Collard Greens with Chick Peas

With very little effort, search this dish reminds me of a Syrian dish my grandmother used to make with lamb, Swiss chard and chick peas. Collards are an amazing leafy green that are  relatively easy to find in the frozen section of grocery stores all year round in my region. This hearty side is packed with nutrients and deep flavors and can help stretch any meal as a side dish. It keeps well and is great for adding to packed lunches or bentos.

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Surprise! Lamb and lemon are a match made in heaven

We had a leftover batch of the old standby Velvet Lemon Pasta Sauce that we were both avoiding using due to last month’s lemon overdose (you haven’t seen the last of those lemons yet, I promise). I was almost thinking it would go bad before we would be in the mood for lemon sauce again, but then Jen was hit with a bolt of inspiration. She revived the sauce with some fresh red onion sauteed with some ground lamb from our freezer, a splash of water and a bit of dried basil. All this on some whole wheat penne.

If she had told me she had added lamb (or red meat of any kind really) to the lemon sauce before I ate it, I’m not sure I would have been able to anticipate the combination of those two flavors. Somehow, surprising to me at least, the lamb lent a light but duskier meaty flavor to the creamy tartness of the sauce. I’m not keeping score but I think this sauce deserves several more points in the versatility category. I’ll never let it languish in my fridge again.

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Egg White Avocado Salad

I love egg salad, but whenever I eat it, I can’t help but feel guilty. My guilt probably stems from the fact that I’d never sit and eat more than two hard boiled eggs, but I would eat several heaping servings of egg salad without a second thought. I have the same difficulty saying no to avocados, but, as I mentioned when I wrote about avocados, I’ve just decided not to care.

One day though, something magical happened. I was at a catered party and they had the most delicious egg salad on little toast rounds: just egg whites and avocados. It had all the simple creaminess of egg salad, but felt much lighter and cooler due to the lack of yolks. And absolutely no guilt, though maybe there should have been, as I easily downed a dozen of them.

I’ve been dreaming about this salad ever since and last night, I set out to make some hard boiled eggs and like a fool, wandered into another room and forgot about them for half an hour. When I got them off the heat, I realized that the yolks would be too chalky and grey to enjoy. Luckily, I also happened to have some perfectly ripe avocados on pause in the fridge. The accident created the perfect scenario to try this recipe, as I don’t usually have egg whites on their own. I’m reserving the less-than-desirable yolks for another project.

Clearly I didn’t invent the recipe below, but it’s definitely something that is getting added to my repertoire whenever I happen to have the ingredients on hand.

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