Roasted Butternut Orzo with Walnuts and Garlicky Greens

Armed with whole grain orzo, anything is possible. Especially if you happen to have a chunk of leftover roasted butternut squash idling away on the top shelf of your refrigerator. (If you're looking for a feasible and delicious New Years resolution, I highly recommend committing yourself to sticking a halved butternut squash in the oven one night and then congratulating yourself on your good sense and culinary prowess for your next two to six meals. One of which should involve making this.)

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat orzo pasta

Just under 1 1/4 cups broth

1/4 cup broken walnuts, lightly toasted

Olive oil

2 small to medium cloves garlic, smashed

About 3 cups sliced greens (e.g., spinach, mustard, chard, and/or fava greens)

Slosh white wine

Salt, to taste

1/2 to 1 cup flat-diced* leftover roasted butternut squash

Liberal sprinkling white pepper

Pinch or two Meyer lemon zest

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Bring broth to a boil in a covered pot. Add the orzo, replace the cover, and turn the heat down to low. Simmer 9-10 minutes or until al dente. If there is extra liquid left at the end, simmer with the cover off for a minute until it evaporates.

Meanwhile, heat a wide saute pan over medium heat. Add a glug of olive oil and then the garlic, pressing it into the oil until it gets light hints of gold on both sides. Stir in the greens and a pinch or two of salt and saute, stirring, until they wilt. Add a slosh of wine and saute for a moment more, then gently stir in the squash and saute until heated through. Turn off the heat, add the cooked orzo, white pepper, lemon zest, and half the cheese, and stir to combine. Spoon into preheated bowls, and top with the rest of the cheese and the walnuts before serving.

Serves 2.

*As in, kind of like dicing, only imagine the cube you'd get and cut it in half to get a flatter square or rectangle. I don't understand why there's not a proper cooking term for this, since it's the perfect cut for so many things (mango over fish or chicken, butternut squash in risottos and pastas, apples or pears for a salad). I am hereby officially coining the term flat-dicing, unless someone can think of a better one, especially something that starts with Z. Zletting. Zanziputting. You get the idea.

Warmed Tomatoes and Basil over Garlicky Greens

This was a let's-cook-whatever's-in-the-fridge dish, and yet the flavors turned out to be perfectly balanced and wonderfully complex. You could use just regular sweet basil if you didn't have both kinds (and maybe try adding just a bit more sherry vinegar to compensate for losing the hint of lemon).

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 slice multigrain bread, chopped into small croutons
1 cup cooked and well-drained chickpeas and/or cannellini beans
1 clove garlic, sliced
2-3 large handfuls fava greens, amaranth greens, or spinach
1 tsp sherry vinegar, divided
Salt and black pepper
Ñora pepper
6-10 fresh sweet basil leaves
2-3 medium heirloom tomatoes, cut into large chunks
1 rounded tsp chopped lemon basil

Heat a large, nonstick frying pan over medium heat. When hot, add a generous glug of olive oil and swirl around the pan. Add the bread and toss to coat lightly, then shift to the side of the pan and scatter the beans on the other side (everything should be just one layer thick). Toast, shaking or stirring occasionally, until everything begins to turn golden brown.

Turn the heat down slightly, add the garlic and a bit more olive oil, and toss to combine. Saute for about a minute, then add the greens and saute until they begin to wilt. Season to taste with salt and pepper, add a few dashes of ñora pepper if you have it, drizzle with 1/2 tsp sherry vinegar, and throw in the basil leaves. Stir a few times, then serve into bowls.

Replace the pan on the heat, add about 1 tbsp olive oil, then slide the tomatoes in and sprinkle with salt. Saute for about a minute, stirring occasionally (you basically just want to warm them up without really cooking them). Add the lemon basil, a little black pepper, and a half tsp (or just a little more) of sherry vinegar. Saute for about another minute or until the tomatoes are just barely warmed through, then serve over the beans.

Garnish with basil, and serve hot.

Serves 2 for lunch, or pair with a salad and bread for dinner.

Roasted Squash and Fava Green Risotto with Lemon

This was kind of like having pumpkin pie and lemon bars for dinner. The Sibley Squash from our CSA box this week was particularly amazing, but I think the recipe would still be very good with a plain old butternut squash instead. After halving lengthwise and scraping out the seeds, slice the squash crosswise into 1/2" slices, then toss with a little olive oil and roast in the oven at 400 degrees, turning every 15 minutes or so, until browned and tender (about 45 minutes -- sometimes I start with the slices still pushed together in the shape of a halved squash for the first 15 minutes, to keep them from drying out too much, and then spread them out for faster cooking). Let cool for a few minutes, slice the skin off, and dice. If there's extra, you can serve the risotto over the slices.

Ingredients 
2-3 cups diced roasted squash (heirloom or butternut)
4 cups broth (chicken and/or vegetable)
Olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 medium shallot, sliced
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 generously rounded cup Arborio rice
White cooking wine
Four big handfuls of fava greens (or sub spinach and/or baby arugula)
Large handful flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
Zest of 1 lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat broth in a covered pot until it boils, then set aside.

