Chard and Cheddar Omelet

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 cups chopped swiss chard
• pinch anise seed
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
• salt and pepper

I put the cast iron pan on medium heat. Tossed in a pinch of anise seed and let it heat up so the oils release.

I cracked 3 eggs and beat with a fork until completely blended. I added 2 TBSP of cold water and beat to smooth.

I then added 1 tbsp of butter and tossed in the cleaned, and chopped chard, sautéing quickly. It is done in two minutes of so. I removed from heat and set aside, scraping the pan to remove all the chard.

I added 1 tbsp of butter and tilted the pan to make sure every inch is covered with butter. I poured the beaten eggs and tilted again to spread evenly. Then I lift the pan up and drop it, bang-bang, to get the bubbles out. It seems to make it really set, somehow. Turn the heat down to medium-low.

While it cooked a bit, I grated 1/4 inch slice of sharp cheddar cheese, about 1/4 cup. I sprinkled it over the eggs. Added some salt and pepper, then spread the cooked chard over this.

When spreading the cheese and chard, make sure to leave about 1/2 and inch clear from the edges so when you fold it over, it will “seal’ and not gape open with chard leaking out.  As soon as the egg is set, slide out on a plate, folding it over as you place it on the plate.

While there is not very much cheddar, it adds just the right amount of creaminess to offset the slightly sharp flavor of the chard. The aromatic anise is exquisite with eggs.

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Swiss Chard with Anise

My best friend was at the grocery story and found top sirloin tip steak on sale so this gorgeous piece was just $5.00 so she bought one for me and dropped it off with some fresh chard. Since introducing her to how well anise seasons vegetables, she is always experimenting with new ones. She had made chard seasoned with anise the night before and wanted me to be sure to try it, so of course I did and of course it was delicious.

• 2 cups of clean, chopped chard
• 2 tsp olive oil
• pince of anise seed
• salt and pepper

Clean the chard, stripping the leaves from the stem. You can save the stems and pickle them if you like. I think you can pickle most fibrous stems, cauliflower, broccoli, chard, etc. Vinegar is cheap so it costs pennies to try. Chop the chard by rolling it and slicing the rolled chard. This allows you to make even slices. Then you can cut the opposite direction for smaller pieces.

So the next thing you do is heat a cast iron pan. Add a pinch of anise seed to the dry pan so the heat releases the oils. Then add a half tablespoon of olive oil, just enough to coat the pan. Add the chard and sautée. Chard is tender and cooks quickly so this takes at most two minutes. Remove from the heat and serve.

The steak is not part of the recipe, but because it is in the picture, here are directions.

The steak I cooked the way you always cook a steak, let it come to room temperature, pat it dry, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat the cast iron pan to med. high with olive oil. Add the steak, cook about 5 minutes, flip and add butter to the pan, and cook on the other side about 5 minutes, using a spoon to keep putting the butter back on top of the steak. Let rest for 10 minutes and it’s perfectly medium rare. I have no idea how you cook it wrong (well, medium, well, etc.)

There is no reason not to cook the steak, remove it to rest, and then to cook the chard in the same pan, addind the little bit of steak juices to your chard sauté. It’s not like it hurts.

 

Pickled Brussels Sprouts, Carrots & Radishes with Anise Seed

Pickled vegetable salad is found in cuisines around the globe. I made the giardiniera from The Grand Central Market Cookbook the other day so it had a few days to marinate in brine for Thanksgiving. I decided to make a second salad to evangelize my love of anise with vegetables.  Believe me, anise seed does not make your food taste like licorice.

• 2 tsp anise seed
• 2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 serrano chile
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 TBSP sugar

To make this, I made the brine first because it must be cooled down before you add it to the veggies. I heated a saucepan over medium heat. I added anise seed and let it bloom a bit, heating it in the dry pan until the aroma scented the room. Then I added apple cider vinegar, a whole serrano chile with the stem removed, salt, and sugar. Heat this until the sugar dissolves, Remove from the heat and cool.

