chard pesto and spinach salad

WOAHHHHHHHH super cool!  we got a blender recently, to accommodate our delivery of tomatillos, which neither of us had any clue what to do with.  turns out you make salsa with them, and to do that properly you need a blender.  i was a little skeptical, as i couldn’t actually think of much else i would do with a blender......little did i know!  :)

our chard crop continues to be gargantuan and amazing, and i’m always on the lookout for yummy (easy :) things to do with it.  i had leftover noodles from a night i cooked a whole bag and then only used half with dinner, and i needed a sauce to put on them.

sauce.....chard.....blender.....

i boiled 6 or seven chard leaves for a few minutes (long enough that i would serve them at that consistency) and put them with a little of the water in the blender.  not a lot of water, i just kind of didn’t drain them very thoroughly.  then i chopped up a good handful of basil and a couple cloves of garlic and blended them for no more than ten seconds (i didn’t have to!) before they turned into a beautiful bright green sauce!  

voila!  i had put the noodles in my big frying pan with a little butter and bragg’s to get them warming up and poured the sauce straight in.  ohhhhhhh it was gorgeous and smelled soooooooo good!

a little fresh basil garnish and salad on the side.....

chard pesto and spinach salad

approximate price: $4

blue potatoes with fennel

stuff to use:

fennel!

oh my goodness, so much fennel!  the farm that delivers produce to us is abundant with it, and is happy to share the wealth :)  the good thing i’ve discovered (in my very short fennel relationship) is that you can manage to use way more of it in a meal than you think you can ever get away with, because the flavor can be pretty mellow if it’s cooked down, and the “leaves” can be chopped down pretty fine, so you don’t notice them as much.  i mean, i’m not gonna let it go bad!  sometimes a girl just has to use a lot of fennel :)

so we also got two kinds of potatoes, one of which i believe was yukon gold, and the other was blue.  if it has a name other than “blue potato” i don’t know it, but i think that will do!  this was will’s official blue potato introduction, so that was a little exciting for me.  fennel and potatoes: seemed like a good place to start dinner :)

i put the usual yellow onion on to start browning with a little butter, as well as some water to boil the potatoes in.  i used both kinds, leaving the small ones whole (or cutting them in half) and the bigger ones in quarters.  i’ve found that doing some of the cutting afterwards keeps the skins on a little better (but se la vie :)  

i chopped up the fennel stalks and bulbs (about 1/4 inch thick, maybe a little more....?) and tossed them in soon after the onions.  (i still don’t have a good grasp on how quickly fennel cooks, but i figure if it’s “harder” than onions it would take a comparable amount of time!)  i also chopped up a Rather Large pile of the leaves, but saved them for a bit later on.

i put some bragg’s in with the onion and fennel, along with some garlic (of course ;) but not much else.  when the potatoes were cooked i chopped any that were bigger than bite size down, adding a little cracked salt and olive oil (sometimes i use olive oil just ‘cause i don’t want to say that i put butter in EVERYTHING!  it’s possible that i did and i’m just not telling you..... :)    

for lack of any better idea i just dumped the potatoes in with the onions and fennel, as well as the Rather Large Pile of fennel leaves and let it stew together while stirring for a few minutes.

blue potatoes with fennel

it was gorgeous!  the blue potatoes and delicate grass green sprinkles....gorgeous :)

approximate price: $7