Meanwhile, heat a large pot over medium heat. When hot, add a generous glug of olive oil. Add the onion and saute, stirring, until it begins to soften. Add the shallot, stir a few times, then add the garlic. Continue cooking for another 2-3 minutes until soft and fragrant.

Add the rice, and stir to coat the grains. Toast, stirring, for about 2 more minutes, then add 1-2 ladlefuls of wine. Cook, stirring, until liquid is absorbed, then begin adding broth by the ladleful, stirring until each one is absorbed before adding the next.

When you have a couple of ladlefuls of broth left and rice is just tender, stir in the squash. Add another ladleful of broth, and stir. When is has been absorbed, add the fava greens and the remaining broth. Cook, stirring, until the greens are wilted. Stir in some of the lemon zest and parsley, cook for a minute more, then turn off the heat. Add the parmesan, then salt, pepper, and additional lemon zest and parsley to taste.

Spoon into bowls, then allow to cool a minute and sprinkle with a little extra parsley before serving.

Serves 3.

Leaves for Breakfast: Quail Eggs and Greens

Scene: Midnight, inside. Lights are off, all is silent. Husband and wife are on the brink of sleep.

Husband (suddenly, without warning): What do you suppose would happen if we made an omelet out of the quail eggs?

Wife: Mmph.*


*Translates as: "I'm sorry, the person you're trying to contact has already fallen half asleep and can't respond using prototypical language at present, but clearly that's an empirical question that we need to investigate first thing in the morning."
 
Answer: Good things happen. It's not that quail eggs really taste different than chicken eggs, but it was like this had a whole extra layer of freshness and eggy taste to it. If that makes sense. Which it probably doesn't. So you'll just have to make it sometime and see.

Ingredients
8-10 quail eggs, or 2-3 pastured chicken eggs
Olive oil
1 medium shallot, sliced into thin half-rings
1-2 handfuls mild greens (e.g., fava, baby mustard, and/or spinach), coarsely chopped
1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Ñora pepper
2 slices whole grain bread, toasted

Carefully crack the quail eggs into a bowl without breaking the yolks (use a fingernail to get through the membrane under the shell, and peel back to get the egg out).

Heat a little olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the shallot and a pinch of salt, and saute for a couple of minutes until soft. Add the greens and cook, stirring, until just wilted, then add the pepper, parsley, and ñora and stir to mix. Pour in the eggs (still without breaking the yolks) and turn the heat down to low.

Wait about 10 seconds, then slowly stir the eggs and greens together, and continue cooking for a minute or two until the whites have set.

Lightly drizzle the toast with olive oil, top with the eggs, and serve hot.


Serves 2 for a light breakfast.

Spaghetti Squash with Peppers and Greens

I know this shouldn't come as a shock, but plants, it turns out, have leaves. Or in other (slightly less obvious-sounding) words, we often ignore the leaves of non-leafy plant foods, like beets or amaranth grain, and are for some reason surprised when they turn out to be both edible and delicious (or in the case of amaranth greens, to exist in the first place).

Case in point: Fava greens, which turned up in our CSA box this week for the second time, and which are my new favorite throw-a-handful-into-just-about-anything vegetable. They're similar in this way to spinach or amaranth greens, with a very mild, fresh taste and a lovely fava beany scent when raw.
If they come in clumps, like ours did, you may want to separate the individual leaves from the stem before cooking. We added them to a new recipe for spaghetti squash last night, while we continued our search for oven leprechauns.

Ingredients
1 medium spaghetti squash
Olive oil
Pasture butter
1 large shallot, chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
A big bunch of fava greens, amaranth greens, or spinach (all will cook down quite a bit, so use more than you think)
1/2 tsp ñora pepper
2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Halve the spaghetti squash and brush cut surface with olive oil, then place face down on a baking sheet. Bake for 35-50 minutes, depending on size, until a fork inserts with little resistance (you want it to be tender but not mushy, or the noodles won't retain their shape). Let cool for a few minutes, then gently remove seeds with a fork.

Meanwhile, heat a glug of olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat. Add the shallot and saute until it softens, then add the garlic and a small pat of butter and cook for a minute more. Stir in the peppers, cook for a couple of minutes, then add about half of the fava greens and fold in with the peppers until they begin to wilt. (If you need a bit more liquid in the pan, add just a little chicken broth or white wine). Next, add the ñora pepper, half the parsley, a pinch of salt, and a liberal dousing of black pepper.

Gently scoop the spaghetti squash out of its rind with a big spoon, and add to the peppers and greens mixture. Use the spoon and a spatula to gently pull apart the strands of the squash and mix them into the greens. Add the rest of the greens and more parsley to taste, stir until the greens just begin to wilt, sprinkle with some Parmesan, and toss one last time. Serve hot, topped with some more Parmesan and parsley.

Serves 2-3.