Savory rainbow chard and mushroom tart with potatoes

Tonight, it finally got below 80 degrees, which is a big deal if you don't use the A/C your in-laws generously sent. We've lately become Stan Cox devotees (except on the train), so I baked now that it was a little cooler out. We got some rainbow swiss chard the other day and I really wanted to make an eggy, cheesy quiche. But since I stink at quiches, I made a tart instead.
This is an adaptation of the Fresh Direct recipe. Oops, did I fail to mention that sometimes, we get our groceries delivered? I have a lot of enviro-angst about this too, but since we don't own a car, and sometimes I am not always well served by the grocery stores in our neighborhood (and buying groceries in Manhattan and lugging them down to Brooklyn only makes sense during the school year), we resort to this sometimes.

Savory rainbow chard with mushroom tart
(approx 1 hr to prep, serves 4)


Ingredients
1 bunch of rainbow chard, washed and finely chopped (separate out the stems)
1/2 onion, diced
4 oz of baby bella mushrooms, rinsed and chopped
1/4 c. and 1 Tbs of olive oil
1/4 teas. of salt
salt, pepper, and oregano to taste
1 c. of whole wheat flour
3 large eggs
1/3 c. of finely grated parmesan
1/4 c. of crumbled feta
1/4 c. of milk

Preheat the oven to 400.

Mix 1 cup of flour, 1/4 teas. of salt, and 1/4 c. of olive oil in a bowl. It should get to be grainy but doughy. Press into the bottom of a pie plate and stick in the oven (to firm up a bit) for about 4-5 minutes.

Cook the onions in the remaining olive oil over medium heat, for about 3-4 minutes. Add the mushroom, and stir occasionally, another 3 minutes. Next add the chopped chard stems and stir. You can increase the heat a bit here. Add the leaves, stir, and cook until the liquid boils off.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and cheese.

When the liquid is evaporated from the chard/mushroom mixture, empty the mixture on top of the crust in the pie pan.

Pour the egg/milk/cheese mixture on top, and bake for 40 minutes.

post baking goodness (it tasted meaty! But there was no meat!)

But in full disclosure, the "crust" was neither good nor necessary. Next time, I'll forgo the crust entirely and make it frittata, upping the recipe to 5 eggs.

Roasted Potatoes with Paprika
In the meantime, scrub and dice 4 medium potatoes. Toss with 1 Tbs of olive oil, and bake in the same oven for about 30 minutes. You can turn the oven onto broil and stick the pan in the broiler for 3 minutes to get the tops crispy. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.

Our baby cat Buster really wanted the potatoes.

Late May/ Early June food adventures and failures

Apologies for the gaps in updates. The middle of May since now has been a period of transition. My cat has moved in with me, and the blokey is visiting, so I've been trying to impress with culinary delights, but mostly I've been learning the extent of his patience. And I finished teaching those three classes and only have some grade complaints (always with these B+ students wanting As).

First a few of my "experiments"

Exhibit A: Asparagus Quiche of Good Intentions:
Why yes, the arugula and tomato salad with homemade vinagarette dressing is colorful and lovely. (method: wild rocket salad from Trader Joes, add quartered tomatoes, toss with about 1 1/2 Tbs of Olive Oil, 1 Tbs of Balsamic Vinagarette, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teas of pepper, some dried oregano). This is my summer go-to salad. It's even cheaper at the farmer's market stand at the Greenmarkets all over NY, but there hours are more limited.
But the quiche was a mistake. First, I tried to make my own "crust" following Betty Crocker's olive oil "pat in the pastry" single pie crust.
Ingredients
1& ½ cups, plus 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons cold milk

Instructions
Place flour, sugar and salt in a pie pan. Mix with fork until blended. In another bowl, add the vegetable oil and milk. Beat with a fork until creamy. Pour oil mixture over the flour mixture. Mix with the fork until moistened. With your fingers, pat the dough across the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan.

For the quice, I looked a bunch of recipes online. I mixed 5 eggs, 1/2 yogurt, 1/3 cup shredded romano cheese, sauteed onions, 12 oven roasted asparagus, 1 handful of wilted arugula, mixed it, layered some mozzerella slices on top, baked it at 425 for about 45 minutes. I expected a quivering, carmelized delicious pie, but it came out with a spongey, goopey mess. That blokey ate with no complaints, making some enthusiastic food noises along the way (bless him).
Lesson learned:
Quiches require real cream, and lots of cheese for substance (like 1 cup)
Less is more in terms of ingredients (you get a soggy quiche if you overdo the ingredients)
Simple arugula salad will cover up almost all salad woes.

