Winning Dinner

Last night's dinner was an amazing WIN. Yes, in capitals, because it was that good. Since we love our CSA, The Pedant and I wanted to use some fresh broccoli and collards that we got. So, yesterday morning during breakfast we pull out Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian - a cookbook quickly becoming our go-to-first and favorite (although, shameless plug for presents - we are DYING for Lidia Bastianich's Lidia's Italy which may be another great one since we are obsessed with her shows). Lo and behold he has 2 great recipes that we used for our broccoli and collards.

The broccoli was a suggested substitution for a green bean with miso-walnut dressing. And, after three tries at acquiring white miso, we blended the miso, soy sauce, ginger, walnuts and water in a blender and poured over steamed broccoli. It was tremendous - however, a bit salty for my taste with the miso and soy - but nutty and creamy and really great.

The best part of dinner was the rolled kale (in this case, collards) with feta, olives and tomatoes. (Ok, I picked off the gross olives and tomatoes.) Basically, you cut off the stems of the collards and saute with some EVOO and garlic. Meanwhile, you slice the leaf in half and cut a block of feta into small slices that get rolled into the collard leaves. Nest in the pan with the cooked stems, add wine (we used water but I'm sure it's even more flavorful with a good white wine) and pour olives and chopped tomatoes on top. Let it cook until the collards are tender and the cheese is just a bit melty. Then we topped it with chopped red onion. And it was gooood. Like, really good. Company worthy in fact. So good.

There was another Bittman win I almost forgot about. For my book club, I made Brown Sugar Cookies with Sea Salt. And I even fudged it a bit - I didn't have some semolina flour,so I used all all-purpose, rather than a mix, I used light brown sugar not dark (after having dried out dark brown sugar one too many times I never buy it anymore), and I had a coarse kosher salt. Yet, they still turned out amazingly. They were sweet but not clawing, buttery and a tiny bit salty for fun.