winter comfort: pancetta, white bean, swiss chard pot pies

Monday night Katie and I cooked pot pies from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. It was a little bit of work, making the pastry dough from scratch as well, but if you have two cooks in the kitchen it all gets done pretty efficiently. :) Deb Perelman suggests making these for company, because you can also do the components in advance and bake them later. To make: first make the pastry dough, make the pot pie filling (swiss chard, pancetta) and a gravy-like sauce (white beans), fill oven-save bowls, top with the pastry, and bake. The pastry is really flaky, buttery and delicious. If you left out the pancetta and used vegetable stock it would be great as a vegetarian recipe as well.

minestrone with kale, white beans, tomatoes

 This recipe came to my inbox from the New York Times Recipes for Health, just when we had fresh kale to use. Pretty much everything else is in the pantry. We had our beautiful purple potatoes and purple kale from the CSA. As I was cooking, Jessica was heating up some amazing smelling smoked bacon next to me, so I threw in some of that, too, and garnished with crispy pieces. It would be vegetarian and vegan without the bacon and the parmesan rind. Yum yum.

winter slaw with creamy yoghurt-poppy seed dressing

  It's snowing big, thick snowflakes today in Ann Arbor. Still makes me want to just eat soup and not leave the house, but this morning Katie and I put on our boots and walked to the farmer's market to support the year-round sellers. I have to admit it was pretty slim pickings (at least by the time we got there...after getting side-tracked by TeaHaus...). I just got eggs, radish, and a pie pumpkin. (Still have a drawer full of CSA  veggies, too.) It's pretty amazing that Ann Arbor does have a year-round market. Such a great food city! We ended up going from the market to the co-op to Plum, one of Ann Arbor's many superfancy grocery stores. Splurge trip. (But since most all my grocery shopping is done by foot/bike, it's sometimes necessary to have a little stock-up trip!) Anyways, this recipe has been on my "to-make" list for a while. To get some raw veggies and to use some of the seasonal stuff we have on hand. It does involve a lot of chopping/cutting, but it makes a good, big portion. The poppyseed dressing is really good, too.