Kale Chips So Good You Won't Want To Share

I've been reading alot about roasting kale leaves and turning those healthy greens into something akin to a potato chip. A couple weeks ago I decided to see what all the hoopla was about and brought home a BIG bunch of curly kale from the market.

Remove the tough stems

I removed the tough stems and cut the leaves into large pieces. Then I put the leaves into my colander and gave them a good wash. I'd read that the leaves had to be absolutely dry or they would steam in the oven and that isn't what I wanted. My purpose was to create a crispy leaf that would fall apart in my mouth.

Cut the leaves into sections

I dried them well on a couple of kitchen towels, then let them sit for about 30 minutes. I used two sheet pans to roast the leaves on as they have to lay single deep or they'll not turn crispy. I set the oven for 350 degrees and when it was good and hot, I put the kale leaves into a bowl and drizzled 2 Tbs. of olive oil atop them, added a healthy sprinkle of sea salt, and gave the leaves a good toss so they all got coated. If you're not a salt lover, you could leave it off. I'm a salt lover.

Leaves ready for roasting

I roasted them for 10-15 minutes, or until I could see these faded green leaves nearly standing straight up on the sheet pans. They were so crispy they nearly fell apart when I plated them, but I didn't care and neither did the company I had invited to dinner that night.

They made a perfect accompaniment to the mushroom burgers I served as the entree. From what I thought and from what my company said, I could have served a boatload of kale chips and forgotten the mushroom burger because the chips were just that good.

Ready for eating. Ugly but delicious

There's A Vegan In The Kitchen

Kale and Fennel with White Beans

It wasn't that long ago that I didn't know what to do with kale and fennel. They seemed beyond my reach and for some very silly reason they scared me. Fennel? Licorice? In my salad? In my stir-fry? Kale, be it the very dark green kale or the purple kale I used today, well, I was just not familiar with kale.

The vegan journey has made me much more curious, much braver to try these "exotic" vegetables. And I say to you today - "What was I thinking all those years?"

If you are like me, you will find some culinary courage on-line. I went to YouTube this week and watched many cooks chop and cook fennel and kale. It helped. You have to cut out the tough core of the fennel and cut off the tough stem of the kale. You don't eat the fennel stocks but the lacy leafy part makes a nice garnish. 

With a new "If they can do it, I can do it" attitude, I invented this beautiful dish. The licorice flavor of the fennel is lost in the cooking, the toughness of kale is steamed away. The result is a beautiful plate of contrasts in color and texture. The flavors are simpatico.

1 1/2 Tablespoons chopped garlic

1 Tablespoons olive oil

2 cups chopped fennel

4 cups chopped kale
salt, pepper

1/2 cup water

Heat olive oil in a large pan, add garlic and fennel and stir until garlic and fennel are soft. Add kale. Gently stir to fold the kale into the olive oil, garlic and fennel mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1/2 cup water, put a lid on the pan and steam for 5 minutes. 

Open a can of white beans in tomato sauce. Heat through.

To serve, put a layer of stir-fry kale and fennel down on the plate.  Spoon the heated beans into the center. Garnish with fennel leaves. Serve.

What's for Breakfast?

This year, 2012, I resolve to spend more time in nature with my friends. This is a resolution I can keep.

Our first venture was Zuma Beach to Paradise Cove, a 6 mile round trip hike along the beach.  Marybeth (fellow blogger, the juicer you have read on this blog), her husband and the Iron Woman Samantha Pruitt,  (seriously, she can swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and then run 26 miles) met at my house on a Monday morning and set out together. The day was beautiful and we all felt pretty special skipping work, taking a hike on a Monday. A guilty pleasure.

                                      

Samantha had the farthest to drive, so she came on Sunday night. She knows all about our vegan blog, my food allergies (she has some too) and is on board the healthy lifestyle train. Monday morning we decided to drink our breakfast. Inspired by MaryBeth's juicing but not ready to go all in, I made a shake with green tea, chia seeds, lime juice, black kale,  banana, apple, and cucumber. 

Samantha took this picture.

Sunday night I brewed 2 cups of green tea, let it cool, added 2 tablespoons of chia seeds to the tea, shook it up and put it into the refrigerator overnight. On Monday morning, the chia seeds had expanded in the tea and were ready for the blender. To the chia seed tea I added 4 tablespoons of lime juice, 4 Kale leaves, chopped, a little at a time. That is the trick. Kale leaves blend easily if added to the liquid first, before other fruits and vegetables thicken the mix. Next I added, a little at a time: one banana, one seeded and chopped but not peeled apple, one chopped English cucumber, peel and all.

A breakfast shake can be anything. The more often you make one, the braver you will get. I love adding kale or spinach. Just looking at it makes me feel stronger. That dark green goodness, coursing through my body has me flexing my muscles like Popeye. The addition of all the fruit mutes the bitter of raw greens.

