The Wednesday Chef

Alice Waters's Swiss Chard Gratin

Drowning in greens! Send help!

Beet greens, collard greens, turnip greens, Swiss chard, they're overflowing from my fridge like some kind of sturdy green tidal wave. A long weekend in Maine and a few nights out on the town has allowed the wholesale takeover of my crisper drawers and imbued me with an increasing sense of desperate futility every time I open the fridge.

(I couldn't even depend on Ben to tackle part of the problem: on his own last night, he made pasta with tomato sauce. When I asked him if he'd had any of the vegetables, he looked up and said, "a carrot?" Clearly I have failed in my channeling of the sense of urgency.)

The other vegetables are disappearing with ease. Kohlrabi? Gone. Beets? Pickled, oh yes, and gone. Cabbage? Spicily sauteed and gone. Little white turnips? Sob, gone. (I loved those.) But the greens, dear me, the greens.

I've decided I've got to be methodical. I can't see the green pile as some kind of towering inferno. I have to tackle it leaf by leaf, drawing deep breaths. (And every once in a while, I have to be okay with throwing some of the greens in the trash. Only the wilted, browning ones! They aren't doing anyone any good, sitting there balefully, making me feel like a jerk.) And I have to get help from the professionals.

After all, who better than Alice Waters to help with getting rid of some perfectly good week-old Swiss chard?

I don't own The Art of Simple Food, but so far every recipe I've tried from it has been a bit of a knock-out. In a quiet, unassuming way, mind you. No fireworks necessarily. But I like food like that. It allows you to have a conversation while you eat, being a good hostess to the people gathered around your table, or a good dinner partner to the person sitting across from you every night. Food like that fills your belly and uses up the stuff in your kitchen, like greens gone wild and old bread and the last dregs of milk and a dusty onion, and tastes good - really good, like something your mother might have taught you to make if she was a resourceful cook with impeccable taste who grew up on a farm in France.

This gratin, while it does dirty more dishes than when I normally make chard (bang it in a pot to steam, drain it a little bit later and douse liberally with lemon juice and olive oil), is a lovely way to use up chard, stems and all. Rich and creamy without being heavy, the gratin has melting soft chard at the bottom and crispy, crunchy breadcrumbs at the top. It's the European peasant version of creamed spinach: fresher, leaner, cheaper.

If you're drowning in greens like me, for God's sake, double the amounts below and take the leftovers, if there are any, to work. And be grateful. In six months time, it'll be frozen Brussels sprouts all over again.

Chard Gratin
4 servings

1 1/2 bunches of chard
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
2 teaspoons melted butter
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, diced
Salt
2 teaspoons flour
1/2 cup milk
A few strokes of freshly grated nutmeg

1. Wash and stem the chard. Save half the stems and slice them thin. Bring 2 quarts of salted water to a boil and cooked the sliced stems for 2 minutes. Add the chard leaves and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and cool. Gently squeeze out the excess liquid from the stems and leaves and coarsely chop them.

2. Toss together the breadcrumbs and the melted butter. Toast on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven, stirring now and then, until lightly brown, about 10 minutes.

3. Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed pan and add the diced onion. Cook over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chard and season with salt. Cook for 3 minutes. Sprinkle with the flour and stir well. Then add the milk and nutmeg and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more milk if the mixture gets too thick. The chard should be moist but not floating in liquid. Taste and add salt if needed.

4. Butter a small baking dish. Spread the chard mixture evenly in the dish and dot with the remaining butter, cut into bits. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs evenly over the top. Bake in a 350-degree oven until the gratin is golden and bubbling, 20 to 30 minutes.

Chez Panisse's Rhubarb Grapefruit Preserves

Wednesday: seated uncomfortably on a small wooden chair, still damp from the thunderstorms, under a tent hastily erected on the Water Taxi Beach. The sun is out again after the deluge, but low in the sky, pink clouds threading through the skyscrapers as it sets. The sand crunches underneath and we eat toasted bread soaked in olive oil, watch Umbrian olive pickers work through their harvest.

Saturday: asleep on the beach at Asbury Park, the shrieks of children and the pounding surf quieting my mind. Around me the sleeping bodies of my friends, lulled by the sun so bright overhead. The sour scent of pickles, leftover from our picnic lunch, drifts up, mingles with the smell of the ocean and sunscreen.

Tuesday: legs curled up under me, threatening to tingle, on a blanket spread out in Central Park. People all around me, the hum of midsummer chatter almost drowning out the music from the Philharmonic ensconced in their shell in front of us. Fireworks end the evening; as I walk out of the park, a mournful bagpiper plays for a crowd of guests silenced by the explosions.

Wednesday: cheering with strangers, eyes red from their flight, on a leather banquette as our team makes it through to the finals. Iced tea, brewed too heavily, makes my teeth chatter and my palms sweat, but on second thought it could just be the game.

Yesterday morning: standing at the kitchen counter, dicing rhubarb and mincing grapefruit peel. The fruit macerates in sugar and juice all day. At night, jars and labels are washed, sterilized in the oven. The jam comes to boil, foam is tediously skimmed. The mixture thickens, grows glossy then dull, pockmarked by bubbles. A mind long distracted finds focus. Jars are filled, sealed tightly; gentle pops come from the kitchen.

***

Rhubarb is everywhere these days. We've eaten a glut of it, stewed with tiny, fragrant strawberries into yielding submission, sometimes with yogurt, sometimes without. But, tiring of tradition, I've been meaning to do something else with it lately.

This recipe, which combines tiny bits of grapefruit peel and juice with diced rhubarb, is like a citrus marmalade, but gentler and softer somehow. The rhubarb tames the grapefruit, surprisingly; pillows out the bitter edge. The preserves have a languid set, perfect for toast eaten on humid morning, just before it gets too hot. I love the color, somewhere between pink and red, and the way it moves under the knife.

Rhubarb Grapefruit Preserves
Makes 5 cups

Note: If you'd like a somewhat more rhubarby jam, use the peel of only one grapefruit. Still juice both of the fruits, though.

2 pounds rhubarb
2 grapefruit (organic, please, and well-washed)
4 cups sugar

1. Wash and dry the rhubarb and cut it into 1/2-inch dice. Peel the zest off the grapefruit and chop it very fine. Put the rhubarb, chopped zest, and sugar in a large heavy-bottomed stainless steel pot. Juice the grapefruits into the pot. Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes (or overnight) to allow the sugar to dissolve and the rhubarb to release its juice.

2. Prepare five 8-ounce canning jars and self-sealing lids in boiling water, following the manufacturer’s instructions. Put a small plate in the freezer to be used later to test the consistency of the jam. Bring the pot of fruit to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally to make sure it is not sticking to the bottom. The mixture will bubble high up the sides of the pot. Skim off any light-colored foam collecting on the edges. Soon the jam will subside, still bubbling thickly. Stir frequently and start testing for consistency by putting small spoonful of jam on the cold plate. This cools the samples quickly so you can tell what the finished texture will be.

3. When the jam has cooked to the thickness you want, turn off the heat and carefully ladle the jam into the prepared canning jars, allowing at least 1/4 inch of headroom. Seal with the lids according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The preserves will keep for 1 year.

The Wednesday Chef on The FN Dish

Adam, the intrepid Amateur Gourmet, rustled up a few of us for a little discussion on food blogging the other day. If you're interested in starting your own food blog or just want to see me talk with my hands (grandfather in grave, rolling over), have a look!

Geraldine's Date Cake

After sitting glumly on my butcher block for the past three weeks, my dryish Israeli dates - cast aside in favor of their juicy, more voluptuous sisters -  were finally used this weekend and, like an 80's movie wallflower in a pink dress at a long-awaited prom, they bloomed and shone.

