Warm farro, chard, and pancetta salad

Winterize your salads with whole grains, quickly cooked greens, some pancetta, and a shower of cheese. You might even get your littles on board with this salty, crunchy, filling salad.

Take me to the recipe!

So! Winter is here. However you feel about that, one thing is for certain: It’s comfort food season. I mean, cold temperatures and hearty fare go together like tomato soup and grilled cheese, boeuf and bourguignon, chocolate and marshmallows…you get the idea.

Buuut, I definitely suffer from the winter blues and hiding under a weighted blanket of Gruyere doesn’t help.

This warm salad is somehow a happy medium between a green salad (there’s still plenty of green!) and a soup/stew/comfort dish (there’s pancetta and cheese! It’s warm!). There’s a lot of goodness in there but you don’t feel deprived after eating it.

I can even get my little to eat some of this along side something else. Miracle!

PS- my favorite way to eat this salad is with a runny egg on top. Talk about comfort.

Chard, pancetta, and farro salad 

Time: 35 minutes (20 active)
Yield: about 6 side servings

1 cup uncooked farro 
3 cups water 
8 oz pancetta, diced small (I use the pre-diced stuff, which doesn’t render as much fat, but is a big time-saver)
1-2 Tbsp olive oil, as needed 
1 large onion or 4 large shallots, thinly sliced 
2 small bunches chard, rinsed, dried, and roughly chopped (about 6-8 cups) 
5 large cloves garlic 
2 large pinches salt 
2 tsp balsamic vinegar 
1/2 - 1 cup crumbled ricotta salata, cotija, feta or other crumbly, salty cheese 

Rinse the farro and add to a medium pot with the water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes or until the farro is tender, but still chewy. Drain any remaining water.

Heat a separate pan (I love cast iron for this dish, but use whatever you have) over medium high heat for 2-3 minutes until hot. Turn the heat down to medium/medium-low (if the pancetta fat is popping, turn the heat down more and gradually raise it) and add the pancetta. Cook, stirring frequently, until the pancetta is browned, smells gamey, and has rendered some fat, about 5 minutes.

If needed, add some olive oil to the pan. Add the sliced onions or shallots and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions or shallots have wilted and become translucent, about 3 minutes. If the onions seem like they’re cooking too fast, adjust the flame to medium low.

Add the chard and cook, stirring and tossing frequently, until the chard is wilted, about 3-5 minutes.

Test for seasoning and add salt as needed.

Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Turn off the heat and add the balsamic vinegar and stir several times. The residual heat of the pan should cook off some of the vinegar.

Drain any water from the cooked farro and add to the pan. Stir and test for seasoning.

Top with crumbled cheese and serve.

Grilled lamb kebabs with haloumi and apricots

Shake up your grilling routines with these savory, herby, sweet, and fatty lamb, haloumi, and apricot kebabs that hit all the right notes— fast.

Take me to the recipe!

What is a kebab? Sometimes it’s cubes of meat and/or vegetables on a stick (think shish kebab). Other times, a kebab is a mountain of meat cooked on a rotating stick and then shaved off and served (think doner kebab, shawarma, or al pastor). And, confusingly, sometimes what is considered “kebab” is meat cooked and served nowhere near a stick.

For our purposes, we’re sticking close to a shish kebab.

But here’s what I don’t like about this method: Not all ingredients cook at the same rate. Why should I have to choose between undercooked meat/crispy vegetables and cooked meat/disintegrating vegetables? I say, we don’t have to.

My solution is to cook the meat on a skewer, cook the cheese and apricots directly on the grill, and then skewer them all for serving. Good, right? RIGHT! I mean, it’s not perfect. Some of the meat cooks faster because the cubes aren’t exactly the same size. And it’s important to leave a little bit of space between the cubes so that the heat gets all around. But you control the doneness far more when the kebab elements are cooked individually.

A note about halloumi: If you’ve never had this squeeky, salty cheese, please change that immediately. This cheese adds so much flavor and seasoning to any dish. But when it’s cold, it makes a squeaking noise when it’s chewed, which can throw off anyone with any sort of sensory sensitivity around food. Eating it hot off of the grill or pan makes it more gooey than squeeky, which is why the cheese cooks longer than the meat in this dish.

A note on the kid-appeal of these kebabs: It’s fun to eat things off of a skewer! This dish also has plenty of salty and sweet elements with the grilled cheese and fruit, which can also be appealing to kids. But mine wouldn’t touch this. I found it too delicious not to post, so this may be one for the grownups and not the kids. But who knows? Next month, they might gobble these up. Who can say?

Grilled lamb, haloumi, and apricot skewers

Total time ime: 30 minutes (all active- 15 minutes of prep and 15 of cooking)
Yield: 4-5 skewers

1 lb boneness leg of lamb (if you can only find bone-in, that’s fine! You’ll just need to buy more and cut away the bones. Save them for a stock or soup.)
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 large garlic cloves, minced
4-5 medium apricots, ripe, but not falling apart, quartered
8 oz haloumi cheese, cut into 1/4-inch thick slices

Heat your grill to low.

Place the lamb cubes in a large bowl. Top with the olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic and mix up. Let sit while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Cut the haloumi into 6-8, 1/4-inch slices. Halve the apricots.

Make the sauce. (See directions below.)

Skewer 5-6 lamb cubes onto sticks. Try to keep like-sized pieces together and don’t crowd the pieces together.

Bring all of your ingredients out to the grill and cook with the following timing:

• Cook the haloumi for 2 minutes.

• Add the lamb skewers and cook everything for 3-4 minutes.

• Flip both the haloumi and the lamb.

• Add the apricots, cut side down and cook everything (fruit, cheese, and meat) for 3-4 minutes.

• Check the lamb. If it has reached an internal temperature of 145 and you don’t see any obvious rare spots, take the skewers off of the grill. If they need more time, keep them on the grill while you continue cooking the fruit and cheese.

• Flip the apricots. Continue cooking the fruit and cheese for 2-3 more minutes.

Your aim is for medium-rare meat; cheese that’s a little gooey and has dark brown grill marks, but that’s staying together in one piece; and apricots that are deep orange and soft-er, but not falling apart. If any of the elements seem to be cooking too fast, take them off!

Serve immediately.

Herby sauce
1/4 cup toasted cashews/walnuts/pistachios
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil 
10 fresh mint leaves (fairly large) 
2-3 Tbsp fresh oregano leaves 
5 Tbsp oil 
1 Tbsp lemon juice 
1/2 tsp salt 

Toast the cashews in a large skillet over a medium flame, OR in a 350 degree oven, for about 5 minutes until the nuts are lightly brown and smell aromatic.

Add the nuts and the rest of the ingredients to a food processor or blender and blend until well mixed.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed.

Baked gigante beans with feta and tomatoes

Anyone out there who might think that a “meatless” meal wouldn’t satisfy them, hasn’t had giant white beans for dinner. This meal is full of fiber, protein, and delicious sweetness from the roasted tomatoes.

Straight to the recipe, please!

Gigante beans, lima beans, large white beans, whatever you want to call them, these beans make a meal in a way that other legumes don’t always cut it for me.

I’ve only ever seen these beans in dry form, so while I’m averse to most extra work in the kitchen, I don’t see a way around cooking them yourself if you want to use these big guys.

Which leads us to the age old question: Do you really need to soak dried beans? Some will insist that you do. I say, LAZY COOKS UNITE! I have a preschooler and don’t always have that much foresight.

But here’s one caveat: Sans soaking, the simmering times vary WILDLY for these beans. One batch I made from Brand A were ready after about 90 minutes.. Brand B took almost twice as long. And while everyone advises “look for fresh beans,” if you could seriously show me a bag of beans with an expiration date on it, I would give you a million dollars.

So, here are some handy tutorials that you can peruse and decide if you’re team soak or team no soak:

• NY Times Cooking

• Serious Eats

• Bon Appetite

If I was the meal prepping type I’d suggest making a whole bag of these beans one weekend and freezing them for easy weeknight meals. Because once you cook the beans, this meal could not be easier or faster.

Roasting makes the tomatoes syrupy sweet, the cheese just a little soft and gooey, and the bean skins crispy in a way that is completely satisfying.

A few notes:

• I salt the bean cooking water and then don’t add any more salt until serving the beans. They soak up the sodium during cooking, so it’s very easy to over salt this dish. Also, feta is a salt bomb, so we’ve found that the end product needs no extra seasoning.

• I’ve billed this as a meatless meal, but it could also serve as a side or appetizer just as easily.

• Do NOT skip the lemon zest in the end. The citrus brightens up the beans and adds a layer of flavor without which, the beans could taste a bit flat.

• I prefer to use a combo of both dried and fresh oregano, but use what you have on hand.

Baked feta with gigante beans and tomatoes

Active time: about 20 minutes, on and off
Total time: 90-150 for the beans, 25-30 for the main dish
Yield: 4 dinner servings,

For the beans:
1½ cups dried giant white beans, rinsed
4 cups vegetable stock
1-2 cups water (as needed)
½ tsp sea salt
1-2 bay leaves
4 medium cloves garlic, peeled, but left whole

Yield: 3 heaping cups of cooked beans

Combine the beans, stock, salt, bay leaf, and garlic cloves in a large pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce flame to low and simmer, covered, for anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 2 1/2 hours (90-150 minutes), stirring occasionally, until the beans are creamy and soft, but not falling apart and most of the liquid has been absorbed.

Check the beans after 60 minutes and then every 15-30 minutes after that (depending on how your beans are progressing) until the beans are tender throughout. Add more liquid if the water boils off before the beans are fully cooked.

 Drain any remaining liquid from the beans and remove the bay leaves.

For the main dish:
1/2 cup olive oil, divided  
½ tsp Aleppo pepper (optional)
1 tsp dried oregano or 1 Tbsp fresh oregano (or a combination of both dried for cooking and fresh for topping)
½ tsp smoked paprika
2-3 cups cherry tomatoes, whole (about 8-12 oz)
Small block Feta cheese (8 oz)
½ tsp lemon zest (zest of one small lemon)

Preheat oven to 400.

In a bowl or the pot you used to simmer the beans, add 1/4 cup of olive oil, Aleppo pepper, oregano, paprika, and tomatoes to the beans and mix well.

In a 9x13 baking pan (or whatever size you have), spread out the bean and tomato mixture. Clear a hole in the middle and add the feta.

Cook for 20-23 minutes, until the feta is soft and the tomatoes have released their juices AND those juices have become a little syrupy.  

Remove from the heat and top with the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil, lemon zest, fresh oregano (if using), and sprinkling of flaky sea salt (if needed).