For my “Take Action Project” to earn the award, I haven chosen to compile healthy, yet simple recipes into a cookbook for clients of the Bucks County Housing Group Community Food Pantries. The recipes need to include primarily the limited ingredients listed (see Emilee’s website) along with some seasonal produce supplied and donated by local farms. I am going to be using these donated recipes to:

• Create a cookbook to be offered at the pantries.
• Demonstrate various recipes at the food pantries by making sample recipes and giving taste tests during client hours. The purpose is to introduce my cookbook and instruct clients on how the cookbook can be utilized for their benefit.
• Train three helpers in healthy cooking, food drives, pantry stocking and my cookbook mission.
• Present healthy recipe options to promote better eating habits.

I need your help. I’m asking local chefs, farmers, producers, farm markets and various other individuals to submit recipes for this endeavor. The recipes need to be simple in technique and include the list of foods found on my website. Also, any healthy cooking tricks and tips or advice would be useful. Recipe donors may be anonymous if desired or contributors accredited your choice.

You can contact her with recipes as follows:

• Through her blog at buckscountypantrycookbook.wordpress.com
• Email her at: cookbook2459@gmail.com
• Call with any questions: (215) 620-9555

Please go through your recipe files (or brains) and come up with a few simple, healthy recipes that Emilee can include in this cookbook. You know you’ve got them, just pull a few together to help those to whom cooking vegetables might be a new experience.

Thanks so much for your help!

This new edition is a small collection of Hamilton and Hirsheimer’s favorite Italian recipes, and is the introduction to a year of celebrating Italian food, “Casa Canale” style. Three more Italian-themed cookbooks will follow this year, the next coming out in November.

Si mangia bene! This is indeed the way to eat well Italian-style. The book’s table of contents alone makes me salivate. A whole section on Pizza, Riso & Pasta. Antipasti recipes (including an Italian version of grilled cheese – only made with mozzarella and bread, coated in panko and fried. Works for me.). Contorni (side dishes), Pesce (fish) and Carne (meat). And for a “Finale,” fig gelato, chilled strawberries and Moscato d’Asti, and Sweet Ricotta and Shaved Chocolate.

The slim volume is a tease, for sure. But at only 47 pages it beckons me to try every recipe. Each section has only 2 to 6 recipes, which is manageable!

You can order the book – just $10 – online at the Canal House website. Consider buying a subscription rather than buying the books individually. For $49.95 per year, you’ll receive all three books, which are usually priced at $19.95 each. Go for it. Mangia bene!

Related posts:

1. Canal House Cooking for the winter
2. Canal House Cooking
3. Canal House Cooking: A local voice

The weather should be equally as unpredictable this weekend, here in the rain forests of Bucks County. Every forecast I look at differs from the one before. Scattered thunderstorms, showers and the like. Some sunshine (like right now). It’s almost a British weather report. My heartfelt sympathy to anyone who has a wedding scheduled this weekend.

So, let’s ignore all that and go about our business anyway. What are the highlights for this week?

On Saturday, Meet Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer, authors of the local, bestselling cookbook series, Canal House Cooking. They will be teaching a cooking class and signing books afterwards at Whole Foods Market in Princeton on Route 1 beginning at 12:00 pm. To learn more about these great cookbooks, see our earlier post, Canal House Cooking: A local voice.

Enjoy the annual celebration, Springfest in Perkasie Olde Towne, previously “Hot Ribs, Cool Music Festival”. The rib competition and music will still be main events, as well as the pie baking and eating contest, and beer and wine tasting. There will also be lots of fun kids’ activities and other food choices. Festivities begin at noon on Saturday and go to 9 pm. Come early for the ribs!

Also on Saturday, check out Newtown Uncorked, the annual wine and food festival, taking place 2 pm to 6 pm at the Newtown Swim Club and featuring local wines and restaurants.

If you are still looking for something to eat on Saturday, swing by Stockton for the BBQ & Beer Picnic & Fundraiser at the Stockton Fire Company, from 4 pm to 7 pm.

Earl’s Bucks County in Lahaska has begun a monthly tradition this spring, called, “Thirsty Thursdays.” Last month it was a dinner focused on good Scotch. This month, Tequila. So if you’re a fan of good Tequila, check out Thirsty Thursdays Tequila Dinner at Earl’s this Thursday, May 26 from 7 pm to 10 pm.

