My Swiss Chard is a Bed Hog!

Dear Tricia,
My swiss chard is taking over my garden! Any recipe ideas?

Holy hell, yes. Chard is one of those delicious leafy greens that can be successfully thrown into just about anything but a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. And that's so awesome that you have a garden! I wish I could garden but I am doomed to killing most plants and flowers. I only know how to make them taste delicious. Side note: I once visited a friend when I lived in Austin, who had the most gorgeous garden, filled with tons of chard, cucumbers, jalapenos, tomatoes... It was awesome. I stood there picking hot tomatoes, warmed by the sun, and eating them straight off the vine. I had revelation. I envisioned myself joining a co-op, harvesting my fruitful crops of veggies, making organic meals 3 times a day, living off the earth... and then I looked down and saw the massive amounts of bug bites that had instantly populated my legs, and went back inside to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

Anything that you like spinach in, you'll like Chard in. Let's talk prep: swiss chard is a little bit thicker and waxier than spinach, so I recommend steaming it first: First, you'll need to rinse the chard, and cut the big stem from the middle of it. Chop the green leafy parts into small pieces and set those aside. Then get a pan really hot. No, seriously, like.... really scorching hot. (This is not the time to have happy hour while cooking if you're accident prone. Read: me.) Let your pan get hot, and have a lid and a small glass of water ready. Then, put that pile of green leafy deliciousness in the pan, put about a 1/4 cup of water in with it, and close the lid quickly.

This should be really loud if you got your pan hot enough. If you didn't, then this will be a slow, anticlimactic process. Don't blame me- I gave you sound advice.

The water will instantly started steaming the chard- and it will make your abundant pile of greens shrink down to a much smaller-looking amount. Go ahead and stir it one or twice, but you want to keep the lid on most of the time. Also, throw in a bit of salt and pepper. Nicely done.

The chard is done when all of the water has evaporated, and the greens are darker and much softer. You can eat the chard just like this if you want (or if you're on a cleanse from all of those martinis you had in February). I like to put a little bit of sesame oil or tamari in with it, stir it around and eat it like so. You can also make a quiche- you can make anything into a quiche, actually. Quiches are Leftover City.

There is a very basic quiche ratio: 1 cup of milk to 6 eggs. Just beat those guys together with some salt and pepper, and pour over a frozen pie crust with your lovely steamed swiss chard on it. Add a handful of cheddar cheese and maybe some bacon in that sucker and pop it in the oven at 375 for about 40 minutes or until its not jiggly anymore. Done. Seriously, like the easiest thing to make. And if I read one more food blog romantically droning on and on about the minuscule details of some one's amazing Quiche Lorraine, I'm going to puke. It's not rocket science, bloggers.

Anytime you use steamed chard to turn into a lasagna or a quiche, make sure you squeeze all of the moisture out of it with a paper towel first. (AFTER it's cooled. Let me make that mistake for you.) Otherwise, the water leaks out and makes a mess. And I'm pretty sure your goal was to make something edible and not watery when you wrote me, right?

Swiss Chard is one of those really awesome super-foods. It has at least 13 different known types of antioxidants (those help keep the Cancer away), plus it also has this really unique thing called Syringic acid (scary word, but its not related to syringes, or anything you'd ever see on Intervention) which helps regulate your blood sugar. Bonus!
You commonly see it in the grocery store with white or red stems, but there's also a variety called Rainbow Chard, where the stems look just like they sound. Its my favorite- not because it tastes better or anything, but just because we can all use some more rainbows in our diet.

Dude, Your Crock Pot Reeks

I received a great email question, and because of the time crunch, I emailed it back before I posted a blog. Here's a copy of the email exchange.

Dear Tricia, I have a question for you, but you are probably not going to get to it in time, but I thought I'd give it a try. I bought a roast late last week (Friday the 8th) and this morning finally put it in the crockpot. The sell by date on it was Jan 11th. (Yesterday) It had some brown parts on it, and it had a little bit of a funny smell. As it's cooking, I can smell that funny smell a bit still. It's only been cooking about 1 hour. I'm not sure if it's unsafe to eat or not. What I had planned to do was cook it til it was very easy to shred. Then I drain out the juices and fat and shred it and then add some salsa and seasonings and have the meat in tacos. What would you do?


Thanks so much for reading. I'm going to just answer your email first instead of posting it on the blog since I'm short on time for writing this week and since your situation seems to be kind of pressing. No one loves food poisoning. But if the sell by date is January 11, that usually means you have a couple of days to eat it before it's spoiled, otherwise it would say "use by." This is a liability thing for grocery stores and it just clears them if you happened to get sick and tried to blame it on the butcher. Brown spots are fine: that's just oxygen settling into the beef and changing the color, or "oxodizing." It's ugly, but its not unsafe. However, if you think it smelled bad, go with your gut. The best call for bad food is a judgment call, and that involves using your nose, eyes, and brain. You can also call the meat department at the store you bought it from and ask them how many days after the sell-by date you can cook it. They might have a better idea than me. But again, if its smelling bad... better safe than sorry. Or you can just go ahead and make your delicious tacos, give them to your arch nemesis, and see if they get explosive food poisoning. I'd love to hear the results about that one.
In the mean time, feel free to check out my blog entry on leftovers in the archives, "On Top of Spaghetti, All Covered in Mold." It gives you some more specifics on certain types of leftovers' shelf lives and I also bash the health department a little bit. God I love doing that, especially on a bad day.

On Top of Spaghetti, All Covered in... Mold?