A heavy breakfast before a hike would not be a good thing. We were fortified, energized. As Samantha would say, "Whooo Hooo". It was a good start to a good day.

Tiz The Season To Be Busy; So Dinner Must Be Easy

I don't know about you, but at my house it always seems that Christmas falls on the woman in the family. Perhaps I'm wrong. But around here it was me who made the cookies and cakes, shopped for all the gifts, wrapped every package, planned Christmas dinner, shopped for all the food, then cooked all the food, decorated the tree (all but the lights, hubby put those on) and then got out a step stool to get all the good dishes down from the top cupboard where they resided most of the year.

I was the one who hollered for help to put all the leaves in the dining table, then by myself, I set the table with the good dishes I'd drug out and washed and the good silverware I'd dug out and polished and the crystal glasses I'd taken down from a top shelf and scrubbed till they sparkled. Hubby's job consisted of putting up outdoor lights and heading out on December 24th to find me a present. Oh, and putting the star on top the tree, simply because he could reach it and I couldn't.

Now I don't know how you do things, but Christmas at my house was exhausting. Even now that I'm alone, what with kids married and hubby graduated to heaven, this time of year is still busy. And while my daughter has taken over my duties and is having dinner at her house, there is still a lot for an old lady to accomplish. Gifts still need to be conjured up, purchased, and wrapped and, in some instances, mailed off to other places. Considering that I'm not a young chick any longer, the things I have to do are enough for me.

Busy as I was, I cheated on my cooking this week and will likely be cheating till after the first of the year. I can't seem to find time to create another vegan recipe and accomplish everything else I have to do. Having a few vegan cookbooks on my shelves comes in handy. Tonight I began with an offering from Everyday Happy Herbivore by Lindsay Nixon.  I love black-eyed peas, and once I saw the recipe, I looked no further. I made a couple of changes in the original recipe and next time, I'll make a few more. But just as it is, it has lots of flavor, fills the tummy, and is quick to make. I labeled it just right for those times of the year when dinner has to be fast or none at all.

CARIBBEAN PEAS AND RICE

2 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1 bunch green onions

2 celery stalks, minced

1 Tbs. minced fresh ginger

4 fresh thyme twigs (1/4 tsp. dried)

1 1/2 tsp. green Tabasco sauce

2 tsp. jerk seasoning

1 cup brown rice (I used white rice as it's faster cooking.)

2 Tbs. ketchup

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 bunch kale, chopped small

1 15 oz. can black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed

In a large saucepan, pour a layer of vegetable broth and saute the onions, celery, garlic, ginger, thyme, hot sauce, and 1 tsp. of the jerk seasoning. Cook over high heat until the celery is soft. About 3 minutes. 

Add the remaining jerk seasoning and stir to coat. Stir in the black-eyed peas. Cover and move the pot to a back burner to simmer and let the spices meld. Do not let the pan go dry. Add more broth or water as needed to retain moisture but not to drown. In all, you'll likely use about 1/2 cup of the broth.

In a small saucepan put:

2 cups of vegetable broth, the ketchup, and turmeric. Stir to combine.

Add the rice. Bring to a boil and cover. Turn heat down to very low and ignore it for 20 minutes. (If you use brown rice, cook for 45 min.)

About 10 minutes before serving, add the kale to the black-eyed pea mixture. Cover and cook till the kale is wilted.

To serve, place big serving of rice on a plate and top with the black-eyed pea/kale mixture. Sprinkle with some green onion tops if desired.

I used Swiss chard instead of kale because the chard looked fresher. Any green would work. Your preference.

The fresh ginger was too strong for my palette. Next time I'll cut it by half.

Jerk seasoning is available in the grocery store's spice aisle. Buy it and make your life easy. Otherwise you'll be mixing this and that and twelve other spices together to get what someone has already bottled up.

Dinner was on the table in about 30 minutes. Can't beat that for a busy day.

This Christmas season, share your table with someone less fortunate than you. I don't remember a holiday as a child growing up when there were not strangers at our table. Sometimes it was a teacher who was alone or a couple from our church who had no one and once we moved to CA, there were always two or three marines who were far from home who ate with us and thanked my parents over and over for allowing them to be part of a family on Christmas Day.

Caldo Verde--I Did It My Way...

You've heard me say it a dozen times: I hate cooking. I read recently that those who hate to cook are always bad cooks. No one should make blanket statements like that because the blankets are never big enough to cover everyone. Just because I find cooking to be boring, time consuming, and about as much fun as falling down four flights of stairs doesn't mean I can't do it. Truth is, I'm a really good cook. I just don't think it's fun.