You all offered up some great suggestions for my dates, but Heather's comment stood out:

"Luisa - I have an amazing date cake recipe from my Granny that is perfect for dates that are a little mangled or tough. The dates soak in hot coffee or chicory so they kind of fall slightly apart, giving the cake this awesome texture. It's got a little bit of chocolate in it for good measure. Let me know if you want the recipe!"

Key words: mangled, tough, a little bit of chocolate.

Um, yes, please?

Heather's grandmother, Geraldine, sure knows her way around a dried date. Her chocolate-chip dappled cake combines coffee-soaked, pureed dates with an easy cocoa batter to velvety-soft effect. This is the kind of unassuming cake that you make once or twice and then commit to memory, enshrining yourself in family lore as the originator of a truly great snacking cake. You can't really taste the dates and coffee, but there are revelatory grace notes of fruit that give the cake an unexpected complexity. The elusive flavor of coffee deepens the chocolate flavor.

I made this cake for dessert on Saturday night and my friend Pat said, between mouthfuls as he ate, that it was the best cake he'd ever eaten. I know this just happened with the squash pie, but I swear to you that I do not put my friends up to this kind of hyperbole. I swear it! They come up with it all on their own.

I loved the fact that the cake required no fussy frosting or gilding-the-lily icing. Sliced into thick wedges, we topped them with a melting scoop of vanilla ice cream. But you don't even really need to do that. It can be nibbled on at the counter in the kitchen or refrigerated and cut into squares for a plain afternoon office snack. I baked it in a 10-inch pan, but you could do a 9 x 13-inch rectangular pan or even a 9-inch round pan for a thicker cake (just adjust the baking time somewhat). The cake is delicate, yet sturdy and has a crumb so soft and moist that it almost melts in your mouth.

I made this cake to get rid of the dates sitting on my counter making me feel guilty, but we've both fallen so hard for it that I've now been instructed to keep our pantry stocked with dry-ish, sub-par dates. It turns out we need this cake on a regular basis. Sigh. Oh, okay. Twist my arm, why don't you.

Thank you, Heather and Geraldine!

Geraldine's Date Cake
Makes one 10-inch cake

2 cups of pitted dates, halved
1 1/4 cups hot coffee
2/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup good-quality chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 10-inch round cake pan, line the bottom with a round of parchment paper and butter the paper as well. Set aside. Loosely fill a 2-cup measure with the pitted, halved dates and cover with the hot coffee. Let sit for 5 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.

2. Cream together the butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla extract. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda into the butter-egg mixture. Mix gently to combine.

3. Pour the dates and coffee into a blender or use an immersion blender to puree the mixture completely. Add the pureed dates to the batter and blend to combine.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle the top evenly with the chocolate chips.Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until the edges begin to pull away from the side of the pan. Cool the pan on a rack until cool enough to handle, then gently turn the cake out onto a cake plate. Serve at room temperature.

Cathal Armstrong's Irish Brown Bread

Did you all run out to buy buttermilk for those griddle cakes from Edna Lewis? Do you now have a carton of it slouching about in your fridge, wondering if it will be used up before you have to toss it?

Well, if you're not going to drink a big cold glass of it with your breakfast toast, and frankly that's really more of a hot summer morning thing, here's what you should do with it: make bread. Yes, really. Okay, not really really, but sort of really.

Instead of spending the next 18 hours waiting for your (admittedly delicious) no-knead dough to proof, just mix that buttermilk with some whole-wheat flour, regular flour, salt, baking soda, and an egg, and - hey presto! - an hour later you'll have a loaf of warm bread. There's no proofing, no rising. Just a simple batter that rises quickly in the oven.

Those savvy bakers among you might recognize that the texture and flavor of the bread will be akin to biscuits, albeit more wholesome, nourishing ones, I suppose. So that's what I meant by not really really. This isn't yeast bread, it's soda bread, but it'll do quite nicely if you're in one of those moods where you need something warm and craggy to put a waxy slab of butter on and nothing but fresh bread will do.

