Day: March 18, 2008

There was lovely looking broccoli rabe at my produce truck this week, so I got a bunch. Now – a bunch is enough for two meals for me. Here’s the first meal planned out:

wash broccoli rabe and cut into 2-3 inch lengths. Blanch. Drain.

Saute in olive oil a whole bunch of garlic until it starts to brown. Add broccoli rabe.

In a flat pan, warm up a tortilla. Flip it over. Add some shredded sharp cheddar cheese, a tablespoon or two of the last of the carnitas I have in my fridge, and a spoonful or so of cooked broccoli rabe… some more cheese, fold over the tortilla – viola quesadilla.

And then over the weekend, I bought 5 pounds of potatoes for a dollar and acquired half a (cooked/smoked) ham from my mother.

Second meal:

Dice 2 potatoes (there were the size of a small fist each) and 8 baby carrots. Sautee in olive oil.

Roughly dice 1 medium onion. Throw that in, too.

Dice some ham… no idea how much… about as much by volume as there was potato, maybe less.

At this point, I seasoned the potatoes – salt, pepper, ground thyme, ground oregano, 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika, few dashes hot paprika.

Add ham. Keep cooking.

Rinsed the broccoli rabe, shook it dry, and then bundled it back up in its twist tie and just cut across into inch “strips” or so. Turned it into a nice chop.

Tossed that over top and let it steam a bit before stirring it in and cooking it with the rest.

Then I tasted it, and decided it would benefit from a pinch of ground cloves. And a little more salt.

I put up half into a container in the freezer for lunch, and the rest was very yummy.

Today, I went out and bought beets, so I think I’ll make the same dish again tonight (since I have a lot of potatoes and ham to get through, and soup might be coming next) only with beets instead of carrots and beet tops instead of the broccoli rabe.

Note on cloves: buying ground cloves is always a bit sad since the packet will quickly stink up (though in a nice way) the entire spice cabinet and then by the time you actually get around to needing the cloves all the flavor has seeped away. Therefore – I buy whole cloves and mostly just stick the whole things into stuff (roasts, or chucked into soups/stews/curries and fished out later). But when you really do want it ground and you aren’t making a whole spice mix where it’s worth the time to bring out (and clean) the mortar and pestle (mine’s heavy) – you can just pop off the little round bit at the top and crumble it by hand – and then put the stem back in the jar to be stuck into stuff later.