Gratin of white pak choy, chinese cabbage and mizuna

Life happened this past week. It happens to the best of us. On Thursday I was packing for my weekend trip and I couldn't help feeling anxious about my farm share produce. I was afraid that whatever was left would go bad. I made sure to spin the salad greens dry and I inspected the rest of the produce to make sure nothing was laying in a pool of water.

I prepared huge salads that night and I tried to ease my mind with the words of Farmer John: "most of the greens in your share should be good for a week or more in your refrigerator." Farmer John also recommends soaking droopy greens in a bowl of cold water for 20 minutes before cooking or serving them. I learned that trick in culinary school- I remember it working well on frisee, but it didn't do the trick on the delicate farm share lettuce. From now on I'll make sure to use up that lettuce in the first half of the week.

When I returned from my weekend trip I was relieved to see that most of the produce was in good shape. Since the air was a little chilly I thought a gratin would be fitting way to use the greens. I had been eyeing up the Bright Lights Chard Gratin recipe in the cookbook Local Flavors by Deborah Madison and I am happy with the result. It's warm and gooey with crunch appeal. What a comfortable way to get in your green leafy vegetables!

I made the following adaptions to the recipe:

• Instead of chard, I used white pak choy, chinese cabbage and mizuna.
• I deglazed the pan with white wine after cooking the onion and chard (so much good flavor was building up on the bottom of the pan and besides, deglazing makes clean-up so much easier and the flavor of the wine added complexity to the dish).
• I didn't have goat cheese on hand, so I used shredded mozzarella, which worked well.
• I made two small gratins in individual serving dishes and I had enough leftovers for one more gratin (for best results, store the leftover greens separately from the cheese sauce and breadcrumbs).
• I like to generously *spray breadcrumbs with olive oil before cooking them in the oven. It helps protect them from burning and gives them a pretty glow).
• The author gives a few options- I chose parsley over dill and half and half with a little stock over milk.

*I don't know much about Pampered Chef, but I went to a party once and purchased the refillable spray bottle. Later on I bought another spray bottle so I could fill one bottle with olive oil and the other with an olive oil/ canola oil blend. The second bottle is much prettier and it's made of stainless steal, BUT it works horribly. Who knew I'd like the Pampered Chef bottle so much!