RECIPE (long overdue): Sweet and Spicy Leftover-Veggie Skillet

Sorry for the delay in posting...I've been in DISNEY!

Okay. So I know I technically haven't posted in eight weeks. Long story short, "Disney brain" is a real affliction and it starts very early for me.



I mean, in addition to my usual workload, I was very busy counting down, thinking about Mickey-shaped pretzels, brainwashing my boys*, buying Phineas & Ferb t-shirts, etc.

Now here we are, two months later, and I'm like, "Oh right. I have a blog."

So, as you may remember from previous eco-braggy posts, I joined a CSA this summer. (Did I mention I joined a CSA? Because I joined a CSA.) The upside of a CSA is good karma and a general sense of crunchy righteousness. The downside is having a fridge full of vegetables we're not familiar with, which have a very organic tendency to go bad after a few days, with complete and utter disregard for whether I feel like eating white eggplant this week.

So I needed to come up with a veggie skillet recipe STAT to make use of the leftover veggies. CSA pickup is on Friday, so the skillet usually becomes Wednesday's emergency-rotten-veggie dinner plan.

It's super easy. You'll need:

• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp ground cilantro (or 1 Tbsp fresh cilantro)
• 1/2 tsp Papa Joe's salt (or a mix of sea salt, pepper, and garlic powder)
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a skillet.

Drop in your veggies.

Mix the spices in a bowl, and sprinkle them over the veggies until it looks pretty seasoned. Don't just dump the whole bowl in the skillet! It all depends on how many veggies you have sitting around -- you may not need the entire bowl of seasoning. No one wants to be crunching on chili powder!

Stir it all around until the veggie look cooked. That's usually about 7-10 minutes, but again, it'll depend on how many veggies you're trying to use up.

The combo of spices may sound weird, but trust me on this one.

Enjoy! The summer harvest is almost over {sniffle}**.

* "In 47 days we'll be eating breakfast with Gooooofyyyyyy!"
** That was both a mournful sniffle and the delightful sound of fall allergies. Leaves, would you just fall on the ground so I can breathe again!

RECIPE: Sweet Potato with Ham, Black Beans, Pineapple, and Swiss Chard Cheese Sauce (Jeez, is that title long enough?!)

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." -- Abe Lincoln 

Maybe Abe was talking about Swiss chard? Because the leafy green turned out to be extremely divisive at the dinner table last night. By which I mean I loved it, and hubby hated it.

It started with a LivingSocial deal for Suburban Organics. Basically, Suburban Organics will ship fresh organic fruits and veggies to your door. I have trouble resisting group buys to begin with, and I love getting mail, and I love eating, and I love when things are marketed as organic or local or free trade or any other feel-good words. So hellz yeah I was getting this deal.

My box arrived a few days ago, and it contained some old faves (avocado! bananas! a medium-sized grapefruit!) but it also contained Swiss chard, which I couldn't have picked out of a veggie lineup. I posted a plea for recipes on my Facebook page. Suburban Organics was cool enough to link me to a few recipes on their site, but their recipes were a bit too...well, straight-up chard. As a chard virgin, I felt more comfortable mixing the chard with a bunch of other ingredients.

Enter Brianne at Cupcakes and Kale Chips, a.k.a. my aforementioned former foodie roommate. She sent me a very complicated recipe for Mexican sweet potatoes. I dumbed it down big-time and added ham (I needed the bone for split pea soup this week). And it was nothing short of amazeballs.

Except hubby heartily disagrees with me. His exact quote was, "Eww, what's that smell?" followed by several affirmations that it tasted as bad as it smelled, and finally, the helpful suggestion, "Don't ever cook chard again."

Me? I LOVED IT. So tasty. There were, like 17 unique and delicious flavors going on in my mouth, and it was still delicious. Imagine throwing a party and inviting your work friends, your college friends, your gardening-club friends, and your Civil War reenactment friends and everyone miraculously gets along.

Anyway. You have to be your own judge, but I thought it was awesome. (P.S. I was also directed to this tasty-looking recipe at Smitten Kitchen, but went with the Mexican recipe because I had already eaten half a brick of havarti and figured an au gratin might not be the best idea for dinner. But I'm putting it in the mental database -- clearly, for a night hubby's not home!)

You'll need:

• sweet potatoes (I made three)
• Swiss chard (I used four big leaves or stalks or whatever they're called)
• olive oil
• Papa Joe's salt
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 15-oz. can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbsp cumin
• 1 cup canned pineapple chunks, drained
• 1 tsp ground cilantro
• 1 cup diced ham

STEP 1: Stab the sweet potatoes with a fork a few times, and cook them in the microwave on HIGH for about 10 minutes.

STEP 2: Rub some olive oil on a pan. Chop up the Swiss chard (I found a helpful tutorial here) and heat it in a pan with the garlic and a few shakes of Papa Joe's salt (or a mix of sea salt and black pepper).

STEP 3: In a bowl, mix the red pepper, black beans, pineapple, chili powder, cumin, cilantro, ham, and and lime juice.

STEP 4: The chard should be pretty soft now. Add the cheese and milk to the pan until melted, then puree the whole shebang in a food processor.

(No, seriously, this is the dumbed-down version! I am telling you, my friend is nuts in the kitchen.)

STEP 5: Cut open a sweet potato, scoop in some salsa, and pour a little bit of the cheesy chard sauce on top.

STEP 6: Ignore husband who clearly has no taste buds.

STEP 7: Steal hubby's rejected cheesy chard sauce and mix it into your eggs the next morning. OM NOM NOM all over again.

Thanks for the recipe, Brianne!

RECIPE: Slow Cooker Pulled Porkgasm

There aren't many sandwiches as tasty as pulled pork, and I think I've officially perfected my pulled pork recipe. I could seriously eat this every meal for the next year. Remind me of that resolution when I weight 300 pounds.

• a big hunk o' boneless pork loin
• 1/2 cup ketchup (I like Hunt's all-natural)
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (don't pack it)
• 3 T. McCormick mesquite seasoning
• 2 T. Tabasco Worcestershire sauce
• 1 t. ground mustard

Throw everything in the slow cooker and cook on LOW for 8 hours. Flip the pork loin halfway through, if you happen to be near the slow cooker. If not, no worries -- I'm not sure this actually does anything except make me feel like I'm Doing Important Things like tending to dinner. About 20 minutes before you're ready to eat, turn off the heat and shred the pork so it can soak up the tasty sauce better. I served it on Grands flaky biscuits -- maybe not the healthiest choice, but delicious and totes recommended.