Last Night’s Dinner

The last week has been a struggle, but with two weeks left to go before our move, we’re trying hard to get on with our lives. There’s a lot left to do and not much time to do it, and honestly, the sorting and packing have been a welcome distraction. I’ve gotten to the point in my grieving where I have actually been able to get back into the routine of making dinner, though I’ll admit that much of what I’ve put on the table has been uninspired. It’s going to take a while before I get that spark back.

I put together a quick pasta last night, using some really nice spaghettini di farro I had picked up recently at Formaggio Essex. I cooked it until al dente and tossed it with a few odds and ends from the fridge – some sautéed shallot and leftover crimini mushrooms, finely sliced red chard, toasted pine nuts and Pecorino Romano. It was a tasty dish if a little flat; the farro pasta definitely needed more salt in its cooking water, and Mike and I both agreed that some chile flakes or lemon zest or a punchier cheese would have made for a better dish. I’m definitely not back on my game, but this was a start.

(On an unrelated note, check out who’s blogging Tales of the Cocktail… )

I have a little notebook which I carry around with me, and as inspiration strikes I jot down ideas for meals or combinations of ingredients I’d like to try. As the weather turned colder and the selection of local veggies at the Greenmarket got smaller, I began to think about beets. Which, historically, neither of us has been particularly crazy about. At all.

But in our continuing quest to broaden our palates, we decided to give beets another chance, so from time to time I would write down a few thoughts about what to do with them. There was borscht, obviously, and also some sort of beet/goat cheese combo, but I like to think my best idea was this:

beets + beet greens + farro + bacon

Because really, what doesn’t bacon improve?

So when I sent Mike off to the Greenmarket yesterday morning, I asked him to pick up some beets, preferably with the tops still attached, as well as some of our favorite Tamarack bacon. He reported back that the only beets he could find were trimmed, but he was kind enough to go back at lunchtime and pick up some young red chard at my request.

After weighing my cooking and cleaning options, I decided to roast the beets in a foil pouch. I placed them into a 375 oven for about an hour and got to work on the rest of my ingredients while they cooked. I chopped four strips of bacon into about 1 inch pieces and placed them into a skillet to fry. In a separate pan, I cooked a cup of farro until it was tender but not too soft. When the bacon was crisp, I removed it from the fat and set it aside, and then removed about half of the fat and set that aside as well.

When the beets were cooked and cool enough to handle, I peeled them with a paring knife and cut them into chunks. I tossed them in with the cooked farro, then added the bacon and gave it all a gentle stir. I warmed up the fat that was still in the pan from cooking the bacon, added one finely chopped garlic clove and cooked it just until fragrant, then added my roughly chopped chard and a pinch of salt. When the greens were just wilted but still bright green, I removed them from the heat and added them to the beet/bacon/farro mixture. I placed the reserved bacon fat back into the pan to warm, then poured it, along with another pinch of salt and a healthy splash of sherry vinegar, over the mixture and gave it another stir.

The farro turned a rather comical shade of fuschia when it was tossed with the beets, but I have to admit that the deep red beets and bright greens were a nice change of pace from the red/brown palette of our recent meals. But did this dish change our minds about beets?

I’m pleased to report that it did. As I suspected the combination of flavors worked really well together, and the flavor of those roasted beets was far, far superior to anything we had tasted growing up. As it turns out, beets are yummy. Who knew?

Cherries have just begun to appear at the Greenmarket, and while I love them straight or with a little something sweet, I love them even more in savory dishes. They’re a perfect partner for duck, and when the temperature inside our apartment proved too warm to sear these duck breasts and make a cherry pan sauce, I had to punt.

I scored the skin/fat side of the duck breasts and seasoned them heavily with salt, then handed them off to Mike to grill (which, by the way, he did to perfection). I cooked up a cup of farro in about 2 cups of salted water, drained it, and set it aside to cool slightly. I mixed up a bit of dijon vinaigrette, added a hefty amount of fresh thyme from the garden, tossed in about a cup of halved pitted fresh cherries, then added the farro and tossed it all together. The tartness of the cherries and sharpness of the dijon mustard were great counterpoints to the richness of the duck.