To market, to market. What can you expect to find at area farmers’ markets this week? Asparagus, rhubarb, carrots, mushrooms, arugula, bok choy, cabbage, baby kale, kale, all kinds of lettuce: Butterhead, head, microgreens, Mesclun, red leaf, salad mixes and more, radishes, cabbage, sorrel, spinach, spring garlic (scapes), potting plants, cut herbs; pastured meats (chicken, beef, lamb), eggs, cheeses, baked goods, honey and prepared foods. Seasonal markets now open: New Hope (Thursday), Ottsville (Friday), Wrightstown and Doylestown (Saturday), Hunterdon Land Trust Alliance in Flemington (Sunday) and, of course, Stockton (Friday, Saturday and Sunday). A bunch more will open in June.

Local strawberries are just starting to show up, a little delayed by all the rain, but hopefully not washed away like two years ago. Do me a favor, however. When you see strawberries, or other berries, locally, let me know where you found them, and also ask the vendor where they are from (sometimes “local” is interpreted rather widely). For tips on where to go and how to pick berries, see Rich Baringer’s post from last May, Pick-your-own-strawberries in Bucks.

For more details on any of these events, please go to our full calendar, Food Events in Bucks County. Have a dry, rapturous weekend.

Friday, May 20:

• Stockton Farmers’ Market, Stockton, NJ [1-7 pm]
• Ottsville Farmers’ Market @ Linden Hill Gardens, Ottsville [4-8 pm]
• Beer Tasting @ Phillips’ Fine Wines, Stockton, NJ [4-6 pm]
• Friday Wine & Music @ Hopewell Valley Vineyards, Pennington, NJ [5-8 pm]
• Wine Concert Series @ The Market at DelVal, Doylestown [6 pm–9 pm]
• Wine Concert Series @ Shady Brook Farm, Yardley [6 pm–9 pm]
• Wine & Cheese Pairing @ Chaddsford Winery, Lahaska [7 pm–9 pm]
• 7th Annual Taste of the World Gala, Perkasie [7 - 10 pm]
• Barbara Trent @ The Centre Bridge Inn, New Hope [7-11 pm]
• Kindle Cafe Supper Club @ Rojo’s Roastery, Lambertville, NJ [7:30-9:30 pm]

Saturday, May 21:

• Doylestown Farmers’ Market, Doylestown [7 am-12 pm]
• Food & Wine Tasting @ None Such Farm Market, Buckingham [8 am - 6 pm]
• Wrightstown Farmers’ Market, Wrightstown [9 am-1 pm]
• Stockton Farmers’ Market, Stockton, NJ [9 am-4 pm]
• Canal House Cooking (class/book signing), Princeton, NJ [12 - 1:30 pm]
• Wine Tasting @ Phillips’ Fine Wines, Stockton, NJ [12-6 pm]
• Springfest in Perkasie Olde Towne, Perkasie [12 - 9 pm]
• Newtown Uncorked, Newtown [2 - 6 pm]
• Beer Tasting @ New Hope Beverage, New Hope [3-7 pm]
• BBQ & Beer Picnic & Fundraiser @ Stockton Fire Co, Stockton, NJ [4 - 7 pm]
• Saturday Wine & Music @ Hopewell Valley Vineyards, Pennington [5-8 pm]

Sunday, May 22:

• Breakfast Buffet @ Father Gallen Council 5494, Warrington [7:30 - 11 am]
• Hunterdon Land Trust Farmers’ Market, Flemington, NJ [9 am-1 pm]
• Stockton Farmers’ Market, Stockton, NJ [10 am-4 pm]
• Mini Herb Garden @ Tinicum Herb Barn, Erwinna [1 - 3 pm]
• Wine and BBQ @ Old York Cellars, Ringoes, NJ [1 - 4 pm]
• Music @ Villa Milagro Vineyards, Finesville, NJ [2 - 5 pm]
• CB Cares 4th Annual Celebrity Chef & Waiter Gala 2011, Doylestown [6 – 10 pm]

Tuesday, May 24:

• Cruise Night @ Shady Brook Farm, Yardley [6 - 9 pm]
• Pizza and Calzone (class), Doylestown [7 - 9 pm]

Wednesday, May 25:

• Pierogy Wednesdays @ St. Anne Ukrainian, Warrington [9 am - 12 pm]
• Complimentary Beer Tasting @ the Copper Leaf Grill, Buckingham [5 - 9 pm]
• Cook & Eat Healthy, Doylestown Township [6 - 8 pm]
• Date Night – Couples Cooking (class), Doylestown [6:30 - 8:30 pm]

Thursday, May 26:

• New Hope Farmers’ Market, New Hope [2:30-6:30 pm]
• Sushi Night in the Wine Cellar @ The Inn at Lambertville Station, Lambertville, NJ [6 - 10 pm]
• Thirsty Thursdays Tequila Dinner @ Earl’s, Lahaska [7 - 10 pm]

For more details on any of these events, please go to our full calendar, Food Events in Bucks County.

Follow Bucks County Taste on Facebook and Twitter.

Today’s cookbooks all seem to have a particular voice, heard through the text, the photography and even the organization of the book. Nigel Slater’s Tender, a recent gift from my sister in England, is a strong example of this. His love of the vegetable, the garden and the kitchen all meld together. In fact, sometimes it’s hard to find the recipe. It’s not that the older cookbooks didn’t have a voice, but it was much more subdued and behind-the-scenes.

So it’s no wonder that I enjoy the Canal House Cooking cookbook series, now in its second year of publication. In case you’ve missed these lovely, seasonal cookbooks, it’s time to get acquainted. They are written and photographed by Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer. Melissa is a co-founder of Hamilton’s Grill Room in Lambertville and former food editor at Cooks Illustrated, Saveur and Martha Stewart Living. Christopher was food and design editor for Metropolitan Home, and one of the founders of Saveur. The cookbooks come out three times a year, in tune with the seasons, each full of timely recipes, anecdotes and luscious photography. The books emerge from their food studio in Lambertville.

The voice is soft, warm and welcoming – kind of “come into our kitchen, pull up a chair and let’s talk food.” They support and cherish the same local growers and producers that many of us have come to know and love. It’s fun to recognize the places as you read through the books. Here’s a few lines from the introduction of this summer’s book, Volume No. 4, Farm Markets and Gardens,

All summer long, little farmers’ markets pop up like wildflowers around our county – happily, they seem to be spreading. It might be Thursday afternoon in the high school parking lot or Sunday morning in a field next to an old barn. One of our favorites, the Ottsville Farmers’ Market goes from Friday afternoon until sunset. It’s on a beautiful old farm, Linden Hill Gardens, that has blossomed into a nursery for rare plants. A local band jams as the farmers set up in the gravel courtyard next to the old farmhouse and its potager.

Or from Volume No. 3, Winter and Spring, as they describe that end-of-winter-but-not-yet-spring frustration, as we long for fresh vegetables again,

The farmstand market on the edge of town has closed for the season, so there is no sliding in on the way home at the end of the day to grab something for dinner. We can’t rely on vegetables we don’t have this time of year! … Now we’re in tomato-wilderness time, so we pull out our summer stash from deep in the freezer. It’s the ant and the grasshopper fable, and preserving last summer’s bounty is paying off big time. We stir pesto into penne. Spread herb butters on fish or roasted chicken. And oven-roasted tomatoes, tomato sauce, and rich tomato paste find their way into everything.

Ah…I know of what they speak! (I dug my last bag of tomatoes out of the freezer in May.) In the same essay, they mention the Stockton Farmers’ Market, Bobolink Dairy & Bakeyard, Metropolitan Seafood, and Illg’s Meats in Chalfont. All places and people close to my heart and stomach.

Hamilton and Hirsheimer set out to create cookbooks that are “home cooking by home cooks for home cooks.” They strive to include ingredients that can be found in local supermarkets (well, maybe Wegmans), and they keep the recipes pretty simple technique-wise. Still, in this day and age of convenience cooking I’m not sure if that mission can be accomplished. I only say this because what seems easy to me, I have sometimes found intimidates home cooks. It’s always a hard call.

What I do like about the recipes is their simplicity – in use of ingredients and technique. There is a certain elegance in keeping it to a few key, flavorful ingredients, and one or two time-tested cooking techniques. In the summer edition, there are two pages full of simple ways to cook summer vegetables. It’s a great resource when you have run out of ideas for zucchini or eggplant or corn.

As an experienced cook, I have also found myself surprised at some of the recipes. I’ll be reading one and think, “Well, so what? I make that.” But then there’s a different ingredient – one that makes me go, “Oh, now that’s interesting…” For example, Grilled Eggplant with Mint. We make grilled eggplant with herbs all the time in the summer, but I’ve never tried mint, or adding lemon, garlic and other seasonings after the vegetable comes off the grill. You learn something new every day.

