Greens and Goat Cheese Gratin



Greens and Goat Cheese Gratin

Last night we used the kale from our Tanaka Farms box, the garlic and maui onion we received in a previous box and some other ingredients to make the Greens and Goat Cheese Gratin dish you see in the pictures.

I get most all of my recipes off the Internet. I haven't found a good cookbook yet that I like. There are a couple of good places to find them:

• Whole Foods Market website - http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/
• Allrecipes - http://allrecipes.com/
• Mother's Market and Kitchen - http://www.mothersmarket.com/recipes.html

If you can't find what you're looking for on these sites, then do a Google search using the name of the veggie or fruit and add the word recipes to it. That will bring up all kinds of websites with recipes. You can also find YouTube videos as well. If you're looking for how-to tips, use Google too. I wanted to know how to cut and peel a kohlrabi so I searched on Google and found instructions, images and videos.

Greens and Goat Cheese Gratin


We've made this dish twice now. I also adapt the recipes to our own liking. For instance, we never add pepper or salt. I'm not even sure we have a salt shaker in our RV. I also added garlic to this recipe because garlic is good for you and I love it. Here's the link to the recipe from Whole Foods website and my modifications to in in red here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/3068

Serves 8

The slight tang and creaminess of goat cheese brings richness to this baked gratin of wilted greens (go local if available!) and leeks for a satisfying, ultra-tasty side dish using all organic ingredients.

Ingredients

• 4 teaspoons organic butter (I use unsalted or low sodium butter made with olive oil instead)
• 3 organic leeks (1 1/2 pounds), dark green parts removed, remaining light green parts thinly sliced (I didn't have leeks the second time I made this dish so I used the red maui onion.)
• 2 pounds organic greens (about 3 bunches chard, kale, collard, mustard or turnip greens), stems removed and leaves coarsely chopped (The first time I made this dish I used kale and spinach because that is what I had. This time I used just kale.) 
• 3/4 cup organic 2% reduced-fat milk
• 1 (6 ounce) log Organic Chèvre Fleurie, rind removed (We just bought the cheapest goat cheese they had. The first time I only ended up with a 4 oz package because that's all they had. So I had some feta cheese that I used to make up the remaining two ounces. This time we bought the goat cheese at Costco. Four ounces cost you $9.99 at a grocery store. At Costco you get 2 10.5 ounce logs for $5.99. I'll just make sure I make several goat cheese recipes before it goes bad.) 
• 20 365 Everyday Value® Organic Wheat Square Crackers, crumbled (I just used whatever crackers I had on hand.)
• garlic (whatever amount you desire) 

Method

Preheat oven to 425°F. In a large sauce pot, (we used our electric wok) melt butter over medium heat. Add leeks (or any onion type you want) and garlic and cook until softened, about 6 minutes. Stir in greens, cover and cook 8 to 10 minutes or until just wilted, stirring occasionally. Cook greens in batches if your pot doesn't hold them all at once. Transfer greens mixture to a bowl and set aside. Add milk to sauce pot and heat just to a simmer. Remove from heat, crumble in goat cheese and whisk until melted. Stir in greens mixture until combined, then transfer to a shallow 3-quart baking dish. Bake 10 minutes, then top with cracker crumbs and continue baking until crumbs are toasted and greens are heated through, about 10 minutes longer.

 

Nutrition

Per serving: 210 calories (70 from fat), 8g total fat, 4.5g saturated fat, 15mg cholesterol, 180mg sodium, 29g total carbohydrate (4g dietary fiber, 5g sugar), 10g protein

This is one meal we both like. We also had some locally grown organic corn-on-the-cobb that we got at Whole Foods Market as well. I've found that if you don't salt your corn it enhances the taste of the corn and butter.