POTATO AND GREENS HASH:

Comfort food after a not so great day . . .

1 1/2 lbs. potatoes
1 bunch chard, torn into pieces
2 to 4 cloves garlic
3 tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup spanish peanuts

Chop up potatoes and put in a saucepan with cold water to cover by an inch or so. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 mins. Add chopped greens and cook for another 5 minutes or so, until potatoes are tender but still intact; greens will be pretty much cooked by now. Drain (reserving liquid for use in a soup or stock, if you like). Chop garlic and warm in 1 tb. oil in nonstick skillet. When you can smell the garlic, add drained potatoes and greens, chopped tomatoes, and peanuts, plus salt and pepper to taste. Turn heat up to medium-high. Use a spatula to break up the potatoes a little and mix everything together, then proceed as for hash browns, allowing underside of mixture to brown, then turning mixture, and so on. Add a little more olive oil if bottom of pan seems dry. The longer you cook this mixture, the more of it will be browned and slightly crispy, so cook anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, depending on your preferences in this regard (I like browned and crispy), making sure to turn often enough to avoid burning. Serve with whatever you like, or eat it on its own.

This dish is adapted from Deborah Madison's recipe for Potatoes and Greens in "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," but the peanuts crept into it from various dishes involving peanuts and greens that derive from African cooking -- there's a great recipe from Bahia, Brazil, in Elisabeth Luard's The Latin American kitchen, for example, and there are also the "goobers and greens" dishes common in the southern US. Those recipes typically have some chili in them too, in one form or another, and that could easily be added here, too.