As delicious as it is straight from the oven, you'd better have a few people to help you with the loaf, because it doesn't last for more than a day or two. But while it's fresh and hot, eat the bread with wedges of sharp Cheddar or spread it with good unsalted butter (or good unsalted butter and cherry jam).

And in other news, you can now find this site at www.thewednesdaychef.com, so if you feel like updating your bookmarks or links, go for it. The old Typepad address will still continue to work, however, so don't worry about broken links or anything like that. I have to thank the kind and patient Laura at Typepad for helping me with this. Thanks, Laura!

Irish Brown Bread
Makes 1 loaf

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Butter an  8-by-5-inch metal loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl, whisk both flours with the baking soda and salt. In a small bowl, whisk the buttermilk with the egg; stir into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon until a rough dough forms.

3. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth. Form the dough into a loaf and put it in the prepared pan. Bake for about 50 minutes, until the bread has risen about 1/2 inch above the rim of the pan. Once unmolded, the loaf should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Let cool to warm or room temperature, then slice and serve.

Edna Lewis's Sour-Milk Griddle Cakes

I'm sorry I left so abruptly, without warning. I wanted to tell you about these pancakes before we left, I really did, but you know how it goes with these mid-season vacations: they creep up out of nowhere and smack you out of your tired routine with unexpected strength. Before I knew it, I was as far east as I've ever been, in Israel for a week with Ben and some of his family, and you spent two more weekends (two!) without knowing about these pancakes.

Excuse me, griddle cakes. There. Doesn't that sound even better?

The batter sturdy and thick, impossibly so, and tangy with buttermilk, the cakes cook up into fluffy, flavorful rounds. A mixture of whole wheat and regular flour gives them added heft. But what really makes them is a gentle dousing in warm berry sauce and cool-from-the-fridge maple syrup.

They're our new favorite breakfast. I should tell you that I particularly like them if I've gone to bed reading The Taste of Country Cooking (thanks to Molly for the recommendation) and imagining that I can hear little Virginia birds waking me and my growling tummy in the morning for breakfast. It's somewhat alarming to admit this, but we - the two of us - ate almost all the pancakes, save two, when we made them. So much for freezing leftovers. And for restraint and modesty. Ahem.

Sour-Milk Griddle Cakes
Serves 6

1 1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder (see below)
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 cups sour milk or buttermilk

1. Sift flours, salt, soda, and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add beaten egg and melted butter. Mix well by stirring. Add milk and stir well. Do not over-mix or the cakes will be tough. The batter will be quite thick.

2. Pour on sizzling-hot greased griddle in largish spoonfuls. When the cakes become quite puffed and show tiny bubbles, turn and cook a few minutes more. Serve with stewed berries and maple syrup.

Stewed Berries

2 cups berries, fresh or frozen (blueberries are what Edna Lewis recommends; I used black raspberries, because they're what I had in the freezer)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water

1. Place the berries, sugar, and water into a quart saucepan. Set the pan over a medium flame and bring to a boil. Turn the flame down, leaving the berries at a quiet, rather gentle boil for 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Turn the heat off until the pancakes are ready to serve. Then reheat the berries so they will be hot (do not let them boil) and spoon them onto the cakes. Leftover berry sauce keeps in the fridge and can be used to stir into yogurt or drizzle on ice cream.

Royal Baking Powder

Mix 2 parts cream of tartar with 1 part baking soda (for example, 4 teaspoons cream of tartar with 2 teaspoons baking soda). Use quantity as directed in the recipe above. Store the remaining mixture in an airtight container indefinitely.

Nigel Slater's Peas with Olive Oil and Mint

Okay, brace yourselves. This one's going to be short and sweet and to the point. Because we all have something else we should be doing - making these peas. You could be wondering why, and I'll tell you. They're likely the only way I will ever cook frozen peas again.

Woah. That's a bold statement, I know. It's even making me a little nervous, to bandy about with superlative threats like that. I mean, I like a regular old boiled frozen pea, lacquered with the barest hint of unsalted butter, just fine and all. Who doesn't? In fact, up until last week, that was the only way I ever ate frozen peas. (Well, except for the time when I threw half a bag into a fake chicken tikka masala. Details, details.)