With Christmas on the horizon, I've been sitting in my chair knitting up a storm. That's what you  do when you're a senior citizen on social security. Keeping those needles flying leaves me little time to cook--as if I'd spend any time on it anyway. Because it's easy for me to knit and listen to television at the same time, I've got my channel set to the cooking shows. Truth is, I learn something new nearly every day without having to pay too much attention to what's actually going on. At least once a day, I hear one chef or another say that in order for food to taste good, it has to be made with love. I don't think I've ever put love into anything I've ever cooked. In fact I know I haven't. Well, maybe popcorn on the stove. The old time kind with melted butter. But that's another story.

I came across today's recipe in a vegan cookbook. It was called Caldo Verde. As I understand it, that translates into green broth. So I followed the recipe. Personally, I thought it looked boring. I also thought it tasted boring. Now my rule is if I'm gonna spend time cooking, the end result jolly well better taste marvelous. So I went to work on the Caldo Verde and when I finished fixing it, the aroma filled the house with such a tantalizing expectation of something good that the two guests I'd invited for dinner came snooping into the kitchen to see what was cooking.

"It's soup," I told them. "It used to be boring but I fixed it." They know me so they understood what I meant. I took the hot garlic bread from the oven, dished up steaming bowls of my version of Caldo Verde and we all declared it a winner. Now I have a reason for telling you this story. I want you to know that even if you find cooking a necessary drudgery, that doesn't mean you have to be a bad cook. And if anyone suggests that you should put more love into your food, look them in the eye and tell them the only love you feel toward food is the eating part. I can't tell you how many guests I've served in my many years of living who have eaten my food and said to me, "I thought you didn't like to cook. This was delicious."

I don't know who made up the rule that someone has to like doing something in order to do it well. Whoever it was, they lied.

No more nutritional yeast; used real Parm
to show what the finished dish looks like.

Caldo Verde 

Into your soup pot put:

2 Tbs. olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

4 medium potatoes, cut into small bites

1/2 cup celery, sliced small

1 tsp. marjoram

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper or to taste

Cook until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes

Add:

1 15.5 oz cooked cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (I used canned)

4 cups vegetable stock

4 cups water

1/2 cup dry white wine

Bring the soup to a boil then turn the heat to low, cover the pot and let the soup simmer about an hour, stirring every now and then.

Approximately 15 minutes before serving add:

1/2 cup tempeh that's been cut into small pieces

1 bunch of kale, washed and chopped

Turn the heat to medium and allow the soup to simmer 10-15 minutes. If desired, individual servings can be sprinkled with a bit of nutritional yeast to add a sort of Parmesan cheese taste to the soup.

This recipe serves 4-6, depending on whether it is used as a main course or a side. Any leftovers are even better the next day.

Barley & Greens

I was leaving town in a few days and when I looked into the fridge, to make my hungry man a meal. He had generously offered to bake a frozen pizza for us, but I thought, "let's have a look at what is available and fresh first. Oh, my washed kale will go bad if I don't fix it tonight.
What else? Gee. I never tried cooking barley..here's a recipe on line for barley, mushroom risotto. Okay! An hour and a half later I had this lovely fragrant plate pictured above.

My husband didn't think so. He ate in silence, practically turning his body away from me. He said the meal tasted bland. I knew he was losing patience with my vegan cooking, but I tried my best. It was still a hot healthy meal. After dinner, at 8:30 he was going to bed. I followed to offer him dessert, saying "Shall I tuck you in?" This is code for, well you know. Right then his wrath unleashed. "I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow! You made me wait hours when I was hungry! I don't even like vegan food! I just wanted eat my pizza!" Point taken. Don't try to push your healthy lifestyle changes too fast on your family members. Once you lose their trust, they will resist any further attempts to win them over.

I wish I had made that recipe first for my self, and tasted it before giving it to my husband. I wouldn't call the barley mushroom risotto too bland. It is creamy and nutty, like oatmeal is subtle but filling and satisfying. I was disappointed with adding canned corn to the kale. It was OK, but there wasn't a good balance with the intense spinach-like flavor of the greens against the candy crunch of the corn. I fried some onion and added a clove of minced garlic right before I splashed a cup of vegetable broth into the pan. Then I added the clean chopped bunch kale and cooked it down. I added the can of corn as an after thought because I liked the color and brightness against the greens.

Mushroom Barley Risotto
2 table tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup uncooked barley
salt to taste

Saute mushrooms for about 5 minutes. Then add the rest of ingredients and simmer for 50 min. Please check the packaged barley directions carefully for the exact proportion and cooking time. The above recipe is from memory, but I followed the package, and was happy with the result. I might even serve it again to my husband when he is in a better mood!

Farm House Soup--White Bean, Kale, & Sausage

I loved growing up on the Minnesota plains. WWII was finally over, rationing ceased to exist, and while I'm sure my parents dealt with the headaches of the day, a kid no worries. It was a time when I could walk by myself at night, ride my bike out to the woods, or sit by the river and read. My sisters and I knew no fear. How I wish it were like that today--if only for my grandkids sake.

