The recipe was chard gratin from Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food
. I started from the ideas in Alice's recipe, but streamlined it. Alice boils the chard until tender, toasts the bread crumbs in the oven, sautes an onion, adds the chard, then moves everything into a baking dish to brown in the oven. I cut this down to two pans, and two techniques - one pan for sauteing everything, then into the baking dish for browning in the oven.The results were a dish that balances contrasts very well. The bitter chard had a creamy taste and texture from the flour and milk, with a hint of sweetness from the onions. The tender chard played well with the crunchy, toasted bread crumb topping.
This recipe is a lot lighter than I thought it would be; when I hear gratin, I think of potatoes covered in cheese and cream. This isn't a diet recipe per se - butter, milk, flour and bread crumbs are involved, after all. But the recipe uses just a little of those ingredients for flavor, with the chard being the star of the show. If you want to serve chard to someone who thinks they won't like it, this recipe is a great place to start.
Recipe: Swiss Chard Gratin
, with a "Sunday Dinner" theme. A bunch of bloggers who follow Pam, Maggy, and Sharon on 
, the Asian definition of fresh fish is much different from ours. Theirs is: was the fish alive when it entered the kitchen?
by Paul Greenberg is an entertaining, sobering, in-depth, and practical look at fish and sustainability.
from my trip to Provence, and it is Tim's favorite. I love watching him carefully pry off the cap, pinch two fingers worth of salt, and carefully sprinkle it over his beans in a circular motion.
recently, looking for ideas to expand my weeknight stir-fries. One technique that caught my eye was red cooking, braising meat for a long time in a Shaoxing wine, soy and caramelized sugar broth. The result of red cooking is tender meat with a reddish hue from the broth. 
that are used for red cooking. And, I was looking for a weeknight dinner, not a weekend extravaganza. So, I turned to my trusty slow cooker. It seemed like a natural for red cooking - a long simmer at low heat is exactly what the slow cooker does best. My cooking instincts were good - red cooking chicken thighs in the slow cooker is a great idea. The chicken was fall off the bone tender, and flavored through with the sweet, sour and salty broth. The only problem was the aroma - it smells so good, but you have to wait six hours to eat! 
, using shortcuts and prepared ingredients and bagged, pre-cut vegetables to get the meal on the table as quickly as possible? Or are you Martha Stewart, as in 
, do it The Right Way, have a large garden so you can have fresh greens, raise your own chickens, and have dinner linens that match the seasons?
camp. I cooked elaborate meals on the weekends, got really deep into 
. For a while, all my cooking was simple and direct, as I learned basic techniques. 
, or is it Jean-Georges Vongerichten's spectacular version? Rick Bayless from 
, or Rick Bayless from 
? And, does it all have to be one way or the other? Can I short-cut a few of the sides, and do the main dish in an elaborate fashion on a weekday? Can I make a hearty, homey stew that doesn't need a lot of fussing while my guests arrive for a dinner party?
