I have been reading the book Omega Diet; it has made quite an impression. And like many other nutrition inspired books, pushes the great and undying virtues of leafy greens. EAT greens. Eat your greens, more greens, pass the greens. I really don’t eat enough greens, which means I have to be deliberate about getting enough greens.

Perhaps you are a more accomplished green eating machine than I am. I hope for your sake, you are.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing if you ‘do something 21 times it becomes a habit.’ Is that true? I have no idea. But it does hint at the need to be purposeful, determined and persevering in the attempt to integrate healthy habits.

And it is Spring after all. Spring cleaning applies to the house and to our health: old habits out, new habits in.

I recently watched a cooking show called Good Eats. Have you seen it? It is a bit cheesy, but interesting because it is full of lots of little tidbits of information, only 30 minutes long and entertaining enough for my kids to watch. I like drilling down and learning about greens or apple pie, and/or the overlooked virtues of squash. It takes one food group or ingredient and essentially demystifies it. I enjoyed watching the one on Greens, because even though I knew much of what was shared, I learned a new way to clean greens and a new way to sauté them. I learned about a wide range of greens, and a little about their history.

And then I deliberately ordered red chard in my Farm Box. And I feel guilty if things go bad, so I knew if it was there looking me in the face I would attempt a new recipe. And I did—by morphing one of the recipes from The Farm—and the chard was great.

My husband seriously said it was the best chard he had ever tasted in his life. Now, lets not assume it was the only chard he has ever tasted in his life. To be honest, he travels a bit for business, where he often enjoys nice meals, so comments like ‘it is the best ever’ usually are compared to fabulous restaurant fare and I adequately glow at the compliment.

In unison then: “More greens, please.”

Red Chard with Shallots & Port*
Large Bunch Red Chard, stems removed and sliced (I did inch slices on the horizontal)
2 T diced shallots
2 T olive oil
1 T butter
2/3 cup chicken or vegetable broth
3 T port

Heat butter and olive oil in sautee pan over medium high heat. Add/sautee shallots for 3 minutes, stirring. Add broth and port; in 1-2 minutes, pile in the chard. Stir and let sautee for 3-4 minutes, then lower to medium and toss on the lid (frisbee style is entertaining: your kids will be impressed). Let chard wilt for another 3-4 minutes. Remove lid, pour out excess liquid (I left 1-2 T worth in pan), stir/sautee chard for another 2 minutes, then serve.

*If you leave the skillet on high instead of reducing to medium or medium/low when you place on the lid, then you will have charred chard, which by the way, is more fun to say than it is to eat. Greens will be greens until they are brown. Then they are just gross.

Last summer was my first real fling with beets.

I am enthralled with these color-bleeding, edible and bursting-with-flavor globes. Beets tuck right into that whole ugly swan story, appearing ugly, or at least starting out ugly but later transformed into something breath-taking. Beets are that way: ugly ducklings waiting to be transformed into swan-form. Who would think these scary rooted, a bit hairy, little studded dirt balls could turn into charmers that steal your meal-time show?

I am still getting to know beets.

Beet Info (borrowed happily from world’s healthiest foods):

• The pigment that gives beets their rich, purple-crimson color is a powerful cancer-fighting agent.
• Beets are particularly rich in the B vitamin folate, which is essential for normal tissue growth. Eating folate-rich foods is especially important during pregnancy.
• Both beets and Swiss chard are different varieties within the same plant family
• Beets’ value grew in the 19th century when it was discovered that they were a concentrated source of sugar, and the first sugar factory was built in Poland.
• Store beets unwashed in the refrigerator crisper where they will keep for two to four weeks.
  • (Cut the majority of the greens and their stems from the roots, so they do not pull away moisture away from the root. Leave about two inches of the stem attached to prevent the roots from “bleeding.” Store the unwashed greens in a separate plastic bag where they will keep fresh for about four days).
• Raw beets do not freeze well since they tend to become soft upon thawing. Freezing cooked beets is fine; they’ll retain their flavor and texture.
• A Few Quick Serving Ideas:
  • Simply grate raw beets for a delicious and colorful addition to salads or decorative garnish for soups.
  • Add chunks of beet when roasting vegetables in the oven.
  • Serving homemade vegetable juice? A quarter of a beet will turn any green drink into a sweet pink concoction, pleasing both the eyes and the taste buds.
  • Healthy sauté beet greens with other braising greens such as chard and mustard greens.
  • Marinate steamed beets in fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh herbs.

