Didja miss me? Well, I'm back: with green garlic ricotta pudding souffle

Yes, yes, yes, Annalena DID abandon all of you for an extended period of time. The reasons are multitude as are the excuses, and I shall not offer any, but I will offer my apologies, to anyone who may have wondered "is the woman ok?" "is she coming back?" And so on and so forth. To paraphrase one of my favorite Joan Baez songs "I never left, said she." And now I'm back. And one way or the other, I will fill you in on the recipes I have been making. I will TRY (but I will not promise), to get one down every day, especially now that we are full flush in the glory of spring.
Asparagus. Rhubarb. Greens. Yes, the market is beginning to bulge. If you have a friend who happens to grow strawberries, you may get some of those too. They're not "there" yet, but they are "here."
Many of the things that we are finding at the market now, are transient. REALLY transient. You can find them for a few weeks, and then they are gone, gone GONE, whereas others will be around for a while. By the end of June, at the latest, the local asparagus will be finished, so we're eating them just about every day now. Ramps are here, but not for much longer. I still wait for the fiddleheads. And... one of my favorite things has come in. Call it "spring" garlic, call it "young" garlic, call it "green" garlic, but just ask for it, and use it.

Green garlic, as I call it, is garlic that has not quite gone to cloves. It has a mild flavor. Not as mild as leeks, and not as strong as the garlic we are used to. It's distinct. And you should enjoy it, NOW.

As with many of my recipes, this is a variation on something I learned from studying the recipes out of Chez Panisse. They serve up , and present in recipe form, a dish that they call green garlic pudding souffle'. I studied that recipe this morning, and thought "I am NOT ready to commit to this for lunch." Also, it called for gruyere cheese, which I do not have in the house. But I DO have ricotta that is beginning to luck at me askance. So, a bit of thinking , and a readiness to sacrifice lightness for heft, and away we went.

Get yourself a few bunches of green garlic from the farmers market. You're going to want somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 pound of it. Err on the side of buying more. You won't regret it. You will also need a pound of good quality ricotta (and as I've said before, this does not mean the stuff that ends with an "O" and you can get at the supermarket.). Four egggs. Some butter, and a bit of milk.

Yes, it's rich. But it's spring. The weather is warm. You're encouraged to take exercise. And in a few weeks, this will not be here.

So, get those green garlics, cut off the root ends, and then chop them roughly. You will want , ultimately, a scant cup or so of the chopped stuff. Saute' them, in a couple of tablespoons of butter, until they're soft. It will not take long. Try not to brown them, but if you do, it's far from the end of the world.

Put the garlic into a food processor with the ricotta, and the eggs, and a good pinch of salt. Whizz that to the point where the cheese is smooth, but you can still see bits of the garlic in there. Put it aside (incidentally, you can do this part of the dish hours before you eat. ). Now, get the whites from the 4 eggs, and whip them until you get soft peaks. What is a soft peak? Glad you asked Sue (I KNEW it was you). Lift the beater head, and watch the tip of the white . If it forms a curly cue, but falls over, that's soft peaks. Fold the cheese mixture into this (I have seen this step written a skazillion times as putting the whites into the eggs. I have not observed a difference in the order). Stir the stuff together, gently, until it's uniformly combined. Then, pour it into a buttered baking dish (you don't have to use a souffle' dish. I used an 8x8 glass baking pan and I was happy with it). Put that on a baking sheet, and get it into a preheated, 400 degree oven.

NOW, get a kettle and pour water (room temperature) onto the baking sheet, until it comes about an inch up the baking dish. Let the thing cook away for about 30 minutes.

This isn't going to rise much, because of the ricotta. But it will rise a bit, and it will firm up, without getting hard. Scoop it out and serve it in bowls, preferably with something like my smothered dandelion greens.

Glad you asked. Here's how you do it. Cut the dandelion greens from their stems, at the point where the stems begin to get tough. Toss the tough stuff, and then put the greens into a big pan, with a few tabelspoons of olive oil. Start with a cold pan, and cook for a few minutes. NOW, add a bit of salt, and a quarter cup of water. Cover the pan, lower the heat, and leave it alone for ten minutes. The greens will darken, but hold their shape, and they will get lovely tender.

They are a perfect foil for the souffle pudding, but if you want, make them as a side vegetable dish, maybe putting a few drops of an acid of some kind: white vinegar, lemon juice, sumac, etc, into them.

This was our lunch today, so we ate big portions. Serve it forth as you will. For me, I could eat the whole dish myself. But I'm a big boned kinda gal.