White Swiss Chard and Artichoke Pizza

Imagine your favorite creamy spinach and artichoke dip- creamy, garlicky, full of veggies- but imagine it on a pizza. That's basically what this white swiss chard and artichoke pizza recipe is. I used Swiss chard because that's what the CSA was serving up this week, but I bet you could substitute spinach, kale, maybe even collard greens if you prefer. The only changes I made to the recipe was to use marinated artichoke hearts, to add a little pinch of red pepper flakes, and to forget to add the Worcestershire sauce. I put it on my go-to whole wheat pizza dough from the other Martha.

Turkey and Swiss Chard Roulade: FAIL

All atwitter (no, not that Twitter) with Tim's impending return from Armenia, I had big plans to greet him with a fancy meal of turkey roulade stuffed with swiss chard, pancetta, gruyere and arborio rice, using a recipe highlighted in the Thanksgiving issue of Food Network Magazine, complete with handy-dandy step-by-step photos. Despite the hand-holding and spoon-feeding provided by the magazine, in my incompetent hands, this recipe went very, very wrong.

I found boneless, skin-on turkey breasts at Whole Foods on the way home from the airport, but not one 3-4 lb breast like the recipe required. Instead I found two 1 3/4 lbs breasts, and figured I would make 2 roulades instead of one, no problem. However, when I got them out of their packages at home, they were strangely shaped, and one of them was actually in 2 pieces.

"Never fear!," I said to myself (actually, it was more like, "what the f%*$?!!!"), "we'll just make 3 mini roulades (roulettes?)" And I proceeded to begin flattening the turkey breasts so they could be wrapped around the tasty filling...

However, these proved to be unflattenable turkey breasts. After approximately 10 minutes of beating them silly, they were still 38-triple Ds, unwrappable, unrollable, un-rouladable.

So, after a few more choice 4-letter words about how much I hate turkey breasts, I made the executive decision (with Chuck's sage advice) to slap the roulette filling on top of the now misshapen turkey breasts, shove them in the oven and call it a day. This is how we ended up with open-faced turkey and swiss chard roulades.

FAIL blog, here I come. Pwnd.

It was supposed to look like this (Food Network's photo):

Ultimately mine looked like this:

Served with purple smashed potatoes and roasted broccoli.

Butternut Squash and Greens Chili

This is a useful chili recipe to have in your arsenal. Healthy, tasty, easy (except cutting up the butternut squash = PITA!).

Changes I make to sass up the recipe a bit:

• substitute one can of chickpeas for one of the cans of black beans
• use whatever leafy greens you have on hand: kale, swiss chard, collard greens, spinach (this time we ended up using a bag of random mixed greens Chuckie bought by accident when I requested mixed baby greens.)
• add some cayenne (1/2 tsp) and cinnamon (a couple shakes) when you add the other spices

Enjoy!

Simple Breakfast

Saute minced garlic and some chopped scallions in olive oil, add chopped swiss chard... top with an egg fried over easy.

Serve alongside some broiled tomatoes from Martha's garden and a faux latte. Awesome.

Garlic Parmesan Swiss Chard Bread

I saw this recipe on the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day website... and I had a bunch of CSA Swiss chard on the verge of going bad in the fridge, so I gave it a try. It uses the challah dough that we like around here and adds garlic and parmesan- how could it be bad?

I was worried after my last stuffed bread experiment went awry, I was worried about this one cooking all the way through. But it worked! It was really good, too.

Tomato and Sausage Risotto

This is a really rich and hearty meal, care of the other Martha, again. Lots of stirring required, but the stirring isn't stressful- actually it's kinda soothing.

I used spicy Italian sausage, Swiss chard (including the stems, which I threw in earlier to soften up), and crushed tomatoes. I also substituted chicken broth in place of half of the water.

BACON (and swiss chard) PIZZA!

This recipe is good stuff... worth almost smoking yourself out of the house with burning cornmeal.

Made with the olive oil pizza dough recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, swiss chard from the CSA, and... wait for it... BACON!