I love homemade soup. Any kind. For some reason I can't explain, they all remind me of my farm country childhood. Just a whiff of their steamy goodness and an image of our family dining room with its ponderous claw-foot table flashes across my mind. Sub-conscious memories, I suppose. 

My mom made soups in the winter; I make them any season. Sometimes I serve soup with biscuits or garlic toast or cornbread. Once in a blue moon, I indulge myself with popovers. Popovers are my favorite, but off the books now that my new doctor says I have to be vegan for my health's sake. If I wasn't past 70, I'd suck my thumb.

Because our crazy Southern California weather can't make up its mind as to which season we're supposed to be in, there came a dark, rainy June day when my soup cravings came out of hibernation. Someplace in the back of my mind came a whispered word. "Soup." The whispers played their song for half a day, like one of those tunes you hear someplace and then can't get out of your head.

I finally convinced myself that the only way to get rid of the continued nagging was to give in. So I dug out my big blue soup pot and got to work. I dug around in the refrigerator, scoured the pantry, and invaded the spice cupboard. I pulled this and that and the other things, just as I'd watched mom do for the first sixteen years of my life. How could I have known what a tantalizing creation was about to be born?

White Bean, Kale & Sausage Soup

 2 cans of great northern beans, rinsed

1 Tbsp. oil

2 small onions, chopped

5 garlic cloves, minced

4 celery stalks, diced

Cook the vegetables together until the onions and celery are semi-tender. Then add to the pot:

1/2 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. basil

2 large bay leaves, or 3 small ones

1 large can of diced tomatos with its juice

Simmer all ingredients together so the spices work through everything in the soup pot.

Now add:

6 cups vegetable stock (more flavor than broth)

1 pound fresh kale, white stems removed, and the leaves chopped

Cover the pot and simmer for about 45 minutes. Just before serving, add 2 tofu Italian sausages, cut in bite size pieces. Cook another 5 minutes to bring the sausages to temperature.

_____________________________________________________________

I like the kale thoroughly wilted, so I cooked the soup on a back burner for about an hour. If you like your kale more toward the chewy side, add it to the pot about 10 minutes before you plan to eat.

For such few ingredients, I was shocked at the many layers of flavor this soup had. I suspect it was from the long simmering time but I'm not sure. What I do know is that no matter what you serve this with, it will be a winner all around. My two guests even went back for seconds. Is that a compliment or what? Mom would be proud.

Copyright 2011 by Sandra L Keith, All rights reserved
Beginning photo is courtesy of MS Clip Art
Soup photo is the property of the owner and may not be reproduced

Stuffed

We're busy here. The Spring and Summer months bring on new energy. The sun is with us longer and longer. Even in the land of fruits and nuts, where the weather is not so dramatic, we feel this energy. Schools out, everyone is cleaning and sorting and rearranging. I'm exercising and planting and daydreaming a little. 

I think I'll make a stuffed peppers today. What should I stuff them with? "Beef." they cry. Oh they think they are sooooo funny. I'm thinking rice and black beans. It will be a 'make-it-up' conglomeration that after years of cooking just sounds good. Not crazy and exotic. A bit Mediterranean.

I cut the tops off two red bell peppers, being dramatic with the cutting pattern so I can get the tops back on like fitting a puzzle together, de-seed them and put them in a pot of water to boil for a bit. This will soften them up before stuffing and baking. Meanwhile I mix together:

1/2 cup cooked brown rice

1/2 cup black beans from a can

1/4 cup black olives

in a small fry pan I saute together

2 tbls diced onion

2 tbls diced celery and leaves

1/4 cup chopped tomato

and mix that with the rice, beans and olives

Then I headed out to the garden to find a little basil.  See that little white marker. It says Basil. But there is NO basil. Oh dear. I picked a little cilantro instead and added about 2 tbls fresh cilantro to the mix.

The peppers were soft. I stood them up in an oiled bread pan. I could have fit three.

I gently filled the cavities with the rice and bean mixture and put on their caps. Then I baked them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

While they were baking I harvested some baby Swiss chard and baby kale.

I washed it up and drained it a little. Into a frying pan I splashed about 2 Tbls olive oil, a Tbls of chopped garlic and 2 Tbls chopped onion and all of the chard and spinach with water dripping from them. 

They barely fit in the pan at first, but they cook down quickly. The clinging water helps to steam them.

Miss M (5 years old and already a budding cook) made a salad of strawberries, tomatoes, mint leaves and baby chard leaves. Yum. I rolled a mint leaf around a tomato and must say, it was a treat.

All together, the stuffed pepper, the greens, the salad and an avocado, it's a complete meal.

Now, I'm the one who's stuffed.