‘Cause nobody ever made that joke before, right? Somehow, somewhere, I ate a leek and liked it. So I bought some from the grocery and cooked them.

If anybody knows what to do with the green part of leeks, I’d appreciate knowing it, because it (as my mother would have said) kills my soul to throw that much produce away. (Well, into the compost, actually, but still.)

ANYWAY, I found a recipe for “Baked Leeks with Cheese and Yogurt Topping”. I don’t keep yogurt and if I did, it would be flavored, not plain. So I — wait for it — substituted something I do keep: vegan mayonnaise.

Here’s my version of the recipe:

Baked Leeks with Cheese and Mayonnaise or Whatever

• 2 big leeks or, I guess, 4 small ones. Whatever.
• 2 small eggs or 1 large one, beaten
• feta or goat cheese (The original recipe asked for goat cheese, but what I had was Mediterranean herb feta.)
• 1/2 cup mayo or vegan mayo (or, if you have plain yogurt, that)
• Parmesan cheese, however much you want. It’s your food, you do you.
• bread crumbs (I use boxed Italian-flavored bread crumbs.)
• salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350F (176-7C). Butter a baking dish that will hold twice as many leeks as you have.

Trim the masses of green off the leeks and, unless you know what to do with the greens, discard them. Cut the white part in half lengthways and wash them WELL.

Put the leek halves into a saucepan, cover them with water, and bring the water to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer gently for 5-8 minutes, until the leeks are tender. Remove the leeks with tongs or a slotted spoon to drain off as much water as you can, and put the leeks into the buttered baking dish. The picture in the recipe had them cut side down, but I put mine cut side up so the sauce could get into the cracks, right?

Mix the beaten eggs, mayo (or yogurt), the cheeses, salt, and pepper. Pour that over the leeks, smoothing it out as much as possible.

Mix more Parmesan and some bread crumbs and sprinkle that over the sauce. I went pretty heavy on this mix, because cheese and bread, right?

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the top is crispy and brown.

Mine looked like this:

It tasted OMG.

Let me know about those leek greens.

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Write about something good discarded as trash.

MA