Sweet potato, leek and kale tart

For those of you who are wondering - it’s 4 workdays for me until retirement. I’m excited, and a little nervous and at times keep asking myself if this is the right thing to do. I’m ready I’ve got plans for volunteering, organizing to do, lunches with friends to have, hiking and walking, and when better, places to travel. 

I also have some cooking I want to do and learn. I’ve never made macrons or chou pastry and I want to experiment with making my own vegan sausages - so potentially lots of cooking experiment blogging. And then there is getting back into knitting - it’s been a while. 

A couple nights ago I brought in some swiss chard, collards, and kale. I will eat them in a salad, sautéed with onions and a little garlic … the possibilities are endless: Dan not so much - as long as they are cooked or well-disguised he doesn’t complain. 

I also had sweet potatoes, leeks, and fennel from the Farmers Market that needed to be used up so I tossed a little of this and some of that and put it in a shortcrust and poof dinner. We served it with an apple, fennel, and celery salad with a white balsamic dressing - everything was delicious. 

Ingredients:

2 large leeks

2 medium sweet potatoes

1 bunch swiss chard

3 cloves garlic

1 sheet shortcrust pastry

1 tsp cumin

1tsp sage

½ tsp ground coriander

½ tsp fennels seeds

Large pinch salt & pepper

Crumbled feta

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350

Chop the sweet potato into roughly 1.5-inch cubes, drizzle with olive oil then roast at 350 for @ 20 minutes.

While the sweet potato is baking, finely chop the leek (as you would an onion) and gently fry in a drizzle of olive oil. Once the leeks have softened add 3 minced cloves of garlic and fry for a further 1 minute. Add the sage, cumin, coriander, fennel, salt, and pepper to the pan. Chop the swiss chard (just the greens) add to the pan and gently heat for a further 5 minutes.

If using ready rolled pastry, add to a large tart dish with a removable base and prod the base with a fork 3-4 times. Place a sheet of baking parchment with baking beads (or dry rice will do) on top of the tart then put the tart in the oven for a blind bake for 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven, take out the baking beads and parchment. Combine the leek mixture and roasted sweet potatoes in a bowl, then pour into the baked tart. Top with feta and bake for 5 - 10 minutes to soften the cheese.

Take out of the oven and enjoy!

Last Vestiges of Summer

As the days get shorter so does my time at work - eleven days until retirement. It seems surreal, I’ve spent decades preparing for this moment and at times I never thought it would come but I’m ready - for the next chapter. 

Many of you know I’ve been working toward my Master Gardener certification and I’m just about there. Course work is done, 50 volunteer hours are done, continuing education is done - the last step is to turn in my 15 question responses. 

So what’s next? I’ve been trying out several volunteer options and I’ve found a couple that I am going to pursue and then there are my own gardens. Our new neighbors have put in a 6-foot fence that now blocks the sun on 2 of my raised beds so there will be work to relocate them and reconfigure the fence. One of my perennial gardens will also need to change and what to do to cover up that large white fence - at this point I’m not sure. 

I’ve been talking to my gardening friends and the drought has definitely had an impact on harvest and yields. The same applies to our gardens - spinach, radishes, and lettuce were a bust but garlic, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers - were plentiful. Potatoes were average, peppers, collard greens, swiss chard, kale, and eggplant on par with other years - our refrigerator and freezer are full and the neighbors are still happy to see us especially when we are bearing tomato and cucumber gifts. 

Some nights there are no plans or recipes you slice a little of this, toss it with a little olive oil and spices, and roast - it’s fresh and delicious. We had movie night (we are cautiously moving back to that) and it was a success. The veggies were tossed with a little olive oil, some fajita seasoning from Penzys, salt, and pepper. The fingerling potatoes (I love the color of the Russian purple - a beautiful deep purple) just oil salt and pepper and the tomato/peach/mozzarella salad had a splash of balsamic vinegar and fresh basil.  

Enjoy the rest of summer, get outside, be with friends and eat good food.  Thanks for stopping by.