Fresh Tomato (or Fruit) Salsa

I always argue with myself over writing a post with no picture or posting the bad picture that I do have.  As you can see above, the later option won.  My husband loves this fresh salsa and asks for it every time we have any dish of the mexican variety.  In the picture above I do not have any cilantro, but that is one of our favorite ingredients.  I would suggest making this ahead of time if you can so that the flavors have a chance to meld together.

HTCE p.23
Full Recipe

Braised Chard with Olive Oil and Rice

Let me start off by saying I don't care for greens.  My husband is a veggie-vore and loves anything green, but I just have a hard time getting past the often bitter taste.  Well, this recipe was a winner!  A truly great starter recipe for those of us who don't like the pungent taste of greens.  My three year old asked for seconds and my 14 month old gobbled all her's up!

The only reason I'm even cooking greens is because we joined a CSA this year.  Colvin Family Farms to be specific.  This week in our box we got a whole bunch of rainbow swiss chard.  Now, I've never eaten or cooked chard before but I knew where I could get a recipe, my good old red friend, HTCE. 

 

You'll want to start off this recipe by washing your chard well and shaking it off in the sink before wrapping it up in a kitchen towel to dry off a bit.  The recipe instructs you to cut out the ribs, but I learned long ago from Rachel Ray that is never necessary!  Just hold the dark green by the stem and make your other hand into a claw.  Use your claw hand to strip the leave from the stem.  Voila!  No cutting stems out of individual leaves!

Now, line up all those beautiful stems, give them a trim and then chop away.  I hear you can use the stems like celery in other dishes if you just want to use the leaves for another recipe.

Frying the stems in olive oil with carrots is a key step!  The carrots in the finished dish have great texture.  We served our rice next to fish sticks:

HTCE p.285
Full Recipe
Nutrition: 4 servings, 217 calories, 18.3g fat, 13.3g carbs, 3g protien