Broccoli rabe

Broccoli rabe is probably a new vegetable to just a handful of us but that stuff they're passing off as broccoli rabe in the grocery store is a pale, sad version of what turned up in our shares this week. Spicy, slightly bitter broccoli rabe is beloved across the Mediterranean and in China and is thought to be more closely related to an herbaceous wild turnip that found in Northern Italy than to broccoli. And the Italians have certainly taken a shine to it and leaned how to cook it up over the past thousand or so years. They really know what they're doing so I don't really stray too far from their formula: smashed garlic + broccoli rabe + red pepper flakes + olive oil + smoking hot pan + salt = deliciousness. I ask you, why bother? But I did feel proud this weekend when I took it all to a new level and stocked my freezer to boot. I threw a single sausage link in with the smashed garlic and broke it up against the sides of the pan and let that cook down until brown and crisp, then I threw in the broccoli rabe and let that all saute together for about ten minutes. When It was coolish I coarsely chopped everything up and folded it all into a batch of black pepper parmesan scones which are almost too simple to deserve a recipe but that never seems to stop me... three cups of self rising flour, cut in a whole stick of cold unsalted butter (just don't look while you're doing it and tell yourself that you're only going to eat one), one egg, a cup of butter milk, a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper and a heaping cup of coarsely shredded parmesan. I quickly folded in my broccoli rabe mixture, no over mixing here, and dropped big spoonfuls of the dough on a buttered baking pan and let them bake at 375 for thirty minutes. We did eat a couple piping hot from the over but it was really satisfying to wrap them up and pack them away in the freezer. They are like a little insurance policy against some cold, deep December evening when all I can scare up for supper are bowls of tomato soup. Made from tomatoes I hope to be canning in a few weeks. Is it worth it to go to the trouble of prepping and sauteing a bunch of greens just to bake them into scones for the freezer? I believe so. And I think on that on the cold night that those scones make it to my supper table a little bunch of greens will have become a part of something sacred.