Six Week Project: Day Two

Do you ever have a day when you just feel old-timey? An early spring day warmed slowly by the sun, when a still chilly wind blushes your cheeks and the light dawns, blanketing the hillsides covered in budding deciduous trees, when the smell of thawing soil swirls about your nostrils and a morning trip to the Farmer’s Market makes for heart-panging nostalgia and a hearkening to a time when those hillsides were dotted with log cabins, small Appalachian farms and hard-working pioneers. My day today was swollen with such feelings. I spent the day flitting about Athens, Ohio, with the sunroof open and the windows down, soaking up an abnormally warm Saturday in March. At the Farmer’s Market I scooped up some fresh Swiss Chard from Green Edge Organics, and Betty’s Favorite cheese from Laurel Valley Creamery. These two items, along with an outstanding egg from Blue Rock Station, and stone ground cornmeal from Rio Grande made for a dinner that sang like Bill Monroe’s fiddle—to my ears, at least.

Tonight’s dinner was reminiscent for me of the American South, the Appalachian foothills, and using my own (or rather someone else’s very local) food. It was a dinner that could’ve easily been prepared a hundred years ago by someone in this area. Healthy, fresh and local, tonight’s dinner of sauteed Swiss Chard, onion and black eye peas, cornmeal cake, and an over easy egg was the perfect cap to a lovely day in the foothills of Southeastern Ohio, when spring was calling and bringing the past back to life, like the green leaves of resurrecting tulips, made the day magnificent. This recipe makes enough for one serving.


Sauteed Swiss Chard, Onion and Black Eye Peas
Cornmeal Griddle Cake
Over-Easy Local Egg

1 TBS. extra-virgin olive oil
4 large Swiss Chard Leaves with stems, chopped
¼ yellow onion, slivered
½ cup cooked black eye peas (I use organic canned peas)
½ tsp. garlic powder
Salt and Black Pepper to taste

2 TBS. whole-wheat flour
¼ cup stone-ground cornmeal
½ tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
1 TBS. low-fat yogurt
½ cup local skim milk
1 TBS. local honey
1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 TBS. shredded local cheese (I used Betty’s Favorite from Laurel Valley)

One local, free-range egg
Salt and Pepper

1. In a large cast iron skillet, heat the 1TBS. olive oil over medium to medium low heat. (A cast iron skillet will get hot and stay hot, and food will burn easily) Add to the warmed oil the slivered onion and the chopped chard stems. Saute for five minutes, stirring often, until tender.

2. Add to the skillet the chard leaves, black eye peas, garlic powder and salt and pepper. Turn the heat to medium low, and saute stirring occasionally while you prepare the cornmeal cake batter.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. In a small liquid measuring cup, mix together the yogurt, milk, honey and olive oil. Stir the liquid into the dry mixture, and fold in the cheese just until everything is moistened.

4. By this point, the chard and black eye peas should have cooked down, the greens should be wilted and the onions browned. Turn the heat on the skillet back up to medium, and use a spatula to move the chard mixture off to one side. Pour the cornmeal batter onto one corner of the skillet.

5. Crack the egg into the remaining corner of the skillet, and salt and pepper it to your liking. When the cornmeal cake begins to brown on the edges and bubble, loosen it with a flat spatula and flip it over. When the egg whites have cooked through, flip the egg and cook it for about a minute. Remove the egg to a plate, and when the cornmeal cake is browned on the bottom and feels solid, remove it and the chard and peas as well. Spread the cornmeal cake with butter and serve hot.

Enjoy! Always remember to buy local!