This recipe for tomato tart is a great example of simple and great, in fact, I thought it seemed too good to be true until I made it. Now it will become one of my staple appetizers or simple dinners. Worth keeping puff pastry in the freezer just in case.

Tomato Tart
Serves 4-6

“We usually make this simple tart with large ripe tomatoes in season, tucking some halved supersweet cherry tomatoes in between the slabs. But we’ve found that using even those hothouse varieties – a little more acidic and certainly less juicy – can be quite delicious, too. Eat this tart warm or at room temperature, but definitely the same day you make it as the crisp, delicate crust becomes limp if left to sit too long.”

INGREDIENTS

1 sheet puff pastry, defrosted
(Note: I found using just one sheet too small, and ended up using both sheets in the package)
2-3 tomatoes, cored and sliced
2-3 branches fresh thyme
Really good extra-virgin olive oil
Pepper
Salt, preferably Maldon or other crunchy sea salt

HOW TO

1. Preheat the oven to 375°.
2. Lay the sheet(s) of puff pastry out on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Using the tip of a paring knife, lightly score a border about ½ inch from the edge of the pastry. Prick the dough inside the border all over with the tines of a fork to prevent it from puffing up too much during baking.
3. Arrange the tomatoes on the pastry in a single layer (crowding or overlapping the tomatoes will make the puff pastry soggy).
4. Strip the branches of thyme, scattering the leaves over the tomatoes.
5. Drizzle the tart with some olive oil and season with pepper.
6. Bake the tart until the pastry is crisp and deeply browned on the bottom and around the edges, 30-40 minutes. Season with salt.

If you are interested in purchasing the books, you can buy them individually ($19.95 each) or by subscription (3 seasonal books per year for $49.95). Visit the Canal House Cooking website. Some area bookstores carry the cookbooks too (Farley’s in New Hope, Doylestown Book Store and at Hamilton’s Grill Room in Lambertville).

Related posts:

1. Canal House Cooking
2. Canal House Cooking for the winter
3. A feast for the eyes and the tummy

Just in time for the holidays, and with plenty of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s recipes, local cookbook authors Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer have produced the second volume in their series of homestyle gourmet cookbooks.

While Volume 1 in the Canal House Cooking series focused on the pair’s favorite summer recipes, Volume 2 is filled with drinks, dishes and anecdotes for fall and holiday meats, beverages, side dishes and desserts.

Hamilton shares her mother’s French cookie recipes, while Hirsheimer offers her mother’s recipe for lamb cooked in red wine. Some offerings are classic cuisine while others are as homespun as a reminder that the recipe on the Ocean Spray cranberry bag is a very flavorful option.

This book, like the first one, is very personal for the pair of former restaurant food editors, who, through their business Canal House in Lambertville, create cookbooks for other chefs.

Hamilton and Hirsheimer will sign their books from noon – 2 pm Sunday, November 22 at Hamilton’s Grill Room in Lambertville (it’s all in the family) and from 2-4 pm Sunday, December 13 at Farley’s Book Store in New Hope. The book also can be purchased at amazon.com and at the Canal House Web site.

Cranberry Port Gelée
Makes about 2 cups

Use a good port or red wine or even a Madeira if that’s what you have on hand. Cranberries have so much natural pectin that this sauce will set up even if you don’t refrigerate it.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup port
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon juniper berries
10 black peppercorns
4 cups or 1 bag fresh cranberries

HOW TO

1. Put the port, sugar, juniper berries and peppercorns into a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the cranberries and return to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the cranberries burst and are very soft, about 10 minutes more.
2. Strain the sauce into a bowl through a fine-mesh sieve, pushing the solids through the screen with a rubber spatula. Transfer to a pretty serving bowl. Cover and refrigerate.

Related posts:

1. Canal House Cooking
2. Canal House Cooking: A local voice
3. A feast for the eyes and the tummy

As partners in a business that transforms chefs’ cookbook dreams into reality, it’s good to share a common vision. It’s also good to like the same kinds of food.

Shared tastes and a love of the culinary world prompted local food experts Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer to step beyond their role of crafting other people’s books and create one of their own.

Christopher Hirsheimer, left, and Melissa Hamilton in their Lambertville loft studio

Volume one of Canal House Cooking was published this month, the first in a series of softcover cookbooks that focus on seasonal cooking.  In the book the two moms, who live in Hunterdon and Bucks counties, share the summertime recipes they make at home.

