Butter Fixes Everything

Rice with "picked out" greens on the side :)

I figure I should post my culinary triumphs and failures here....so here goes.

I had gotten a bunch of fresh garlic mustard during one of my Apprenticeship days and was told that I could make a really yummy infused AC vinegar with it...so I did. I steeped the GM in the AC vinegar for a few weeks (probably too long) and when I decanted it thought I would cook up the pickled GM with some left over dandelion greens.

I sauteed the greens with olive oil, more garlic and a pinch of the newly decanted vinegar in a pan...

Yeah...WAY too vinegary and garlicky....

So it sat in the fridge for a while because as we all know, I hate waste.

I then thought..."Hey! I'll cook up some wild rice to mix the greens with...that will even out the flavors a bit."

So one morning, before work, I cooked up some rice and mixed it in with the greens...very thoroughly, I might add. It smelled good...so it should taste good, right?

WRONG.

I sat at my desk, trying with all my might to enjoy my creation, but no. I even valiantly tried picking out the dandelion greens to see if that would help...

I had pizza for lunch.

Since the thought of throwing away all that lovely wild rice made me cringe, I actually picked out as many of the greens as possible from the remaining dish and threw it in a pan with lots of butter and a bit of white cooking wine (I was heavily influenced by Julia Child here since I'm reading "Julie & Julia" right now).

But I'll tell you something...it worked. It turned my horrified-face-making dish into something a few notches above edible...and that's really all I was after.

So the moral here?

Don't cook up pickled mustard greens with old dandelion greens? Maybe, but also you can more often than not fix things and flex your creativity in the process...and in my case give a tip of the hat to the wonderful Julia Child.

XO

Farro with Carrots and Maple Sage Butter..

This particular piece of culinary delight came from reading various recipes and then merging bits of them in my mind...so, voila...this is what I came up with:

Farro with Carrot Ribbons and Lentils in a Sweet Potato and Sage Maple Butter Base.... (anyone want to come up with a clever name for this to shorten it up? I'll be taking suggestions... LOL)




1.5 cups of farro
1 can sweet potato puree
1 can organic lentils
About 6 carrots...it's really up to you
Pure maple syrup
Fresh Sage
Organic butter
Vegetable or olive oil

Cook the farro according to the package.



In a large skillet melt about one tablespoon of butter and add the sage and carrot ribbons (use a peeler and just peel away into the pan). I added some olive oil to the butter so as not to use a crazy amount of butter but still have the butter flavor, then drizzle with maple syrup. Cook carrots until tender. Add the farro, sweet potato and lentils and drizzle with more maple syrup (if you like) and sprinkle with sea salt to taste...you can add a little water if the mixture seems too thick for your liking.



It's a wonderfully earthy dish...with the oat-y farro and aromatic sage....