But these peas, sweetened and mellowed by a barely-stewed onion and trailing the mystical scent of mint and grassy olive oil, are enough to make me put the butter away and declare myself the president and first official member of the Peas-with-Olive-Oil-and-Mint club. Do you think I should start a themed group on Facebook? Or take out an announcement in the paper? Maybe even hire a plane to write a tribute in the sky?

I mean, seriously, where have these peas been all my life?

Not to be a total boss, but I think you should make them for dinner tonight.

Peas with Olive Oil and Mint
Serves 2 as a side dish

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups frozen green peas
1 small onion or shallot, sliced into paper-thin rings
2 sprigs fresh mint
Salt

1. Pour the oil into a medium saucepan and add the peas, onion slices, and mint. Add the salt and one tablespoon of water, and cover with a lid. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer over low heat for 6 to 7 minutes. Shake the pan occasionally. Serve hot.

Gabrielle Hamilton's Chickpea Salad with Four-Minute Eggs

I don't know if it's the cold weather or the darkness or the fact that I'm feeling lazier than usual, but we have been subsisting almost entirely on pantry staples for over a week now. Normally, I go to the grocery store almost every day, just to pick up a fresh bundle of greens or a grapefruit or two, a little bit of fish or chicken, or to get quick inspiration from the aisles before I trundle home. But it's been a rough week, I guess, and I haven't had the energy or the stamina for that. So instead I'm working through the cans and sacks in the kitchen and whatever I can find in the crisper drawer or the fridge.

Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food has been helping us out nicely - I made a seriously abbreviated and yet totally delectable Chicken Tikka Masala on Wednesday that had us hunched over our plates in glee, though we ate it up so quickly I couldn't take a photo for you; and I've got big plans for a bag of frozen peas and an onion come Monday or Tuesday. (The excitement! I know, you can barely stand it.) There are other things, too - our old workhorse: pasta with tomato sauce, and our new favorite, Molly and Brandon's black beans, which has been our Saturday lunch for the past three weeks and counting.

(It's kind of amazing, all the things you can do with well-stocked cupboards and some inspiration...)

And then there is this chickpea salad, which does an amazing job of cleaning out your entire fridge (what do you mean, you don't have a bundle of parsley, a handful of green olives, a couple of eggs, and some dodgy-looking radishes hanging around like a bunch of thugs in the back? Who are you?) in addition to tasting pretty darn good, packing a nutritional punch and looking much like spring on a plate, which is a highly desirable thing in the miserable depths of winter when all you can do is think long and hard about how uncomfortably hot it will surely get, once again, just be patient, mmhm, mmhm.

You layer smashed and unsmashed chickpeas, dressed with a sharp lemon vinaigrette, with a spiky little salad of parsley leaves, quartered radishes, green olives and some scallions for good measure (though those were the one things that I didn't have, and I wasn't exactly going to go out and buy some, was I, so I did without - you can, too). Then you balance wobbly eggs cooked to molten-yolk perfection on top. With crusty bread waiting in the sidelines, you gleefully use your fork to split open the egg and watch the yolk ooze around the plate, dressing the salad with its sweet, sticky, yellow self.

It's quite a strange little meal, and I mean that in the best way possible. It's a kitchen-sink salad, and though I don't usually like kitchen-sink salads, this one's different, somewhat special, weird and funky, strange but tasty. More than anything, it's fresh. Which might seem funny considering that all of the ingredients had been knocking around my kitchen for longer than anyone would care to think, but that's the odd genius of it.

So tell me, readers: what are your favorite pantry meals? What do you cook when you just can't bear going outside to the store again and you have to make do with what you've got?

