Apologies to Platinus

Ever since we went to the Renaissance Italian cooking class in May, I've wanted to go back and try some of the recipes we did there. So Saturday night, despite unseasonably hot and sticky heat, I decided to try the chard torta. I'm pretty sure Chef Kaufman or Platinus (the source for the recipe) would have recognized this quiche as "inspired by" the original, but the original it certainly was not!

First, I decided not to make a crust. Rather than do the lazy and cheap thing of using a bought pie crust, I lined my new glass pie pan with sliced potatoes. Next, I used soy mozzarella so Jenny could eat it (the recipe calls for ricotta and fresh mozzarella). I don't need to be told how much better that would have been, but given the choice I made it so J could enjoy it as well. Third, since I was leaving out the ricotta, I used 3 eggs instead of 2, and a cup of milk rather than 3/4 cup. Finally, I added some garlic to give it a little bite and to distract a little from the soy mozzarella.

Other ingredients: a bunch of chard, a small handful of marjoram, and two handfuls of Italian parsley, plus salt and pepper to taste. I sauteed the chard and garlic, added the herbs at the end, and folded that into the egg and milk mixture. I poured that over the potato "crust," adding slices of the soy cheese in the middle.

I thought it delicious and light, and the marjoram was wonderful. I'd never cooked with it, but I think this is only the beginning. The potatoes could have been a bit crispier, and in the future I think I'll put the cheese on top instead of inside, which would also mean I could put real cheese on half and soy cheese on the other half!



We followed the quiche with apple crumble, and were joined by our friend Nicol and her new girlfriend Stephanie, who brought ice cream to go on top. The crumble was pretty much as I'd blogged about before, except that I added a handful of blueberries to it just before putting the crumbles on top. I didn't have quite enough brown sugar and only had quick oats on hand, so the texture was a little smoother than it usually is, but it was still a hit.

In other news, the Yankees just lost to the Indians. There goes Torre and A-Rod, I guess. J and I have to go to Columbus, Ohio for a conference in a few weeks, so we've decided to take Yankees gear, just to represent.

In other, other news, I had yet another migraine today, which meant that a lot of books went unread. Alas. But after all, tomorrow is another day.