Rainbow Chard

Until Saturday I had never heard of 'rainbow chard' - sounds harsh and bizarre.   In fact it is a green leafy vegetable that arrived in our organic vegetable box.   They really are quite pretty, but what on earth do I do with them?  I mean they're a leafy green so there are some pretty basic things that can be done, but will they be good?   So to the internet I went and I found a recipe to give me some guidance.  I came across Lemon Garlic Rainbow Chard and that was my inspiration.    

I had one bunch of rainbow chard and decided to modify the recipe to what I wanted and what best fit my family.   I skipped adding the stems and red pepper flakes.  Instead I started with some olive oil, 3 cloves of sliced garlic and ground pepper and sauted up the garlic over a medium heat.      I rarely measure anything when I am cooking things like this - so go with what 'feels right' to you to saute garlic and pepper to taste. :)

After that was sufficiently sauteed I tossed in the chopped up greens and covered the lid for 5 minutes.   Leaving the medium heat on - in retrospect - I would decrease the temperature just slightly next time, the bottom greens did get a tiny charred (which honestly did add another flavor to it, but they could have quickly gone south just the same.)   

I then dumped all the contents into a bowl and drizzled lemon juice over the greens... again no measuring - it wasn't drenched, it wasn't mere drops - but it was just enough.    They were delicious!   Now are they terribly different than other leafy greens?  Depends - I'd say yes, different than spinach in that the rainbow chard are more bitter, more like kale... maybe?  Overall - I certainly will enjoy them again!  Time wise this is a quick dish to make - total chop, saute, steam, drizzle and serve time was under 20 minutes.  :)

Loving Husband and I give the dish two thumbs up. Ace wanted to spit it out, but managed to choke it down without too much drama.  Mae was spared the taste test.   One bunch is certainly enough for two people, but if you're making it a family size side dish, I'd recommend 2 or 3 bunches to really make it a true side to a meal.   Happy cooking!

Barefoot and Pregnant...

and in the kitchen! Yep that is where you could have found me on Thanksgiving with my husband cooking away. We started cooking around 10am... with a goal of 2pm 'dinner' - we ended up eating a little after 3pm, but not due to the bird taking longer. Our little 9lb chicken turkey finished cooking early rather than needing extra time. It was the stuffing that was our delay! But we managed to get everything completed and come together roughly at the same time. Hooray!



The table was set and we all sat down to dine! It was all delicious!

New Year Goal

Every year I set a new goal. 2007 - read 30 books. 2008 - read 10,000 pages. 2009 - Blog 2-3xs a week. So with 2010 around the corner I've been mulling over my options. I like to push myself. See what spawned the goal of '30 books' in 2007 was that I had read 24 in 2006. So I decided to up the ante so to speak. Then the following year, knowing I'd be pregnant and wanting to read a few thicker books that I had passed on in order to obtain the book count of 30 I went with pages. I blew that goal out of the water by finishing my goal of 10,000 pages before Ace was even born (in August) and managed to read over 13,000 pages in 2008. 2009 with a mobile toddler on my hands, I knew that reading that much just would not happen, plus I had stretched myself two years in a row in the literary world - so I wanted to try a new angle. So I decided to become a 'blogger' and with nearly 300 posts for 2009 I think I have successfully completed my goal of becoming a blogger. My son's life is well documented, I've made some blogging friends, and have found some wonderful reads along the way. I feel my life is much richer from accomplishing this goal this past year.

As I've said I've been mulling over my options. I've already become a blogger The A-Priori Mommy is well established. There isn't much more I can push and expand myself within this bubble - don't fret, I plan to remain a blogger for 2010 - it's become some common place and is a habit now so The A-Priori Mommy will live on strong in 2010 and you can all continue to watch Ace grow. Then I got to thinking - in July I started Amature Foodie. I thought by creating a blog I'd find that as my inspiratation to cook more at home. Hmm not so much. Also I've been acquiring some fun kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, cooking magazines; it just seemed that everything has been pointing to cooking. This past year I enjoyed Molly's book A Homemade Life and that sparked some inspiration into me and I won't lie Julie and Julia added a dash of inspiration as well - more Julia than Julie (I have no aspirations or desires to become famous and rich from cooking. I'm of course I won't lie I'd happily accept riches from doing my daily tasks...) I've been surrounded by many things kitchen and with all my new kitchen accessories for Christmas it was ultimately decided...

I have come to the conclusion that in 2010 I am going to cook 150 different recipes and blog about them on Amature Foodie. It combines both the cooking and blogging, with the added bonus of accountablity and well... a tracking system. I am entering this endeavour well armed. I have several magazines that will be entering my kitchen on a monthly basis: Everyday Food, Food & Wine, and Bon Appetit and I have many many cookbooks to choose from. Here's to cooking in 2010!

Cookies Cookies EVERYWHERE!