Chickpea Salad with Four-Minute Eggs
Serves 4

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
One 19-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2/3 cup small green olives, pitted
10 small red radishes, quartered
2 cups flat-leaf parsley leaves
3 scallions, white and light green parts, finely chopped
4 large eggs, at room temperature

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the lemon juice with 4 tablespoons of the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. In another medium bowl, lightly crush half of the chickpeas; mix in the whole chickpeas. Add half of the vinaigrette to the chickpeas and toss. Add the olives, radishes, parsley and scallions to the rest of the vinaigrette and toss. Spoon the chickpea salad onto 4 plates and top with the parsley salad.

2. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Add the eggs and boil over moderately high heat for 4 minutes. Drain, then rinse the eggs under cool water for 1 minute. Using the back of a spoon, gently crack the eggs all over and peel the shell off.

3. Set an egg on each salad and drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sprinkle the salads with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

Banana Chocolate Walnut Bread

I know it's only Thursday. I know we technically have a whole new day to get through before we can collapse in good conscience. But in the last four days, I've battled a fever and a cold and a smattering of seriously evil hormonal swings, so I've decided that this week is done. Done and over with. Move along, week. We've had enough of you here. Wake us up when it's next week and we can go back to speaking, walking, and living like normal people again.

If you've not yet been stricken by this miserable plague making the rounds of the Tri-State area, bless your lucky stars, then rush rush rush into the kitchen to bake something, preferably this banana cake. Trust me, it'll be the one bright and shiny spot in an otherwise miserable week when you, too, are felled by this winter ailment and need to eat something other than yet another half a grapefruit, a dusty Ricola lozenge, and that never-ending thermos of mint tea. (Oh yeah. It's coming for you. Don't think you can escape it.)

I happen to like baking my banana cake in a loaf pan, and if it's baked in a loaf pan, then I happen to like calling it banana bread instead of cake. You know? The butter versus oil debate is secondary to the pan debate and while it's true that all of this is semantics, yes, it's about the only thing my fever-addled brain can handle at this moment.

In fact, I don't even really seem to be capable of stringing coherent sentences together anymore, at least not without going cross-eyed and yelping feebly at the computer screen, so with that I leave you, folks. I'm going to bed and if my prayers are answered, I'll be waking up in about 72 hours.

Over and out.

Banana Chocolate Walnut Cake
Serves 8

I made a few changes from the original recipe, like eschewing the whole streusel thing Gourmet's version has going for it by incorporating the cinnamon, walnuts and chocolate directly into the batter. Oh, and reducing the sugar a little. Just a little! Yeesh.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 stick unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
2/3 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Trader Joe's chocolate chips)
1 cup walnuts, toasted, cooled, and coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle. Butter a loaf pan.

2. Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.

3. Beat together softened butter (1 stick) and the sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in eggs 1 at a time until blended. Beat in bananas, yogurt, and vanilla (mixture will look curdled).

4. With mixer at low speed, add flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. Fold in the chopped nuts and the chocolate. Pour the batter into the cake pan, smoothing the top.

5. Bake until loaf is golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool loaf in pan on a rack 30 minutes, then turn out onto rack and cool completely.

Marcella Hazan's Rice and Smothered Cabbage Soup

More patience.

Less anxiety.

More seizing-the-day, more exploration, more adventure.

Less routine, less ruts.

Oh, and more vegetables.

* * *

New year, new resolutions. Every January rolls around and I feel mildly twitchy and on edge about any number of things I'm meant to be improving Right Now (the state of my cuticles, the number of times a week I find myself gyrating to a hopped-up 80's music in a class full of other Spandex-clad ladies, the amount of letters I hand-write to my acquaintances, and my determination to make this year the year I finally join a choir).

I try not to get too caught up in the clean slate, fresh page thing, but it's hard. After a month of excess - too many truffles from gift baskets at the office, too much alcohol from one too many holiday parties, too many heavy meals that mark each celebration at the end of the year - it seems a given that January become an ascetic month. Early-to-bed, early-to-rise, frequent visits to the gym, main-course meals made of nothing but plants, and wholesale rejection of anything sweet... oh, it's all so dour.

