One of my favorite gifts from last Christmas was the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market Cook Book. As I’ve blogged, I hit up the SaMoFM weekly so this book was perfect for me. Not only does the book give a brief recap of how the market came to be. Then the book launches into recipes with ingredients you can purchase at the market and notes which season the recipes are for. That is probably my favorite feature of the book. I like to try to eat seasonally. For starters, it’s less expensive and I also love marking the changes in season based on what I eat.

These last few weeks the spring food has been coming in. That means fava beans and asparagus! I’ll try and contain myself.

Anyways, with spring coming in I decided to make one of my favorite winter recipes one last time for the season. This recipe has it all: potatoes, pasta and cheese. All of my favorites!

This recipe is quick and a good way to incorporate a lot of greens. I’ll be totally honest. I’m kinda like a child in that I want my green covered in cheese. What can you do? At least I’m eating them.

Penne with Winter Green, Potatoes, and Cheese

Ingredients

1/2 red onion, chopped

1/8 cup olive oil

1 bunch winter greens (swiss chard, kale or the like- I just threw in spinach this time because it’s all I had)

1 glove of garlic, chopped

1/4 lb brown penne pasta

1/2 lb waxy potatoes

1/8 lb gouda cheese

Sea salt and pepper

Instructions

Bring pot of salted water to a boil.

Chop your onion and garlic. In a large skillet heat the olive oil to medium heat. Add the onions and sauté over medium heat until translucent.

Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 min. While the onions are cooking, wash the greens and roughly chop them.

Add the greens and some salt and pepper to the onions and garlic. Stir in.

Reduce heat to low and let the greens cook until they are tender, about 10 mins. Add water as needed.

Meanwhile, the water in the pot will be boiling. Add the pasta and potatoes. I like to chop the potatoes in half before I cook them. Cook until the pasta is al dente and the potato has been cooked through. Drain the pasta and retain 1 cup of pasta water.

Incorporate the pasta and potato into the greens mix and grate on the cheese. Turn off the heat and mix until the cheese is melted.

And serve!

This is delicious and one of my winter main stays. I’ll miss it over the summer although maybe I can recreate it for summer somehow. There isn’t a sauce but who needs sauce when you have so much cheese! As I mentioned above I like this because it’s a good way to sneak in a bunch of greens into my diet.

I have an awesome restaurant review coming up later this week from an LA hot spot that I checked out last week! Get pumped!