Smokey Greens

So easy, so awesome. Spicer suggests cooking them in duck or bacon fat. Butter seems to work great. Original recipe from Food and Wine, December 2000.

The trick with greens is to start with way more than you think you need. They cook down so fast. This recipe serves 5 with left overs.

5 bunches of greens. Mixed is best. Kale, collards, mustard, chard, etc. with large stems removed.
Generous 1/2 stick unsalted butter or equivalent fat
2 large red onions chopped
5 cloves garlic minced
2 canned chipotles with some of the adobo sauce (OR 3 of Olivia from Farmer and the Cook's smoked dried chipotles)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tbl cider vinegar

1. Coarsely chop and wash greens in cold water. (This can be done in stages as the greens cook down.)

2. Heat fat in dutch oven like pan. Add the onions and saute until soft. (10 minutes or so). Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes.

3. Stir in greens by the handful, adding more as previous batch starts to wilt. This takes a long time to get through all the greens. Add the chipotles and some adobo sauce if using canned and some salt and pepper. Cover and cook over low heat, stirring ever so often until greens are tender, about an hour.

4. Discard chipotles if you can find them. Stir in vinegar and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

Makeshift Pesto Sausage Pasta

Eric only received half the text and came home with turkey sausage, strangled priest pasta and sun dried tomatoes...not really enough to create a sauce.

So, pulled out everything we had in the fridge (today i was grateful for the CSA) and decided to make pesto kind of thing:

Bring Water to a Boil and pasta accordingly.

In a Cuisinart, mix

- fresh garlic from Steve's Farm

- Salt

- Slivered Almonds

- Fresh Basil from Steve's Farm

- a Canned Chipotle

- Meyer Lemon Juice

- Olive Oil

To create a Pesto.

In the pan, 

- Brown the Sausage and Remove from pan and place in big bowl.

- Add leftover roasted tomatoes from earlier in the week, add the few fresh ones you have along with sliced up marinated sun dried tomatoes and heat through.  Add to bowl with sausage.

1/4 Slice half of a small red onion up for fresh pepperyness.  Add to bowl.

When pasta is done, drain and add to bowl.  Add pesto, salt and pepper and toss to coat pasta. 

Grate Preseason on top.

For a spontaneous random creation, it didn't turn out that bad.  Lots of flavor and good mix of light and savory flavors.  And eric, who just came home from a 12 hour drive was happy.