Kale's Not Lettuce

My friend Melissa is definitely a foodie, with years of experience in the restaurant business and a passion for good food. Among her many food adventures, she also has a food blog called That's Not Lettuce. This would have been great for me to remember a couple days ago when we brought home our kale, because that leafy delight was her topic that day! In her post she discussed kale's relationship to various members of the animal kingdom, and how to make it into a yummy snack.

Here is how she made Kale Chips:

All you do is toss the kale with a little olive oil and sea salt, lay it on a cookie sheet and bake it in an oven preheated to 350° for about 10 minutes. Don’t crowd it. It will steam instead of bake if you do. Be careful, it will burn, but you also don’t want to pull it out too early, or it will be too chewy. I had a blast trying different spices and salts on it. My favorite was a little bit of smoked paprika.

Ben and I used up the kale we got from Green Grocer, but Melissa's post has inspired me to perhaps purchase some more and try making some of these kale chips to take with us on our upcoming road trip.

Sauteed Kale and Leeks over Rice

Ben and I came home last night, our first lot of subscription produce in hand, wondering what to do for dinner. We were both ravenous, so the idea of investing time and effort into our food before getting to the eating part wasn't a fun one. I start Googling. I discovered Colcannon, a traditional Irish dish that incorporates kale and leeks with potatoes (which we still have in abundance). It looked interesting, but it wasn't quick and easy enough for our voracious hunger.

I begin to think. I figure, kale is kind of like chard, right? A couple months ago, Ben brought home some chard which was delicious when sauteed. And leeks are just like giant green onions; that seems like something you could sauté too. I thought this just might be the kind of easy we were looking for. Searching for guidance I found this recipe. 

Here's how I did it:

• Following the linked recipe, I omitted the onions and garlic and substituted the sliced white and light green parts of 3 leeks. This was sauteed with the chopped bunch of kale (about 4 big leaves) in olive oil over medium heat for just over a minute.
• For the steaming part, I opted to use 1/2 a cup of water rather than veggie broth; and only had it covered for barely 4 minutes.
• Then we drained the kale and put it in a bowl, tossed it with 1 capful of lemon juice (maybe 1/2 a teaspoon?) and lightly seasoned it with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Ben had the foresight to put some rice in the cooker while we were messing about with all that. The kale, cooked down and served out over rice, made just two servings. Perfect. Ben gave his a few drops of Sriracha, which worked well, but I think the flavor of everything stands up great on its own too.

Simple, quick, yummy, and healthy. I count this as our first produce subscription success.

First Veggie Box

Yesterday Ben and I walked over and picked up our very first veggie box from Chicago's Green Grocer at Grand & Noble. I love that place! They are pretty expensive, but have a great selection of local and vegan items, not to mention right in our neighborhood. And I don't think you can beat their veggie subscription price of $15/week.

This is what we got; all are organic except for the blueberries, which are IPM (integrated pest management).

• Red kale (City Farm)
• Leeks (City Farm)
• Parsley (City Farm)
• Cucumbers (Genesis Growers)
• Double Blueberries (Seedling)

I'm planning on using the cucumbers and parsley with tabbouleh and hummus. I'll be using the blueberries for vegan muffins to take on our road trip this weekend (provided Ben doesn't eat them all first!). The leeks and the kale seemed like more of a mystery to me, but we figured it all out. More on that in the next post!

Beer Braised Potatoes

Recently a neighbor gave us some of their extra food: a whole lot of canned veggies, and 10lbs of potatoes. That seemed like a lot of potatoes for the two of us. So I figured we'd better get started going through them. I started flipping through the potato section of Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything". Most of the yummy soups were dairy based and I wasn't in the mood to experiment with a substitute. I think we were all out of soy-milk anyway. In fact, we were out of most things. The only other veggie sitting around was a lone yellow onion.

The recipe for 'Braised Potatoes' seemed simple enough though, and only called for things I had in the kitchen. I didn't know what braised meant before I read the recipe. But, assuming I did it right, this 'braising' thing was pretty delicious. It came out like a kind of thick potato stew.

This is how I did it:

Ingredients: Olive Oil, Potatoes, Onion, Veggie Broth, Beer, Salt, Pepper.

• Scrub and peel your potatoes (I used 6 small-medium all purpose potatoes), and chop them into small-medium chunks. Dice your onion (I used 1 medium onion)
• Heat 3 Tablespoons olive oil over medium heat.Add the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and cook until golden, stirring regularly. (This took a lot longer than I expected, around 10 minutes)
• Add the onion, stir and cook til soft (I think this took me 2 minutes?)
• Add 1 can of veggie broth, and then add beer until the potatoes are covered in liquid. (I ended up using half a bottle of Rogue Dead Guy, Ben drank the other half)
•  Simmer for 20-25 minuted uncovered (I let it go for 30 minutes, it didn't look quite right until then)

We served it hot, garnished it with Bacon Bits (they're vegan, surprise!), and ate it while watching Murder on the Orient Express.