The 80 recipes in the book focus on foods in season and feature summertime fare such as tomatoes, plums and zucchini. Every course is covered, from seasonally appropriate mixed drinks to dessert.

The two authors are former magazine food editors with credentials that include years spent at Saveur and Metropolitan Home. Christopher has collaborated on four other cookbooks, including three for Saveur.

Melissa is well known in local culinary circles for co-founding Hamilton’s Grill Room in Lambertville with her father, Jim Hamilton.

Canal House Cooking costs $19.95, or $49.95 for an annual subscription of three books and can be ordered through the website thecanalhouse.com.

Next will be a book on fall and holiday cooking, then a winter/spring edition. In addition to the website, books are available at amazon.com, Farley’s Bookstore in New Hope, Pa., and the Hamilton’s Grill Room. The books will also be sold at other private bookstores in the U.S. and through Anthropologie stores.

This recipe from the book is a great way to enjoy the fresh local tomatoes just coming into season:

Roasted Tomatoes Studded with Garlic

serves 4

INGREDIENTS

½ cup diced pancetta
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the pasta
2 anchovy fillets
1 cup coarse fresh bread crumbs
4 tomatoes, tops sliced off, seeds scooped out
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
small handful fresh thyme, parsley, or basil leaves, chopped
salt and pepper
½ pound spaghetti

HOW TO

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Fry the pancetta in a skillet over medium heat until browned and crisp around the edges. Use a slotted spatula to lift the pancetta out of the skillet to a plate. Leave the rendered fat in the skillet.
3. Add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the anchovies to the same skillet. Use a wooden spoon to mash the anchovies until they dissolve. Add the bread crumbs and cook, stirring often, until they are golden.
4. Put the tomatoes, cut side up, in a baking dish and slip some garlic into each tomato. Mound some bread crumbs into each tomato and scatter pancetta and herbs on top. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle the remaining 4 tablespoons of oil over all.
5. Roast the tomatoes in the oven until they have browned a bit and the interior is supple but the tomatoes haven’t collapsed, 1–1½ hours.
6. Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of boiling salted water. Drain.
7. Return the pasta to the pot and stir in some olive oil and some of the oily tomato juices from the bottom of the tomato roasting dish.
8. Serve the spaghetti with the roasted tomatoes and their juices spooned on top.

Related posts:

1. Canal House Cooking: A local voice
2. Canal House Cooking for the winter
3. A feast for the eyes and the tummy

I opened up the Bucks County Courier Times/The Intelligencer yesterday to the Food Section (of course). I’ve become a follower of Betty Cichy. She does great, creative articles on local food people, restaurants and stores. I wish I could link to more of her stories but the newspaper doesn’t post Lifestyle/Food pieces online. Hmmn. I think there’s a letter to the publisher in my future.

Betty is running a contest involving food and blogging. How could I not like it? If you haven’t heard, a movie-based-on-the-book is coming out in August called, “Julia & Julie.” It tracks the famous cook and TV chef Julia Child’s beginnings and career. For those of you not old enough to remember anything before the Food Network, Julia WAS THE FIRST. The book was written by blogger Julie Powell, a New York office worker, who decided over the course of a year to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and blog about it.

Now Betty has thrown down the potholder, so to speak. She is challenging folks to try a Julia recipe and blog about it. Here are the contest rules:

We’d like you to be like Julie on a small scale. Pick a recipe from one of Julia Child’s first four cookbooks, follow it step by step, and blog about your experience. Choose a recipe that challenges or intrigues you in some way …

Make your post as interesting and personal as you can. Tell us why you chose that particular recipe. Describe the problems and disasters you had along the way, from shopping to serving. Look back over the experience and reflect on what you learned from it, and whether you think the recipe is worth making again. If you did make it again, how would you change it? Are there ways you’d update or simplify the recipe for 21st century cooks?

Take some pictures and notes as you follow the recipe, and when you’ve finished, tell us how it went in a post on the Julie/Julia blog we’ve set up on phillyBurbs. When all the entries have been posted, readers will be able to go online and vote for their favorite blogger.

As for judging, the top vote-getter and two bloggers chosen by a panel of experts will compete in a cook-off at Manny Brown’s in Neshaminy Mall on Aug. 5. Each of the three finalists will put on a little cooking show, demonstrating key steps in the recipe and then showing off the finished product.  A panel of judges will choose the grand-prize winner and two runners-up. Then the contestants and the audience will attend a free screening of “Julie & Julia.” Go to the newspaper’s website for the full contest rules.

