My childhood memories of bitter greens are usually accompanied by a long “ewwwwwww.” But as my palate developed, and I experienced some more interesting preparations, I learned to love them. The subtle spiciness of mustard greens is a treat however you want to make them. Check out the many faces of mustard greens in this week’s root source. (Not signed up yet? Well, then do that here)

If you just can’t get enough, try some of these as well:

Kayln’s Kitchen - Macaroni With Lemon, Garlic, Parmesan And Mustard Greens
The Wednesday Chef - Baby Mustard Greens With Potatoes And Shallot Vinaigrette
Everybody Likes Sandwiches - Fettucini With Mustard Greens
Rasa Malaysia - Penang Char Hor Fun

Earlier in the week, I sprinkled a butterflied leg of lamb with black olives, orange zest and fresh thyme. I rolled it up into a cylinder, tied it and then roasted it to medium-rare. Because I love roasting at high heat, I decided to cook the lamb at 500F the whole time. It was good but unevenly cooked — too done toward the outside by the time it was perfect in the center.

So yesterday I tried it again, this time at 500F for the first five minutes. Then I turned the oven down to 300F and roasted it until medium-rare. Much better — it was pink and evenly cooked throughout.

Making notes on the recipe this moring, I started craving the lamb and got it out of the fridge for an early lunch. I had a banana pepper and some fresh goat cheese onhand from Wednesday’s farmers market.

I thinly sliced the banana pepper and tossed it in a bowl with a little sea salt, some red pepper flakes, sugar and a splash of rice wine vinegar. I let the peppers marinate for about 30 minutes, until they were soft and slightly pickled.

Then I spread half of a large tortilla with goat cheese, topped the cheese with the quick-pickled peppers, then topped those with thinly sliced lamb and a few coarsely chopped black olives. I rolled it all up and cut the wrap in half on the bias.

The sweet and sour heat of the quick-pickled peppers and briny olives were a good balance for the rich lamb and goat cheese.

We had a lot of fun cooking mustard greens for this week’s Root Source. Though in the Deep South it’s traditional to cook the living daylights out of them, I’ve always preferred just barely cooking mustard greens, 5-10 minutes at most. While I enjoy the deep flavor and memory of comfort that long-cooked greens give me, I love the texture and bright flavor that a brief cooking time preserves.

Poking around to see what others had to say about mustards, I was excited to see Elizabeth Schneider address the issue of “greens-doneness” in her cookbook Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini. In the chapter on mustards, she describes several different ways to have them.

1) “Barely wilt: Toss with hot dressing, or fold mustard chiffonade into hot beans or pasta. Or pour boiling water over whole trimmed leaves to soften for wrapping.”

Recipe: Pumpkin Ravioli With Mustard Greens And Parmesan (Cookthink)

(2) “Short-cook: Boil a few minutes in broth for bright, juicy, and tender greens; or steam 4-5 minutes for leaves with a bit more flavor and heat.”

Recipe: Braised Mustard Greens With Bacon And Shallots (Cookthink)

(3) “Long-cook: Earthy bitterness and depth develop in greens that are slow-braised; but bite, perfume, and color dissipate.”

Recipe: Long-Cooked Mustard Greens (Cookthink)

And one of my own:

(4) I’ve been digging the kale tossed with garlic mayonnaise that my local Whole Foods has in the prepared foods section. With raw mustards, you get a hotter green to toss with the mayonnaise, but it’s still delicious.

Recipe: Raw Mustard Greens With Garlic Mayonnaise (Cookthink)

Having tried many different versions over the years, I have come to the conclusion that it’s impossible to write a foolproof recipe for fresh gnocchi. How much flour to add depends on subtleties like humidity, the size of the eggs, and the size of and amount of moisture in the potatoes. I’ve followed recipes too closely in the past and have had the gnocchi fall apart in the pot.

On Sunday I had some sweet potatoes and some good gorgonzola on hand. I felt like gnocchi, but instead of trying another recipe, I just decided to go with my gut.

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Last week Brys had a very nice quote in a Washington Post Express article about entertaining picky eaters. It’s a difficult prospect when you make a guest list for a dinner party and it seems like everyone has a consumable no-no. I got my experience with dietary juggling in college, when I would do dinner parties for a dozen of my friends, all of whom had their different restrictions.

We had three vegetarians, one vegan, one no-turkey, some no-red meat, a few semi-kosher, and one allergic to all milk products (down to the molecular level — until you look, you’ll never know how many products have whey powder in them). Add to that a whole host of pickiness and vegetable preferences, and I took three weeks trying to find a menu that would fit everyone.

Eventually I did. The Italian-themed meal had several variations - I made chicken parmesan for the meat eaters, eggplant parmesan for the vegetarians, and one small dish of eggplant breaded with matzoh meal (the only “bread crumb” without milk products in it) and no cheese on top. I made much of the meal from scratch, including the meat- and dairy-free tomato sauce, and it ended up being a crowd-pleasing success.

