Swiss Chard Bread Pudding

Savoury bread pudding. Let me tell you folks, this is where it's at. The ultimate frontier of comfort foods. Dunh dunh dunh. (OK that may be a slight exaggeration, it's just that I know this recipe may not sound or look like something you would want to make. And I need to tell you it is! It really is, trust me).

This past weekend, before anyone even had time to psychologically prepare for it, summer boldly shifted head-first into fall mode. The season when it's ok to linger in bed a bit longer in the morning, the time to bring out the woolies & knitting, go for long walks in the park, and most importantly, get back into baking and cooking warm comfort foods. But yesterday for some reason, I wasn't feeling ready to say goodbye to summer. I felt sad and chilly and I needed something warm and mushy in my belly to chase away the blues & chill. I've been toying with the idea of making swiss chard bread pudding for a while. I've never even made the sweet version but have always had a weird nostalgia about it, even though I didn't grow up with it as a kid. I didn't even taste until I was well into my twenties, which is odd having grown up in Nova Scotia. Last year, my roommate made a savoury version which was a revelation, all the bells went off in my head. It was cheesy and carb-ey and I devoured that thing like there was no tomorrow. I've been thinking about it ever since. So here's my slightly boozy, very cheesy, swiss chard variation I came up with. A hearty dish that did a fine job of comforting my seasonal blues. I highly recommend it for a cool September night. (It's also a great way to use up stale bread and sneak in a generous portion of greens for kids who don't like them...  in which case maybe ignore the splash of hard liquor part of the recipe eh?)

Swiss Chard Bread Pudding from Kitchen Vignettes on Vimeo.

SWISS CHARD BREAD PUDDING

About 5 cups of bread pieces (either cubed or torn by hand, stale bread is best)

1/4 cup olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 bunches of chard, lightly steamed and chopped

3/4 cup white wine (I also snuck in a few splashes of dry martini mix, heh heh, a splash of vodka would do the trick too)

7 eggs

1 1/2 cup cream

1 1/2 cup milk

1 cup grated swiss cheese

1 cup grated gruyere

bunch of sage & a large clove or two of garlic

Sautee the onion and olive oil until onion is soft and lightly browned. Add chopped swiss chard to the onions (steam it and chop it first) and cook a wee bit longer. At the last minute, add the wine (and if desired, a few splashes of vodka or martini mix... go on, do it, you know you want to). Let the mixture cool.

Whip cream, milk, & eggs together. Add chopped sage & garlic, cheeses, bread pieces, and swiss chard mixture. Mix everything well and pour into buttered pan. Bake at 350 C for about an hour or until set and sizzling & golden on top. Serve warm and let your worries melt away.

Potato, Beet & Bean Salad

There are few things that bring more joy to my life than a mountain of straight-off-the-farm veggies. The freshness and the fragrance, the variety of shapes and colours and textures, the direct connection to the changing seasons and the soil and the people who work it. But ultimately it's about the ripe possibility of all the potential flavour combinations and dishes that might come about from a bit of slicing and simmering and mixing....  (It also brings me a ridiculous amount of satisfaction to know that these goodies have been plucked off a plant or pulled out of the soil, and have all landed from a nearby farm to my kitchen without one single piece of plastic packaging.)

Looking at my gigantic pile of yummies from Saturday's market (which you can see in the video) I realize I may have overdone it a little. This week will be a bit of a race to conjure up ways to use up all this deliciousness before it gets sad and wilty. I started off with a potato, beet, and bean salad because, well the freshly-dug baby potatoes were acting all coy and cute and generally being their irresistible baby potato selves. And the golden and chioggia beets are simply drop-dead gorgeous and they know it, sitting there all smug and confident in the knowledge that upon slicing into them you just may fall to the floor in awe of their bright pink and orange flesh. And the purple beans with their aura of mystery and magic, they knew they were first up on the list too...  Of course all the other veggies have their charms (don't even get me started about the romanesco, that one deserves a post of its very own, possibly two)...  I hope to share with you some of the various ways I'll be racing to use up this mountain of goodness in the next few days... I'm toying with the idea of a savory swiss chard bread pudding, a leek chevre tatin, and something worthy of that romanesco, but I'm still pondering that one. 