I must admit, I’m intrigued – and intimidated. I started cooking in the ’80′s and by that time classic French cooking was considered passe, and Julia Child, well, I think Saturday Night Live took a few jabs at her (or was it she just sounded too much like Terry Jones from Monty Python?) I will admit, publicly, that I don’t even own a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But I’m seriously considering it. I mean, after all, what kind of food blogger would I be? I’ll keep you “posted.”

Related posts:

1. Food & Entertaining Bucks Style
2. Bucks County Taste Serves Up Dinner

The first is one I’ve been dying to try out. Sharon Schwartz recommended it from the cookbook Adventures of an Italian Food Lover by Faith Heller Willinger, but I didn’t want to publish it until the flowers were available. If you’ve been wandering the farmers’ markets the last few weeks you’ve also seen lots of spring greens, including some you’ve probably never heard of. Here’s a simple recipe that I’ve been using that works for all of them. It’s fast, and even Mark – who is not known for his love of vegetables – loves it.

Ricotta-Stuffed Zucchini Flowers

Serves 4 to 6

INGREDIENTS

1 cup ricotta, fresh if possible, or sheep’s milk ricotta
12 – 16 fresh zucchini flowers
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
Fine sea salt
1 tbsp. minced fresh basiL

HOW TO

1. If your ricotta is watery, drain it in a sieve to remove excess whey. Soak the zucchini flowers in cool water, then spin-dry in a salad spinner. Removing the stamens is unnecessary.
2. Pack the ricotta into a pastry bag (you can also use a disposable sturdy plastic bag and simply cut the tip off the end). Insert the end of the pastry bag into the zucchini flowers and pipe one or two spoonfuls of ricotta into each.
3. Drizzle 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil in a large nonstick skillet. Placed the stuffed flowers in the skillet in a single layer and place the pan over the highest heat. When the pan heats and the oil begins to sizzle, cover and cook for 4 to 6 minutes or until the flowers are hot, stemed by the moisture of the ricotta. Transfer to a serving dish and top with pepper, sea salt, minced basil, and the remaining oil.

Spring Greens & Garlic

The amounts are approximate, depending on how many you are feeding and how much garlic you like. The general rule with greens is make lots, and then double it. When they steam and cook, they shrink tremendously.

INGREDIENTS

Greens – chard, collard, spinach, kale, bok choy, beet greens, dandelion greens, broccoli rabe, etc.
Garlic, smashed and minced
Onions, or shallots, or, if you’re lucky enough to find them, garlic scapes, sliced thin
Olive oil
Kosher salt or sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Hot pepper flakes (optional)

HOW TO

1. Clean and wash the greens but you don’t completely dry.
2. With flat-leafed greens (like collards), lay several leaves on top of each other, then roll them together, kind of like a cigar. Then cut the greens at an angle, at 1 inch intervals. For spinach and smaller greens, just tear into bite-size pieces.
3. Now here’s where opinions differ. Some people like to steam the greens in a skillet, gradually adding water and/or stock. That’s fine. But I’m a little lazy. So I steam them, putting the tougher greens or stalks towards the bottom, and the more tender ones at the top (won’t need as much steaming). Just for a few minutes, to soften them, then remove the lid and let them breath.
4. While the greens are steaming, start warming a skillet. Add olive oil. When the oil is hot, add garlic and onions, but being careful not to burn. Turn the heat down and let the garlic/onion mixture gently cook.
5. Add a bit more olive oil and let it warm up. Then add in the greens, gently tossing. Season with salt, pepper and hot pepper flakes, if you like, and then serve.

Related posts:

1. Seeing Green(s)

Côté & Co. is sponsoring a “Cook’s Book Club.”  The next gathering will be on Thursday, April 30th at 7:00 pm. The book for this meeting is “Pomegranate Soup” by Marsha Mehran. There will be a lively discussion and, of course, a book-inspired menu for the occasion. The book can be purchased at Cote & Co. or Doylestown Bookshop for 10% off retail. You can register for the gathering and the light-fare menu ($12) by emailing Kristin Perry at kristin.perry@me.com. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention – it’s BYOB. Didn’t I tell you this is a book club I can like?

See more details about this event and others at our calendar,
Food Events in Bucks County.