Vegetarian migas with Chipotle-tomato sauce

This weekend, I attend the Brooklyn Food Conference which was pretty cool. I am quite familiar with lot of the policy and educational stuff I already knew, but it was great to hear about the activities local NY activists, especially in low income neighborhoods. I especially enjoyed the Young Culinary Masters, a program that teaches local NYC students how to cook, the NY Coalition for Healthy School Food (dunno why Heather Mills is a spokesperson) and the Q&A session with state representatives. It ties in nicely with what I've been trying to teach my students about trade, international relations, and inequality in regards to food production and agricultural subsidies.
Most exciting was meeting the lovely and sweet local celebrity blogger Cathy Erway, who lives in Crown Heights with me! Her equally adorable blog Not Eating Out in New York is both political, anti-consumerist, green and health/fun oriented. She asked me during a cooking demonstration if I had a blog, and I was embarrassed to say, "yes, but it's spotty." Since I cook more second semester, have joined the Crown Heights CSA, and have a flexible and hopefully productive summer in front of me, I think its time to resurrect this blog.
I decided to try a modified recipe from one of my favorite other NY food bloggers, Smitten Kitchen. Deb has gorgeous photos, but her recipes are usually meatier than I like. Plus, that anti-obesity panel I attended made me realize I send eat more greens, I tried to make it some what more heart healthy (although I used eggs, added guacamole, etc.) Her original recipe, with uses tradition chorizo, can be found here.

Vaguely more healthy Vegetarian Migas with Tomato-Chipotle sauce (she calls it a choltis, but I don't know what that is).

Serves 2 (although I cut down on the eggs and saved the rest for tomorrow)

oven chips: (if you don't want to buy tortilla chips)
6 corn tortilla cut into 1/6 wedges
Heat oven to about 400 degrees. Arrange wedges in a single layer (I had some lean against the tray "walls"). Cook about 15 minutes, opening around 1/2 way to flip, until gold brown (you can spray or brush with oil).

Before:

After:
(feel free to add salt or seasoning, but this works better if you've brushed with oil)

Sauce:
4-5 chipotle peppers (from a can with adobo sauce)
4 plum tomotos, roughly chopped
1/3 white onion
2-4 cloves garlic
Place on the above into a blender and pulse until incorporated. Add to saucepan and heat until bubbling; simmer for 15 minutes (to remove excess water) (I had to use a spoon as its quite thick). This business is spicy, even for maschocist Korean-American girls. You can cut it with yogurt/sour cream during the eating stage.

(apologies, I need to 409 that wall)

Migas:
3-4 eggs (or 5-6, cholesterol is good for the brain and moods), beaten
a bit of chopped onion
2 handfuls of bagged spinach (or any green or veggie that complements black beans- carrots, summer squash, etc.)
a little more than 1/2 can of black beans, drained (maybe just less than 1/4 cup dried and cooked?)
optional garnishes: shredded cheese (Deb recommends feta, but I like queso fresco or boring cheddar), a simple guacamole
olive oil

In a larger frying pan, warm up oil on medium heat and add onions. After they brown a bit, add spinach until it begins to wilt, and then add black beans. Push the spinach and black beans to side and scramble the eggs, adding the oven chips, until just a little wet (one of Mark Bittman's tips for perfect scrambled eggs) and incorporate with the other ingredients in the pan.
At this point, you can add cheese, as much sauce as you'd like, move to your plate, and eat (with leftover chips as garnish).
For a vegan alternative, stir fry 1/2 container of firm tofu that (with most of the liquid squeezed out with a cheese cloth, a process that makes the tofu look eggy) and add 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt, 1 Tablespoon of nutritional yeast flakes, and a pinch of cayenne. maybe some prepared mustard. Cook this with the spinach/beans a few minutes, and then add the chips and sauce on top (to soften chips)
This doesn't look anything like Deb's dish at Smitten Kitchen, but damn it was pretty delicious.



(apologies for the blurriness, as I was really excited to eat it)