My quest for the perfect creme brulee

there are many recipes on the web, but all of them are a little different, and many make about 6 servings of creme brulee. here's what i've been using, adapted from many recipes:

• 1 1/3 cups cream
• 2 yolks
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3 tbls sugar

preheat oven to 300 degrees. whisk eggs with sugar and vanilla; gradually mix in cream until well blended.pour into 2 oval ramekins. boil a kettle of water. when ready to bake, place ramekins in large baking pan. pour boiling water around ramekins until level of water is about halfway up the ramekins. place in oven; bake for 40 minutes, or until tops are set. remove from oven and allow to cool in the water in the pan. when room temperature, cover with saran wrap and place in refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving. to serve, cover generously with white sugar and burn to a crisp with a brulee torch.

My first gratin

I was staring down yet another bunch of rainbow chard from the farm, and could not tolerate the idea of more sauteed greens with garlic. A cold front was coming in, and I wanted a casserole, but i didn't want to make tomato sauce for a lasagna. i searched smitten kitchen by vegetable tag and found this recipe for a Sweet Potato and Chard Gratin. Thanks to my creme brulee addition I had cream on hand, and all i needed to pick up was sweet potatoes and gruyere.

This turned out very well, aside from several kitchen casualties, the most dramatic of which was almost losing the tip of my pinky with a dull, cheap mandolin slicer on the sweet potatoes. (Be careful, folks! Thin slices are pretty essential, but so are digits!) I was surprised at how tasty the chard and spinach were after the time in the oven. (I added spinach since I was a little short on greens.) Splitting the recipe in half roughly yielded an overstuffed 9" square pyrex dish. I think that if you let it sit a bit longer after cooking - I just couldn't wait - the potatoes will soak up some of the liquid.

What to do with all that cabbage in your CSA share? Cole slaw.

From NPR: Cole Slaw: You Could Be a Star

The first half of the green cabbage went into the pickled cole slaw. It was crunchy and tasty. Although it used white vinegar, I will try substituting cider vinegar next. I needed to find cucumber, carrots, and red bell pepper as those were not in the share for the week.