I’m truly cooking for one for a couple of weeks while Carol is visiting her parents in Ohio. Last night, part of my dinner was two big ears of corn, grilled. I ate a little less than one, and cut the balance off the ears. When I started thinking about lunch today, I started thinking about corn.

Who doesn’t love corn stir fried with onions, tomato and peppers? Well, I do. But I had no peppers. Oh… I have a bag of Pimiento de Padron peppers from my Mariquita Mystery Box. I was lucky to receive The Ladybug Letter about Pimiento de Padron, just as I was writing this.

“Padron is a town in Spain north of Portugal in Galicia on the Atlantic coast. The citizens of Padron would have been among the first Europeans to see and experiment with these new “peppers” that the explorers brought back from overseas. They adopted one particular variety out of all these newly arrived peppers to be their own “Pimiento de Padron.”

“Gallegan cooks learned that the tiny, tender peppers are very flavorful, and rarely have much heat at all to them if they’re picked young enough. Only the older, firmer, heavier, waxier peppers are hot, and they learned to pick them out and set them aside. The cooks learned too that these new peppers could be cooked fast, in just a little more time than it takes to heat up a cast iron skillet. They’d get the pan hot, splash a little olive oil onto it, and when the oil was almost smoking hot, they’d toss on a handful of the tiny peppers. The peppers would hop and sizzle for a few seconds. When the peppers were blistered on one side, the cooks would shake the pan, toss the peppers, and let them blister on the other side. Then a quick sprinkle of sea salt, a deft sweep of the pan with a wooden fork, and the peppers were served, ready to eat, sweet, savory, salty, and piping hot.” [excerpted from The Ladybug Letter, linked above]

That’s how I have enjoyed my Pimiento de Padron. But today I had something different in mind. Use the little, bright green morsels like one would a bell pepper. How bad can it be? Better yet, How good can it be? With Carol gone, I’m totally free to experiment and develop new ways with known ingredients. Continue reading →

Many vegetables at the Farmers Market — even many supermarkets — come with greens attached. We haven’t discovered a good use for carrot tops; throw those in the compost, or better yet, have your vegetable guy top them for you, then you don’t have to carry them home. But turnip and beet greens are often beautiful, oh so edible and easy to prepare. The thing is, they don’t keep very long; so what to do?

Here’s what I do.

First, the turnips and turnip greens…

Cut and wash the greens, cut up a couple of turnips. These are the little Tokyo turnips, you don’t even have to peel them.

Heat some olive oil over medium heat in a saute pan, add the turnips and greens… add a splash of water and cover. After a couple of minutes, give the greens a stir and season with salt and pepper. Cover and continue cooking for about 5 minutes total.

Uncover, splash with your choice of vinegar. Serve. That’s lunch — or at least the first course.

Now, for the beet greens. This will sound a lot like the turnips.

Thoroughly wash the greens. Put; them in a big bowl of water, swoosh them around, take the greens out one by one, leaving any dirt behind. Put them in a strainer and rinse again with cold water.

Dice the stems and roughly chop the greens.

Heat some olive oil over medium heat in a saute pan, add the stems and cook for about a minute. Add the greens.. add a splash of water and cover. After a couple of minutes, give the greens a stir and season with salt and pepper. Cover and continue cooking for about 5 minutes total.

Uncover, splash with your choice of vinegar and taste to see if they’re tender.

Now, you can eat them if you’re hungry, or put them in a jar to store in the refrigerator until you need a side dish.