That experience left me with a few general rules for this kind of dinner planning:

1) Make a variety of vegetarian side dishes. Some combination of them will generally satisfy everyone, even if the main dish is off-limits. Best to avoid mushrooms, as they tend to be a common no-no among picky eaters.

2) If you make something spicy, go easy on the heat source and allow people to add more if they want. If you have one spicy dish, build cooling and refreshing dishes around it.

3) Unless you know for sure that everyone loves fish and/or seafood, avoid them. (It’ll keep your costs down anyway.)

4) In your dinner party invite, always include a line asking people to let you know if they have special dietary needs. Most of the time you’ll know, but it’s always good to ask.

5) Consider making the dinner a pot-luck. Usually those with the most specific needs will bring something sure to suit their own needs. (My favorite example? gluten-free girl’s potluck wedding earlier this summer.)

Making sure there’s something to fit every diet can be a challenge, but it’s so worth it to see all of your friends sitting around a table, full and happy.

If you missed your special delivery of this week’s root source on shrimp, you can find it here. (If you’re not yet subscribed, sign up here.) Learn how to order your shrimp down in Birmingham, and see recipes for shrimp bisque, Thai shrimp skewers, and my favorite, Farfalle with shrimp, asparagus and parmesan.

If, after that, you’re in the mood for more of these tasty crustaceans, take a look at recipes from some of our favorite bloggers:

Shrimp and Black Bean Salad with Cilantro, Cumin, and Lime - Kayln’s Kitchen
Shrimp with Orange Beurre Blanc - Simply Recipes
Saffron Shrimps Tajine with Confit Fennel - La Tartine Gourmande
Rasa Malaysia Omelet - Rasa Malaysia

I’m not going to lie: I’m neither a baker nor a big dessert fan. I’m usually much more focused on (and full from eating a huge serving of) the savory part of a meal to think much about dessert. (On a side note, a lot of people have asked when cookthink.com will have desserts: we’re working on it, I promise.)

That said, there are periods of weeks and months when every day about three o’clock in the afternoon I’ll crave something sweet. When it starts, I’ll stock up on stuff I feel like I haven’t been eating enough of (I know, an odd approach to sweets) — fruits, nuts, oats, good honey, whole grain crackers, etc. With these things onhand, I can toss together an afternoon snack-dessert.

Chip’s been raving so much about the batch of Simply Recipes’ spicy fig-orange jam he made that I’ve had figs on the brain all week. So today, at the three o’clock sweet hour, I made this snack: whole grain crackers topped with sliced black mission figs and crumbled pecans, drizzled with West Virginia Honey.

Today at Slate, I go on record as a terrible husband. At least marjoram gets a plug.

(Illustration by Slate’s Robert Neubecker)

I spent yesterday afternoon cooking and tasting mustard greens for next week’s root source. It was good to get some vegetables in, but when dinner time rolled around I was craving a rich meat dish.

Since Kylie Kwong was still on my mind, I turned to her again. Her soy sauce chicken — whole chicken poached in an aromatic soy broth with orange peel, star anise and cinnamon — looked like a good match for the spicy bitter greens.

The technique — barely simmering the chicken for 14 minutes, turning off the pot and letting the chicken come to room temperature (about three hours) — was new to me. I had poached a whole chicken before, but this was more a hybrid brine/poach given the salty, saucelike broth and long steeping time.

After three hours in the pot, the chicken was barely warm, succulent and loaded with flavor down to the bone. But the texture of the soft chicken skin wasn’t my favorite. Plus, I wanted to eat it hot rather than at room temperature, as Kwong recommends. To address both issues, I put the pieces onto a broiling pan and into a 500F oven for a few minutes.

The chicken came out warm and crisp but still moist. It was delicious alongside the greens with some of the hot broth ladled around.

Here’s the adapted recipe.

Over the weekend I picked up Kylie Kwong’s beautiful cookbook, Simple Chinese Cooking. Kwong keeps the list of ingredients short, but focuses on lots of taste, strong flavors and contrasting texture and temperature. The pictures are simple and provocative — they bring the recipes to life but don’t seem overstyled.

Kwong’s chapter on eggs includes six recipes using soft- or hard-boiled eggs. As I was flipping through the book yesterday, I was intrigued by something Wong wrote: “Because eggs are naturally rich, they need an intensely flavored sauce to stand up to them.”

This morning I was craving eggs, so decided to adapt Wong’s soft boiled eggs with spring onions and ginger. (I added red bell pepper to up the vegetable-protein ratio.) After the first bite, I understood what she meant by a sauce standing up to the eggs. It was the most balanced, succulent egg dish I’ve ever eaten.

Recipe: Boiled Eggs With Green Onions, Bell Pepper and Ginger