Dear Tricia, This isn't really a cooking question, but how long are various leftovers good for? For example, brisket vs.
potato salad, cheesecake, spaghetti, etc. Just wondering, because the mold test I'm currently using seems a bit sketchy.

Leftovers are tricky because everyone has their own rules on when to throw things out. For instance, one website I visited claims that you only have two hours from the time your food was prepared to eat it in order for it to be safe. I'm pretty sure that was authored by a hypochondriac because two hours means food served at cocktail parties are out of the question. And where's the fun in that? No one wants to pass up Vienna sausage on a toothpick. Seriously, that website (which will remain anonymous to protect their idiocy) actually said, "Some people may still feel the need to consume leftovers after a few days have elapsed...". Hey, hungry is hungry. Don't judge. So I'm not going to tell you what the health department tells you: I'm going to tell you the truth.
Unfortunately there is no throw-out-spaghetti-after-four-days rule, or brisket-only-lasts-three-days manifesto. You have to use your best judgment when guessing if the food in question is safe to eat or not. This involves using your eyes, nose, and brain. What I most commonly hear and read is to throw things out after 3 days. But I'm totally guilty of eating lots of leftovers after 3 days, especially if they're things I've made at home because then I know exactly how they were prepared. If you're just not sure about what to do (or have poor judgment to begin with), go ahead and toss 'em after 3 days. But here's some things to take into consideration.
Butter and sugar are natural preservatives, so cakes, cheesecakes, and other high-fat baked goodies are safe to eat until they mold or start to smell. I've never heard of a pound cake giving someone E. coli unless a giant E. coli monster snuck into your house in the middle of the night and rubbed itself all over said pound cake. Maybe if the baker used rotten eggs to start, and then let them sit out all night in Miami in August, and then baked the cake with those... that might get you sick. But that's highly unlikely. And check this out: most of your local bakeries let their frosting sit out at room temperature for days at a time. That's against the food code, but like I said, butter and sugar are natural preservatives. It won't make you sick, so the health department can suck it.
Meats like chicken, pork, and beef are also safe to eat until they mold or start to smell bad, as long as they've been refrigerated. If you left a steak sitting out overnight because you hypothetically "fell asleep" after too many glasses of box wine last Thursday, technically it is not safe the eat the next day, even if it doesn't smell bad. According to the health department, food can sit out for up to 4 hours in between the temperatures 40 and 140 degrees before it becomes hazardous. The health department calls this the food "danger zone," (queue the Kenny Loggins music) and meats are particularly susceptible to becoming hazardous when left out.
Seafood: trash it no later than 2 days after. If you have the guts to try and eat it after then, by all means go for it. But don't blame me when you're doing double duty in the bathroom for 8 hours.
Leaving out fruit that has already been cut up is also really sensitive. Bacteria loves fruit, so if you've made a delicious little fruit salad for yourself, make sure you refrigerate it. It's fine in the refrigerator until it molds or starts to smell bad, which usually happens after a few days anyway (Berries in particular will start to ferment after a few days, and you won't want to eat those. You could try, but I doubt they'll make it past your molars.)
Preservatives and artificial ingredients are things bacteria and mold hate. (And if I could get up on my soap box for a second, if mold and bacteria don't even like artificial ingredients, why are Americans eating so many of them? Curious.) So if you were to steam a bunch of organic kale and then put it in your refrigerator for a week, and compare that to a Dominos pizza that sits next to it for a week, the kale is going to mold and stink to high heaven. Coincidentally, this happened to my kale last week. It was nasty, and many candles were lit in the kitchen that night. But the preservatives, artificial ingredients, and stabilizers that are put into most prepared foods these days are what keep the bad stuff away. I remember one particular lecture in culinary school: if you leave shortening and butter out in your garage, only the butter will only attract flies because shortening isn't real food, its a hydrogenated, trans-fat product that mimics real food and never goes bad. And even flies don't want that. That said, your Hamburger Helper is definitely safe to eat until it starts to smell or mold.
Foods like potato salad are going to go bad much faster than the previous ones I've talked about. Anything with eggs or egg-based products (like mayonnaise) are going to go bad pretty quickly, and you never want to chance it with those. For reals, if you're not sure, then throw it out. Luckily, leftover potato salad never lasts very long to begin with. Lexi, you know I'm talking about you.

Some other things I should tell you about leaving food out:
1. Restaurant kitchens have a saying: when it doubt, throw it out. So if you're not sure if something smells bad or not, just throw it away. You're not homeless. You can make another one.
2. The time it takes to cool down food is also what makes it potentially dangerous to eat. Remember the food d-d-d-danger zone? Well if you're going to make a giant pot of soup and then put that giant pot of soup in the refrigerator, chances are the soup is going to take a really really really really long time to cool down, making it stay in the d-d-d-danger zone for a lot longer than 4 hours. So take things that are in large quantities and hot, and put them in smaller containers where its easier to cool down. You want leftovers to get cold fast, just like beer.
3. Put leftovers in airtight containers. Keeping them in the Styrofoam containers from restaurants or in plastic baggies will make them go bad much faster.

Again, I must stress that if you have poor judgment to begin with (and this is directed at those of you who ride on crotch rockets and pop wheelies while on the freeway, those of you who listen to Nickelback, and anyone who pre-ordered Sarah Palin's memoir), just throw away your leftovers after a few days. Its doubtful you're going to get sick from something you didn't get sick from the first time you ate it, but who knows... maybe listening to Nickelback while eating it could do the trick.