Tis the season for a good Christmas party and what is one of the best kind? Cookie Exchange! Yes and this weekend I had two - one on Saturday and one on Sunday! I was really tempted to take what cookies I had obtained on Saturday to the one on Sunday - but bah humbug! That's no fun! So I was a good little elf and made two different sets of cookies - over the course of two days 8 dozen cookies! For Saturday's exchange I made Swedish Christmas Cookies. Since I have part Swedish, I always like to try dishes from that part of the world. It called for a new spice that I had never used Cardamom - it is yummy!


The party was a lot of fun - we enjoyed dinner together, then collected ourselves some cookies, and watched Four Christmases - it was a nice girlie night. Ace enjoyed himself a cookie (or two) and also enjoyed running around in his festive 'ears' and pjs during the movie.

Sunday was time to bake another batch! This time it was Christmas Sandies. You might be wondering what I do with Ace while I am baking... well for the Swedish Christmas cookies it involved a two step process: 1. Make the dough and leave in the fridge over night, so I did that after Ace went to bed on Friday. 2. roll the dough in sugar, slice and bake - I did that during his Saturday nap. Sunday though for the Christmas Sandies the party was at 2pm so there was no nap for Ace to slumber through cookie making. So he ate his breakfast by himself while I combined everything to form the dough. I was pretty busy and he was pretty content to 'eat' and watch what mom was doing. Everything was ok until the yogurt. :)

After cleaning him up and cookies were all decorated, cooked, and ready to go - we headed out to the next party that not only was a cookie exchange but also a Gingerbread House Making Party! Oh yes and this year Ace was old enough to assist in the construction (or destruction as the case may be) He did pretty well and enjoyed sampling all the decoration --- and then decorating mommy. Siigh. We all had a nice time!






Hope your Advent season is equally as festive and joyous!

Ace Grilling

We (Ace and I) have been home now for a week and boy oh boy how happy Ace is to have his dad around again (I'm pretty happy too!) One of Ace's budding fascinations and excitement is cooking! Playing with dishes or actually getting to help, he loves it and to get to do it with his dad, wow all the better! Throw in grilling in the high 30s and you've got an exciting adventure.

Our Book Club

I have hosted a book club at my house for almost two years, I named it after the Gilmore Girl's hometown: Stars Hallow. Rory loved to read, and it was the final season of the show, it seemed appropriate. September will mark two years officially, and last night was probably one of my favorite evenings. Sadly only about half of our group was able to join us due to some scheduling conflicts - summers are always hard - but it of such a fun evening because we read A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg the author the blog Orangette.

For a simple review of this book: I LOVED it. Molly tells her life story in such a great and charming way, and it was a delight to read and salivate over each and every recipes. I highly give this book 'two thumbs up' '5 stars' it was a great read, and it doubles as a cookbook!

I find it amusing that after my last post where I get on camera and tell you I rarely cook dinner, that I would follow it by THIS post in which I talk about cooking, and loving a book about cooking, but as you'll recall, I do love to cook when I have inspiration and Molly's book (and blog!) have in recent days provided a great deal of inspiration.

Our book club usually gathers once a month to discuss the book of choice which most often are fiction books, but we chose to make an exception for this book because it was just that good - and one of our book club members had the great idea of turning it into a potluck of recipes out of the book! Ingenious! And indeed that's what we did. Our menu included:

Doron’s Turkey Meatballs with Golden Raisins and Pine Nuts
Bread Salad with Cherries, Arugula, and Goat cheese
Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger
Macaroons, coconut with Chocolate Ganache

B & D of the Ravenna Girls brought the salad and the bread, and oh my they were delicious, I was a little sad to see the bread go home with D. :( But I did enjoy some! I prepared the meatballs and macaroons - and there were no meatballs left (although I was nice and saved a few for the husband.) I MIGHT just make that dish again tomorrow. It was that good. Really every book club should be that good. Oh my it was delicious. And I have macaroons still in the fridge. YUM.

Summer Favorites - Cherry Pie

This summer I thought I'd do a series of "Summer Favorites"... Blogging on the weekends often doesn't happen because well the sun is out - we are busy, time to be out and about! That doesn't mean I can't schedule a summer favorite! This could be anything from what I love about summer - to an old post that is a favorite that I thought I'd share with my newer readers. If you're interested in joining me, simply take the picture and add it to your blog and create your own summer favorites post.

This post, I thought I'd bring to you one of my favorite things of summer. Cherry pie! I know that you can have cherry pie almost any time of the year thanks to freezers and Marie Calendars... but to me it feels like summer is on it's way when the cherries are made available at the stores. I was even more excited when visiting Cheryl at The Coolest Mom on the Block, she had posted about this. I love new kitchen gadgets, I love to find unique (but useful) tools to use in the kitchen and when I saw this one -- you better believe my outing the next day was to Williams-Sonoma.

Home I came with cherries that were 1.99 a pound! Woohoo for Albertson's sales! And my cherry pitter and I made myself some cherry pie. Yes a square pie, I was just in the mood. It was yummy.