Before we go to potato salad, do you remember a few posts ago, I told you about my mami's birthday cake from Patisserie Rhubarbe in Montreal?  The gateau choco-citron? Well it turns out one of my favorite food bloggers recreated the cake in her own kitchen, all the way in Brunei! How cool is that? The food blogging community is so awesome!!



Potato, Beet & Bean Salad from Kitchen Vignettes on Vimeo.

Potato, beet & bean salad

     1 to 2 pounds baby potatoes

     1/2 pound fresh beans

     4 beets (golden or chioggia) 

     2 to 3 green onions

     1 bunch of fresh dill

     Honey Dijon Dressing:

     1 tbsp whole grain dijon

     1 tbsp honey

     2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

     1/2 cup olive oil

     1 tsp crushed garlic

     Salt & Pepper to taste

Steam the veggies. Chop into chunks. Chop onions & dill finely. 

Shake up a good dressing, pour and mix all together. 

Jack Layton's Gumdrop Cake

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.” 

                                                                                           –Jack Layton

Gumdrop Cake is not really the kind of thing I would normally bake. But I did it for Jack.

Food is my favorite way to remember loved ones who have passed on. I feel closest to my mom when I'm making her recipes and eating the foods she used to make (you’ll be seeing a lot of her recipes on this blog). This morning, I wanted to make a recipe in honor of Jack Layton who passed away yesterday. It turns out Gumdrop Cake is one of his all-time favorites. His grandmother used to make it as a special treat when he and his siblings would visit.

Like so many Canadians, I am deeply saddened and still reeling from the news of Jack’s passing. For the past 3 years, I've had the pleasure of living in his Toronto riding. It's been so amazing to have an MP that I can admire, respect, be inspired by, and who would so promptly respond to letters and let you know that your concerns had been heard. The news also weighs down on me because it was almost 2 years ago that I lost my mom to cancer. She was about the same age, a bit younger than Jack. Both were too young to die. Cancer has become such an epidemic. One of the reasons I chose to work in the environmental sector is because I believe, like my mom did, that the health of our planet is directly related to our own health and well-being. And if we want to win the fight against cancer as a society (and also get to eat delicious and uncontaminated foods) we need to fight against pollution first and foremost. This film really gets to the core of the cancer issue for me personally, so I thought I’d share the trailer here, even though it’s not directly food related.

But back to Gumdrop Cake. And Jack. What a politician, and what a man. It is such a huge loss for Canada, at a time when we badly need his leadership. But as he so eloquently says in his last letter, the future must be faced with love, hope, and optimism. To cheer you up a bit after that trailer, and get you warmed up for the cake recipe below, here’s an excerpt from This Hour Has 22 Minutes “Baking with Jack Layton”. Rest in peace Jack, and may there be an infinite supply of your grandmother’s gumdrop cake in heaven.

Jack Layton’s Gumdrop Cake (taken from the Globe and Mail)

3/4 lb gumdrops (omit black ones)

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

5 ml vanilla

1 egg

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup hot water

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon each salt, baking soda and nutmeg

Cut gumdrops if large. In a shallow bowl, dredge gumdrops, raisins and nuts in 1/2 cup flour. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugar and vanilla until fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add applesauce and hot water and mix well. In a medium bowl, mix together 2 cups flour, salt, baking soda and nutmeg and add to sugar mixture. Fold in gumdrop mixture.

Pour into a well-greased tube pan or 9-by-5-inch pan lined with wax paper and well greased. Bake in a 275 F oven for 45 minutes. Increase temperature to 300 F and bake for 75 minutes. Let sit for several hours or overnight before cutting.


***

Man. I could have done some fun stop motion animations with those gumdrops, but no time for that this morning, off to work! Just a quick photo of the cake before it gets gobbled by my co-workers. (Looks quite Christmassy doesn't it?!)