(Except that while I was in Brussels with my family, eating meal after meal of amazing vegetables (my Sicilian uncle, man, he has his sources - boiled broccoli rabe, braised artichokes (every day!) filled with seasoned breadcrumbs, tender slices of raw fennel, and spunky little puntarelle (which sparked a discussion about the various kinds of endive/chicory were best and things got a little heated, I won't lie, because people have their favorites and you can't go around impugning someone's favorite green, you really can't), just to name a few, I realized that, if vegetables are as delicious as the things I ate there, it's not exactly deprivation.)

(Swear to God and I hope that doesn't make me a total nerd.)

(Tragically, and somewhat predictably, the fare available to me at my local Key Foods, and (to be honest) even at the somewhat more upscale organic grocer in my neighborhood is a pale, pale comparison to the tasty shoots and leaves we ate in Europe. Everything there was sweeter, greener, more tender, more flavorful. Why? I don't know. It just was. And I promise it's not because someone else was cooking either.)

(Okay, enough of this.)

In Berlin last week, I appalled some friends by admitting that Ben and I routinely polish off an entire head of cabbage in one sitting. I was thinking, specifically, of Marco Canora's braised cabbage, but then the other night, fueled by Marcella Hazan's urging and my determination (my trousers, they are snug), I turned an entire head of Savoy cabbage into soup and - zing! - it was gone in a minute. Hey, presto! Think of it as my version of the cabbage soup diet. (Ba-da bing.)

It's so much richer, though, and delicious than it sounds. You shred cabbage and braise it within an inch of its life with a bit of vinegar (a Venetian treatment, this is). Then you take the whole lot of it (I know, it's rather wan. But so tasty!) and boil it with broth and rice into a soupy, sludgy stew. You beat butter and Parmesan into it, kind of like with risotto, let it sit for a few minutes and then you eat it.

It fulfills quite a few January requirements - some low, slow cooking; a goodly amount of vegetables and just a wee bit of fat; and has the stick-to-your-ribs quality that you simply need when the wind howls around the corners and your pipes threaten to freeze. It's not much to look at, that's true, but who said January was pretty, anyhow?

Rice and Smothered Cabbage Soup
Serves 2 if that's all you're having for dinner

Smothered Cabbage:

2 pounds Savoy cabbage
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon wine vinegar

1. Detach and discard the first few outer leaves of the cabbage. Shred the remaining head of cabbage very fine, either with your food processor's shredding attachment or by hand. Be sure to remove the cabbage's inner core.

2. Put the onion and olive oil and a large saute pan and turn the heat to medium. Cook the onion, stirring, until it's softened and taken on some color. Then add the garlic. When the garlic has turned a pale gold, add the shredded cabbage. Turn the cabbage over 2 or 3 times to coat it well, and cook it until it has wilted.

3. Add salt, pepper, and the vinegar to the pan. Turn the cabbage over once, completely, then lower the heat to minimum and cover the pan tightly. Cook for at least 1 1/2 hours, or until it is very tender, stirring from time to time. Add 2 tablespoons of water, if needed, during the cooking if the cabbage becomes too dry. When done, taste and add salt and pepper to taste, if needed. Allow it to settle a few minutes off heat before serving.

Soup:

The smothered cabbage
3 cups homemade meat broth or 1 cup canned beef broth diluted with 2 cups of water or 1 1/2 bouillon cubes dissolved in 3 cups of water
2/3 cup Arborio rice
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Put the cabbage and broth into a soup pot, and turn on the heat to medium.

2. When the broth comes to a boil, add the rice. Cook, uncovered, adjusting the heat so that the soup bubbles at a slow but steady boil, stirring from time to time until the rice is done. It must be tender, but firm to the bite, and should take around 20 minutes. If while the rice is cooking, you find the soup becoming too thick dilute it with a ladleful of homemade broth or water. The soup should be on the dense-ish side when finished.

3. When the rice is done, before turning off the heat, stir in the butter and the grated cheese. Taste and correct for salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into individual plates and allow it to settle a few minutes before serving.