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Posts tagged ‘gratin’

Mar 16

Greens and white bean gratin

Chard-gratin3

Don’t let the greens in this recipe dissuade you – this is not one of the healthier things you could make yourself for dinner. But even my toddler eats greens when prepared this way, and it’s written nowhere ever that greens must always be unadorned, chaste, pious. Sometimes they, too, deserve gilding, gusto, and zeal, and I’ll be the first to make that happen. Read more

Dec 11

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Sweet potato gratin w. Thai chilies, pepitas, and cilantro

Don’t fault me for two sweet potato recipes in a row. When you’re trying to focus on local ingredients during the winter in the Midwest (and when – shhh – I’m not the biggest potato enthusiast), sweet potatoes are going to show up fairly often. And I’m not too upset about that, at least at this point (ask me again in March).

A few weeks back I described this recipe to someone as my “it” recipe this season – when people have asked me for recipe recommendations lately, this is always at the top of my list. When we met up with some friends at a lake house earlier in the fall, I made this. When we had a “friendsgiving” in Brett’s program, I brought this. When we made our own little repeat Thanksgiving dinner so we could have leftovers (you know what I’m talking about), I made this.

Sweet potato gratin with goat cheese, Thai chilies, toasted pepitas, and cilantro. Beat that.

Sweet-potato-gratin2

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Oct 22

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Brussels sprout gratin with whole-grain mustard and caramelized onions

Brussels_sprout_gratin

I did something exciting to these brussels sprouts. I did something fantastic to them, in fact, though in a way that might make some people feel a little nervous. “Gratin” means cheese and cream and butter, see, and sometimes those things induce a bit of anxiety. There’s also gussied-up breadcrumbs and caramelized onions, which don’t tend to turn people away, but the rest can b ea bit prickly.

But if you’ve been here for a bit of time you’ll know that I’m a pretty fervent defender of the butters and creams of the world; always ready to push for the sorts of things our great-grandmothers would have eaten (was that not someone’s – Michael Pollan’s, perhaps? – advice; to eat only things made of ingredients our great-grandmothers would have understood as a child?). I just have trouble getting worked up over something made with ingredients I could (at least conceivably) get from a farm, and I generally choose to fully immerse myself in and enjoy these things rather than worry about how much or how little I’m allowed to have. I live a pretty healthy lifestyle, in general, and a gratin here or there will not be my undoing.

So, here I am turning perfectly innocent brussels sprouts into something a bit devious. If your eyes and hearts are turning toward the holidays already, then by all means let me kickstart things for you.  Read more