• 1 medium onion, sliced thinly
• 4 cups of brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
• 2 cups of carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
• 2 cups of radish, trimmed and sliced.
• Serrano chile, (removed from brine and chopped)

Chop the vegetables, add the brine. Let marinate for at least 12 hours. This is a crispy, crunchy salad with a bright flavor. This is my second pickled salad for Thanksgiving dinner and serves 8.

 

 

Brussels Sprouts, Black Beans, and Carrots

This was a quick and easy supper.

• ½ tsp anise seed
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 2 small carrots, peeled and cut into coins
• 8 oz. Brussels sprouts, cut off the end and then halve or quarter depending on the size so they are all the same size.
• 1 can black beans, thoroughly rinsed with water
• juice of ½ fresh lemon
• salt and pepper

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add anise seed until the aroma fills the room. Add carrots and salt and pepper. Sauté for about two minutes. Add Brussels sprouts and cook until warmed through. Be sure you don’t overcook to the point they are softened. Add black beans, rinse thoroughly so the juice from the can does not color the veggies. Add salt and pepper. When they are warmed through, squeeze fresh lemong juice and cover for 1 minute.

I love the flavor of anise and vegetables. It really does not taste like licorice. It marries vegetables perfectly. The black beans adds a bit of protein to balance the dish and give it the carbs that really make it satisfying.

Pomegranate Relish or Dressing

Pomegranate Dressing or Relish

It’s pretty easy to clean a pomegranate, just cut it in half and pull the edges than knock it on the outside with a spoon and the seeds fall out. However, at Harvest Share this week, I got two packages of already cleaned pomegranate seeds. Sadly, however, they were already past their sweet spot and had turned sour and vinegary. I know some people would toss it out, since it was beginning to change, but pomegranate is acidic and just being past its prime does not make it a home for bacteria, just very sour flavor. I knew I could fix it and enjoy this fruit I really love. I just had to figure out how. Since it was already very vinegary, it made sense to use it as a sort of vinegar and make a salad dressing or a relish. But first I had to figure out what could balance the sourness. I pulled out aromatic spices like nutmeg, cardamom, and anise and tried a few grains with one pomegranate seed to see what I liked best. Both the nutmeg and the cardamon tried, but they added heat as well as balance and I wanted to make it more mellow, so I chose anise.

• 2 TBSP olive oil
• ½ tsp anise seed
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, minced
• ½ yellow onion
• 8 oz pomegranate seeds
• 4 TBSP rice vinegar

I put 2 tbsp of olive oil in a sauce pan with ½ tsp of anise seed and heated to release the oils and flavor the oil. I then added 2 tsp of minced fresh ginger. I sliced ½ of a yellow onion into slivers and added to the olive oil, cooking until tender. I then added the 8 oz package of pomegranate seeds and cooked just until it started to break down. I added 4 TBSP of  rice vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. This made enough dressing for 4 large salads. It would also work well as a relish on the side where you might use cranberries, with pork, turkey, or sausage.

Here are a few salads made with the dressing. A simple salad with pecans and feta. A dinner salad with chicken sautéed with a bit of Old Bay. A dinner salad with some carne asada marinated in soy sauce and vinegar with some garlic, pears charred on the electric burner, and feta cheese.

Spring Mix & Baby Spinach, Pecans, Feta and Pomegranate Dressing.

Spring Mix & Spinach with chicken and Pomegranate Dressing.

Pomegranate Dressing on salad with Charred Pears, Carne Asada and Feta.

 

Breakfast Smörgås – Open-Faced Breakfast Sandwich

I really love a good open-faced sandwich, I suppose it’s my Swedish heritage and the tradition of smörgås. Two slices usually seems like too much bread, unless I use so much filling it’s unwieldy. I also have the Swedish yen for rye bread over all others. WinCo had fresh rye bread on sale for just $1.78 a loaf the other day. Who could resist?

