How to Cook Swiss Chard: Vegetable Gratin Recipe

Swiss chard, called blette in French, is a very common winter vegetable.  One of the best way to fight the cold weather winter brings (I'm in Paris right now and it's freezing, literally) is to make a vegetable gratin, and swiss chard makes an excellent gratin.

The preparation is ultra simple. Swiss chard is chopped, sautéed with onions, covered with cheesy white sauce, then baked until golden. It's as easy as 1-2-3. Happy holidays, everyone! Keep warm!

Tomato Risotto Recipe

This version of tomato risotto has a decidedly Indian sensibility. I flavored the rice with tomato chutney as I recently did with an Indian-inspired asparagus pie. The flavors from the chutney are so bold that no other spices and very little salt are needed. I just added chopped sun-dried tomatoes as garnish.

Making risotto takes a little bit of practice to begin with, but once you've worked on your fundamentals, you can start to use the basic recipe and create dozens of different variations. I've stuffed artichokes with risotto, paired pistachio pesto with celery risotto, stuffed it in zucchini flowers, made a roasted beet and ricotta cheese version, and also a rather unconventional risotto with bamboo; the list of adaptations is truly endless.

Gratin de Christophine (Chayote Squash Recipe)

Gratin de christophine originates from the French island of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Whether it's called chayote in English, christophine in Creole and French or trái su su in Vietnamese, the vegetable is from the same family as squash. I steam them with apples for added sweetness, then mix in creamed pearl onion sauce and finally bake until golden.

If you're looking to spice up your Christmas meal, you should try this Creole dish. It’s familiar and fresh all at the same time.

Vegetarian Pot Pie with Lentil Pasta

If you’ve wanted to make comfort food healthy, this recipe is for you. As I've told you in the past, I often try to make vegetarian versions of the meat dishes I cook. One of my favorite dishes is chicken pot pie, and today I decided to make a variation of the dish with lentils and pastina pasta. I placed the mixture in mini soup bowls and covered them with puff pastry baked until golden and flaky.

The dish is fairly healthy, yet very flavorful due to the generous amounts of ginger, soy bacon bits, coriander, parsley and cilantro. The flavors and texture are spot on for a cold evening meal.

Chocolate Pear Entremet

Un entremet poire chocolat is an ultra-refined dessert made of layers of chocolate cake, pear flavored mascarpone and covered in chocolate cream. The key to this dessert is to use very fragrant and juicy pears. I waited a few days for the pears to reach the peak of ripeness. I baked the mini chocolate cakes in 4-½" diameter pans so we could each have our own serving.

Of course, we ended up sharing one individual cake and feeding each other. Lulu commented that the entremet was almost too pretty to be eaten, but he soon got over his initial reaction. It was the perfect way to end our Valentine's Day dinner, and I'm sure I'll be making more of these in the near future.  There's no reason to wait a whole year to enjoy this decadent treat again!