the corn is tender and sweet, and remove the skillet from the heat for a few minutes.

In a small mixing bowl, beat the eggs. You want roughly two cups of egg. Add salt, pepper, and basil. Last, add milk and baking soda,** mix thoroughly, and pour into skillet. Put the skillet back on the heat and gently prod the mix around so that the corn is evenly distributed throughout the egg mixture. Crumble the cheese on and prod it down into the egg a little, and then put the frittata in the oven.

Times vary, and I'm no expert on ovens. Start with five minutes, and check to see how set the frittata is before adding more time. When you think the fritatta is done, take a table or butter knife and make a small cut in the center of the skillet. If the knife comes out clean (not covered in egg slime) it's done. Take it out, cut it up, and enjoy. This experiment was very well received last night, and was great with some roasted potatoes and a slice of toast. It also microwaved well for breakfast this morning.

* You may or may not know this, but my dad didn't so I'll explain: "broil" doesn't mean "toaster" like Dad thought, it means that the heat is coming from the upper rather than lower element (that coil thing that gets hot) in the oven. Heat from above is important to a frittata, since in starting it on the stove the bottom is a little bit cooked already while the top is still raw eggs.

** I add milk and baking soda because the acids in the milk and the base in the baking soda react to create a lighter texture in the dish as a whole. Think back to the paper-mache volcanoes of yore, and you might remember a bubbling effect; the mild acids in the milk produce this on a smaller scale, so your frittata is soft and fluffy. (It won't go kaboom, I promise.)