Last night, I made beets via my kitchen sink method (aka start pulling out ingredients, preparing them and then seeing how they fit together at the meal—a sometimes disastrous, yet sometimes brilliant maneuver). I decided to roast the beets, since I had a pile of them from my CSA box. And they grabbed worthy attention.

I took about 6 small beets, peeled them and quartered them (think 1/2 inch cubes). I blended 1 T olive oil, 1 T maple syrup, and 1/2 tsp coarse salt vigorously; then added oil mix to beets to lightly cover. I roasted them for 25 minutes at 400. Then, via the kitchen sink method instead of just eating them plain, we ended up putting them on top of our crisp green salad—with blue cheese dressing. It worked. Next time, I will PLAN to make the beets for the salad; with the air that I meant to do it all along.

More beet recipes? It beets me—but visit these kitchens:

• Loving this from Nami-Nami; she had the same idea as me—beetroot and blue cheese—but my salad is her tartlet
• Milk and Cookies makes beetroot dip, then places a colorful dollop atop crostini
• Brilynn from Jumbo Empanadas tosses a lovely roasted beet salad
• And for Farro Beet Risotto (gorgeous color); head over to Beyond Salmon

Finally.

Do you do that too? Rip out a recipe, tuck it into your recipe binder or ‘try-this’ file, then promptly forget it? And I am talking years here.

This bean recipe has lived in the confines of my recipe pile, a bursting folder of potential table-worthy candidates that gained their way out of a magazine, off a website, or from a newspaper and got in line. It is a long line of recipes—waiting patiently or not—to be made in my kitchen. When will their turn come? How long must one wait?

Sometimes the line moves fast, sometimes it stands frozen for months on end. If your season passes, toss up those culinary hands and wait it out—your rotation has been stymied. And god forbid, the controller of this line (chef moi) might go through and actually clean out the recipe folder. Recipes vaporize, ushered permanently out of line, those carefully selected entrees and appetizers all of a sudden transported to the recycle bin—or worse, the fireplace (it has been cold in Seattle, after all).

But as with pruning a tree, cuts are necessary, and in the end it brings new life and better growth to that said tree. And I did clean out my file last month. And my recipe binder is all clean a pretty, more organized than it has been in years and guess what? The line is moving again.

Just last night I made celery bisque with stilton toasts—in line for at least 4 years—and a few nights before that, I made this bean dish (who must’ve cut in line, having only waited for 2 years)… though to be fair, the thought of this bean dish has been with me for 5 or 6 years: it all began at a restaurant in Seattle where they used to (the restaurant no longer exists) serve a blue cheese salad, lightly dressed, with a small pile of caramelized onions and a neighboring small scoop of chili beans. The spice and sweet set against the backdrop of pungent blue dressing and crisp salad greens still haunt me to this day.

This particular bean dish will not rebuild that memory—they are too sweet. Though it can stand in for this memory, the classic pot-luck favorite: pork and beans (aka baked beans). The ones that you used to eat next to burgers or sloppy joes. But these aren’t from the can. And my family loved this recipe; it will stay in my file.

There will be more beans in my future, a hunt for recipes to add to the waiting line, a spicy blend that will be belong with my favorite salad. Trust me, you will know when I have found ‘the one’; that bean recipe will march deftly to the front of the line, its name will be called to accompany its cheesy, caramelized and crispy friends to my kitchen. But until then:

Pork & Beans
6 ounces bacon (1/3 package)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 T cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1 pinch black pepper
1/3 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 cans chili beans (or select 2-3 cans of beans, such as red kidney with pinto and black beans, etc.)

Cook bacon in skillet (meanwhile, open and drain beans); remove bacon and drain bacon grease (leave just 1-2 T of grease in skillet) . Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, pepper in small bowl, then add to skillet. Add vinegar and water, cook and stir until boiling. Add drained beans. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes.

I love roasting vegetables. And all it really takes is olive oil and coarse salt, an oven hovering around 400 degrees and about 25-40 minutes, depending on the veggie.

It makes them all taste sweet, caramelized, and above all approachable. And then, once I have done the rounds with olive oil and salt, I like to play a little. So I add rosemary and cayenne and brown sugar to sweet potatoes (here), and in the name of Barefoot Contessa added dijon to my new potatoes; and now this: red onions will never be the same.

Shocking really. Maybe you will ask for a side of these onions instead of ice cream with your next pie. Your kids won’t know what hit them. Are these really onions? Now, I am not saying the goal is to mask the flavor of onions, just that I am impressed with how slow-roasting brings out the sweetness of onions (or a plethora of other vegetables), and with a few extra shakes of this and that you have your new golden side dish.