Ingredients

• 2 slices of rye bread with butter
• Havarti Cheese sliced thinly
• 1 tsp of reserved bacon fat
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 3 oz breakfast sausage
• 2 TBSP yellow onion
• 1 mushroom
• 8 grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
• red pepper flakes
• 2 TBSP fresh fennel tops
• 1 TBSP lemon juice

So, I put 1 tsp of saved bacon fat but you could use butter or olive oil in a small skillet on medium heat and added 2 TBSP of chopped onion, salt, and pepper and cooked until tender.

Meanwhile I removed the casing from 3 breakfast sausage links, but you could just measure out 3 ounces of breakfast sausage if you don’t buy it in links. I added the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces with a fork.

While the sausage was cooking, I sliced one mushroom in very thin slices.

I put a griddle on and started heating it to medium.

I put a small sauce pan on and heated to medium high with 2 tsp of olive oil. I added one clove of garlic (minced), shook in a few red pepper flakes and tossed in 8 whole grape tomatoes. I want the tomatoes to blacken a bit, so I shake them only to keep them from burning.

On the griddle, I laid down two slices of rye bread, buttered on one side and placed buttered side down. I sliced very thin slices of Havarti cheese and placed on both slices to melt while the bread toasted.

I chopped 2 TBSP of fresh fennel fronds and tossed into the sausage and mushrooms.  I cooked some fennel the other night and saved the tops knowing they are a delicious addition to anything with tomatoes.

I cut the top fifth off a fresh lemon and squeezed about 1 TBSP of lemon juice into the tomatoes, stirred and added the tomato sauce to the pan with the sausage, mushrooms and fennel.

Meanwhile, I poached 2 eggs in the microwave, breaking each into a tbsp of water in a plastic egg poacher. Poaching takes about 40 seconds for 2 eggs.

Everything should be ready together. I spread the sausage, mushroom, and tomato blend on top of both slices of bread. Then placed one egg on each slice.

 

Zucchini Melt

A fast and easy lunch made with just a few ingredients.

In a sauté pan, I heated 1 TBSP of olive oil and added a pinch of anise seeds to it. When the aroma filled the air, I added 1/2 of a yellow onion, sliced thin along with 3 small peppers (the mini red peppers. I actually used a red, orange and yellow) or 1 large red pepper, cut into stripes. Add salt and pepper and let cook until tender.

I sliced two small zucchinis into little rounds and added them to on top of the onions and peppers. Then I cut about a 10 cherry tomatoes in half and tossed them on top with some salt and pepper. I let them cook for a while until tender.

Lastly I grated a bit of parmesan on top and let it melt. This made one large serving for a lovely, flavorful lunch. Anise is usually used in cookies and candies, but it is amazing with vegetables. It does not add a sweet flavor, it adds a subtle bite, sharper than you might imagine, but so delicious.

Broccoli, Asparagus, and Mushroom Pilaf with Roasted Chickpeas and Feta

This recipe took a few extra steps to prepare some of the ingredients in advance. To be fair, the pilaf I made in advance was for a different meal. I just made extra so I could use it for another meal. However, I did roast chickpeas in the morning to use for this meal in the evening.

Pilaf:

1//2 TBSP of olive oil, salt and pepper. I heated the olive oil to a low medium heat and added 1/2 yellow onion, chopped. I let that cook until it turned translucent. I also diced up 1 clove of garlic and added that about the same time as I added 1 cup of basmati rice that I rinsed thoroughly to remove all the starch. I stirred the rice and garlic into the olive oil and let it all cook about 3 to 4 minutes. The heat was low enough the would not burn, but just toast a bit. I then added 2 cups of cold water and turned the heat up to high, bringing it to a boil. Then I put a lid on it, removed it from the heat and let it steam cook. It was done perfectly in 15 minutes.

Roasted Chickpeas.

I pre-heated the oven to 325° Fahrenheit. While it heated, I opened a can of chickpeas and rinsed them thoroughly. i spread them on paper towels and dried them before putting them in cast iron pan. I sprinkled them with some olive oil and roasted for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally to let them cook evenly. When they were crispy and brown, I removed them from the oven, sprinkled them with some salt and a dash of Jamaica  Jerk seasoning. I patted them with paper towel again to remove any oil and let them cool.

Veggies:

I put 1 TBSP of olive oil in a sauté pan with about 1/3 tsp of anise seen, 1/2 tsp of cumin, salt and pepper and let it heat on a low medium burner. Meanwhile I chopped up a small yellow onion and added it to the oil and let them cook until tender. I diced 2 cloves of garlic and added to the onions when they were nearly done. (Burned garlic ruins everything it touches.)

While the onions sautéed, I cut down a small head of broccoli, separating the florets and peeling the stems. I added them to the onions and then chopped up 4 stalks of asparagus, cutting off the tops and adding them and cutting the long stems in half before cutting them into 2 inch long pieces. I added the asparagus next since they cook a little faster than broccoli. Then I cleaned and sliced 4 mushrooms and added them and let them all cook for a bit, adding about 1/4 cup of water after about 3 minutes of sautéeing. I let them cook until the broccoli was nearly tender, squeezed the juice of one large fresh lemon into the mix and let it simmer a bit so the veggies absorbed the juice. Then, I added the pilaf and stirred it in, cooking just until heated.

To serve, I put the pilaf and veggie mixture in a bowl, sprinkled some feta cheese on it and topped with a few roasted chickpeas.

The flavor blend is amazing. Anise seed really brings out the best in veggies and, of course, works beautifully with feta. The flavors of lemon, feta, anise and veggies were extraordinary and the addition of the crispy, crunchy and spice roasted chickpeas made it blissful.

For a vegan option, just don’t add the feta at the end. It is still delicious.

This made four servings. I imagine that my lunch tomorrow will be even more delicious!

Spicy Simmered Cabbage and Tomatoes

This is a simple, but hearty dish that takes just minutes to prepare and cook.

First I put 1 TBSP of olive oil in a pan and heated it with a tsp of anise seed, bring out the aroma. While it heated, I cut up one onion in thin slices and diced two garlic cloves and tossed them in the oil to soften. I added salt and pepper.

While the onions cooked, I cut up 1/4 of a head of cabbage, cutting wedges about 1/2 inch thick or so and then slicing the wedges in half. I broke them up with my fingers as I dropped them into the pan of onions and garlic and added a bit of salt and pepper. I let them sauté for a few minutes before adding one 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes with green chiles. I just use the Safeway® store brand which is only $0.69 a can. I added some water to the can (about half full) and swished it around before pouring it into the pan to add a bit more liquid. Then I let everything simmer until the cabbage was tender, but toothsome, removing it before the cabbage lost all of its green color.

You can serve this on top of mashed potatoes, rice, pasta or cooked sausage or, just serve it on its own. It’s got a lot of heat from the chiles, but the touch of anise softens that flavor and adds complexity. This is not a single serving recipe by any means, but it reheats into 4 different single servings.

Sauéed Turnips, Carrots, Brussels Sprouts and Apple with Anise Seed

 

I put some olive oil in a skillet and heated it with some peppercorns and anise seed until it was perfuming the air.

Then I added chopped onions (1/2 an onion) and one minced serrano chile and sautéed.

I cut up one small parsnip and 2 carrots into thumbnail chunks and added, with a bit of salt and pepper, and cooked until nearly done. Then near the end, I added about 6 brussels spouts that I had cut in half and an apple I cut into chunks and tossed them in to cook until tender. Tossed a bit of rice vinegar on to finish. Salt and pepper. This made two large servings.

This was the most delicious vegetable sauté I can remember. It was earthy and warm, piquant with the vinegar and parsnips. The brussels sprouts gave it a lovely earthiness and the chile gave it some heat. The sweetness of the carrots and apple added another flavor note.

I served it with a pork loin, but it is a vegan dish that you can serve with anything.