Roasted Red Onions
3 red onions, sliced in 1/2 inch half-moons
olive oil
kosher salt
2 T raisins
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Oven to 400; cut onions in half, then in 1/2 inch wedges. Put in baking dish, lube with the olive oil, sprinkle liberally with kosher salt. Roast in oven 40 minutes. Meanwhile, combine raisins, garlic, honey and vinegar in saucepan over medium heat. Bring to simmer, off heat. Add to onions, once they have roasted for 40 minutes. Stir onions, roast another 15 minutes. Serve.

Other, recent roastings:

• Brussel Sprouts
• Sweet Potatoes
• Two bulbs of Fennel
• Roma Tomatoes
• Roasted Kohlrabi from Alanna at Veggie Venture
• from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks gives us Roasted Cauliflower

Man, it is almost Christmas and I am still trying to perfect a Thanksgiving dish! My poor family has eaten the infamous Green Bean Casserole at least a half a dozen times, if not more, in the last few weeks. I wanted to get it right. And Thanksgiving didn’t wait for me: it came, it went—and I kept cooking green beans.

I was intent on finding a new version of this old favorite. And despite the fact that I am wedged between holidays, with a million things to do, these green beans were worth the fuss.

Thanksgiving is lovely for all its familiarity: the same side dishes, the familiar faces, even the same conversations (updated for this year, of course). I love Thanksgiving and all of its sameness. But this Thanksgiving wasn’t about sameness for our little family.

This year we were suctioned out of what is the same and abruptly—and curiously—inserted into novel Thanksgiving territory. Instead of the extended family and the recipes that have been passed down our own family line, we enjoyed Thanksgiving with families from New Orleans, from Portland, OR from Seattle, WA, California and Hawaii. My humble, little family was inserted into a much larger and just-being-established family by way of my dear friend’s Thanksgiving & Wedding Extravaganza. Because THAT is what it WAS. No one will deny it.

It was as novel and Thanksgiving as a balance could strike. My friend loves Thanksgiving; it has long been her favorite holiday. And marrying her soul mate is nothing if not reason to be thankful. So there we were—the whole lot of us—on the coast of Oregon in a little town on the 4 mile wide mouth of the Columbia River. Where inland meets ocean, where frigid air meets unnaturally bright sun. We cooked and toasted and drank and danced; we had Thanksgiving, then a wedding. It felt like Mardi Gras. And yet, with so much extended family from New Orleans, what better way to celebrate? Why limit festivities and yards of food to just one day? Night poured into day, breakfast just shy of dinner, libations and laughter and touring and tasting continued around the clock.

It was the same: there was lots of food, lots of family, lots of conversation. Yet is was different: unfamiliar food, different families, new conversations. And on the ride home, my son remarked that although it was really fun, it just wasn’t the same. And the side dishes that he has grown to love were not present. And so, when we came home I made him his sweet potatoes, and no less than six times: the Green Bean Casserole.

I wanted to keep the sacred casserole the same comfortable dish it has always been; yet, something inside me likes to change things, if just a little. Update them, evolve them a bit, or more likely poke at their credibility as a beloved standard. I have loved the Green Bean Casserole my whole life. I have made it when invited to Thanksgiving dinners; and when serving the dinner myself I make sure it is assigned and placed appropriately at our table. No doubt layers of grandmothers—since the time of Campbells Mushroom Soup—made this dish. And yet, I wonder.

Instead of the Campbells, I made—from scratch—the ‘creamed mushroom soup’ that goes into the casserole. And in the end, I kept the same French beans and the same topping we are used to; and the casserole retained its sameness. (My inspiration for this revision came from Alanna, author of A Veggie Venture. Though mine looks different from hers, this is surely a tribute):

Green Bean Casserole
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
2 T butter
4 garlic cloves, minced
kosher salt, coarse pepper
1/4 cup flour
optional: 1 T finely minced rosemary
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup sherry
3/4 cup half and half
3 cans french sliced green beans
fried onions, canned

Butter in skillet over medium. Add garlic and mushrooms, salt and pepper, and sautee until mushrooms release liquid, about 6-8 minutes. Add flour (and rosemary if using) and stir for 1-2 minutes; add broth and simmer 5-6 minutes. Add half and half and simmer 10-15 minutes. Open cans of beans, drain. Off heat and stir in beans. Put in 8×8 pan, and cover with 1 1/2 cups (or so) fried onions. Cook at 400 for 20 minutes, serve.

Here, a view from our Astoria, OR: