Throwing Things in a Bowl

“I don’t really know how this is going to turn out.”

That is a phrase that is heard rather frequently in my kitchen. Being a CSA member has helped boost my confidence in the kitchen when it comes to improvising. And I’ve also learned that vegetables that ripen at the same time, in the same soil, do tend to taste good together. Even so, it is usually with no small amount of trepidation that I translate, “Hm, what if I made tabbouleh with kale?” from passing fancy into lunch.

Usually, the process begins with perusing my cookbooks & googling the idea in question to see if I am treading new (scary but interesting) ground, or if others have provided a roadmap of sorts. And usually, it turns out that my ideas are not terribly original. Every vegetable-loving blogger, food writer, and cookbook author worth her salt has already been there and done that. Especially when kale is involved.

So I poke around, confirm that I’m on the right track, get some hints as to ratios. . . and then I ditch all those recipes and start throwing things in a bowl. This sort of meal doesn’t usually wind up being photographed, because my assumption is so often that it will not be worth even putting on a plate, let alone sharing with the world at large. But sometimes I get lucky, and discover that oh my goodness, kale tabbouleh is quite good! The brightness of the parsley sort of shines over the earthy kale, and the contrasting textures of the cooked & raw greens are really nice. The cucumber is wonderfully crunchy against the chewy bulgur and squishy tomatoes. I do recommend eating this rather soon after it’s made, because the cucumber gets a little funny if too much time goes by. Not inedible funny, just not quite as crisp, as it absorbs the lemon & olive oil.

Kale Tabbouleh

serves 4 or so, as a side salad

1/2 c medium bulgur

1 c vegetable stock (or water)

1 large bunch of kale, stems removed

1/2 bunch of parsley (at least 1/2 c)

1 small tomato

1/2 small red onion

1/2 cucumber

2-3 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 lemon

Put the stock (or water) and the bulgur in a small pot together, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low, cover, and simmer until it’s tender, 15-20 minutes. (Alternately, cook according to the package’s instructions.) Dump it into a strainer and rinse with cool water. Transfer to a large bowl.

Bring another pot of water to a boil. Salt it generously, and add the kale leaves. Cook for just a minute or so, then strain them, too, and rinse in cold water. Chop the pieces pretty finely, and add them to the bulgur. Squeeze in the lemon and add the olive oil. 

Chop the parsley (leaves & thin stems only). Dice the tomato and the onion. Cut the cucumber lengthwise, remove the seeds, and dice it. Add all of these things to the bowl and stir. Add salt & pepper to taste. Best eaten the same day.

Improv Night

Q: After your pizza party, what can be made with the leftover tomato sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, and caramelized onions, that also uses up some kale and winter squash?

A: Lasagne.

As I may have mentioned in the past, my mom makes fantastic lasagne. (Family tradition holds that it’s the best we’ve ever tasted, every time.) It’s a pretty traditional version, with tomato sauce, ground beef, a little sausage, and a lot of shredded mozzarella and ricotta. I’ve never attempted to make her recipe, mostly because my instinct is that it would not live up to the standard. So instead I’ve learned to make vegetarian lasagne. Usually it’s with Swiss chard and roasted eggplant (a Deborah Madison recipe, of course), but that’s not what was in the fridge this week. So I decided to be brave and wing it. 

First, I blanched and chopped some kale (stems removed). Then, I mixed that up with the ricotta, an egg, and the caramelized onions. 

I bought some sheets of fresh pasta at my favorite Italian market, which were about as wide as my baking dish, and quite a bit longer. I trimmed them to be the right size before parboiling for a minute, only to be reminded that things get bigger when they’ve absorbed some water. So my pasta sheets wound up a bit too big; I decided not to care.

The order of the layers doesn’t really matter, I don’t think. I started with a little tomato sauce in the bottom of the dish, because that’s how mom does it. Then a layer of pasta, followed by some of the kale/ricotta mixture.

Next, some roasted squash (acorn) mashed up with chopped fresh sage. 

Then thin slices of fresh mozzarella, a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce, and a generous handful of grated parmesan. Repeat, with three layers of filling sandwiched between 4 layers of noodle. Top the last pasta layer with tomato sauce and parmesan, then cover with foil and bake.

Let it be said that I don’t actually recommend making this dish unless you have several of the elements already on hand. It would be preposterous to make a batch of tomato sauce just for this occasion, or to caramelize onions (which takes a good hour to do it properly). And then there’s the kale-blanching and squash-roasting. But damn, I do love lasagne. And when you have a sort of random day off from work, is there really a better thing to do than to linger in the kitchen and cook up a dish of it in a very leisurely fashion? C. and I enjoyed it greatly, with some sage-garlic bread, followed by almost-the-last pink peppercorn ice cream.

Kale and Winter Squash Lasagne

4 sheets of fresh pasta, or 12 individual lasagne noodles
2 c tomato sauce
1-1 1/2 c ricotta
1/2 lb mozzarella (fresh is awesome, but dried and grated works just as well)
1 egg
1 lb kale
1/4 c caramelized onions
2 acorn squash, roasted
grated parmesan
fresh sage
salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 400F.
Parboil the pasta and put in a bowl of cool water to hold while you get the rest of the elements together. (Or, alternately, use no-boil lasagne, which is practically all you can find these days anyway.)
Remove the stems from the kale and blanch the leaves in salted water. Drain and chop coarsely. Mix together with the ricotta, egg, and onions. Season with salt & pepper.
Chop up the sage finely and mix it up with the roasted squash.
If using fresh mozzarella, slice it as thin as you can.
Pour a bit of tomato sauce in the bottom of your (9″ x 12″) lasagne pan. Add a layer of noodles, followed by layers of the kale/ricotta, the squash mixture, the mozzarella, more tomato sauce, and a handful of grated parmesan. Slap on another noodle layer, squish it down a little to get out any air, and repeat the layers. And again. On top of the final layer of pasta, pour the last of the tomato sauce and some more grated parmesan.
Cover with tin foil (tented, if you can, so the sauce and cheese don’t just stick to it) and bake for 35-45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 15 minutes.
Serve, traditionally, with garlic bread.

Pre-Thanksgiving

I took off the whole of Thanksgiving week, partly as a birthday present to myself and partly to avoid having to travel on Wednesday. One side effect of this plan was making dinner for a bunch of family friends at my mom’s house on Tuesday evening. The menu:

*pecan-crusted catfish filets
*roasted beet salad with goat cheese and caramelized shallots, with a fall-themed dijon vinaigrette (made with apple cider vinegar and maple syrup)
*colcannon, very loosely adapted from this recipe
*Fish Market apple pie, aka my birthday pie (apple cider crust, sour cream-based filling)

I hesitated for about a second and a half when deciding to make the colcannon, because I know potatoes were bound to feature heavily on everyone’s plates on Thursday, but I figured this would be a good chance to make a non-traditional mashed potato dish (not traditionally American, that is).

The first step is to cut the stems off the kale and boil it in salted water, just until it’s tender, 5-10 minutes depending on the age of your kale.

Drain it, chop it roughly, and set it aside.

Then cut up the potatoes and boil THEM in salted water (you can peel them if you like, but I prefer not to).

While they are cooking, chop up a few shallots

and saute them in a good amount of butter. When they have started to brown a little, add some milk/cream/half & half/sour cream/dairy of your choice, and also the kale. Season with some dill, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

When the potatoes are mashable texture, drain them and then toss them back in the pot. Add in the kale/shallot mixture and mash it all up until it’s the consistency you like.

It probably won’t be super creamy, but I think that’s for the best.

Fast Food

What I really wanted to make tonight was this mashed potato recipe from Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen that’s got mustard seed and hot peppers and coconut flakes and sounds fantastic. But what it does not sound like is a complete meal, and I did not have the energy to make TWO dishes. So instead I turned to Deborah Madison once again, for her Indian-Style Saute of Cauliflower and Greens. The greens I had were kale and the greens from the actual cauliflower (they are edible, which I should have known intuitively but had to be told about on somebody else’s blog) so I altered the recipe by boiling them a bit ahead of time. (The original calls for spinach and watercress, which just need to be wilted when they’re added into the rest of the already-hot dish.)

In any case, you need some potatoes, and some cauliflower, and an onion, and a bit of carrot.

The onion gets sliced thin and sort of caramelized in ghee (or clarified butter).

The potatoes get peeled, diced, and steamed or boiled until tender.

The greens, if you’re not using something like spinach, should be cooked sort of al dente.

The cauliflower gets quartered and sliced thin, which is not how I’d usually cut it up. Brown it in more ghee/butter–

and then add in the caramelied onions and some garlic, as well as turmeric, cumin, coriander, and mustard seeds.

Chop up the greens, grate the carrot–

and then add them into the pan, too, with some salt and water (the cooking water from the greens works perfectly).

Cover it and let it cook until the greens are cooked through and most of the water has cooked off. Then finish it off with lime juice and fresh cilantro.

I was surprised by how NOT overwhelming the spices were in this dish. That seems like an odd comment to make–and I don’t mean it in a bad way–but it was my immediate reaction. My second reaction was, “Did I really just make this dish in less than an hour?” In the future, though, I think I’ll go with spinach for this one. I think there was too much brassica in one pot this time.

Beans, Beans, They’re Good for the Soup

Several years ago, I took a greenmarket cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education here in New York. The class met at the Union Square greenmarket and basically just bought what looked interesting, what was in season, what we’d never tried before. Then we brought it all back to the kitchens and made a big lunch. One of the things we made (it was July) was this vegan corn chowder with cranberry beans and some kind of leafy green. This is not that chowder. But it is a soup, with cranberry beans (I think) and potatoes and a leafy green (kale).

Here are the aforementioned beans. They’re quite pretty, although I am always sad that cranberry beans lose their beautiful speckles when you cook them. They look like they might have been the inspiration for certain flavors of Jelly Bellies.

Here they are en masse (they didn’t need to go in the pot yet, I just liked the way they looked).

I am told that recently dried beans (as opposed to beans that have been sitting in the supermarket for months on end) do not really need to be soaked, and will only take an hour or so to cook. This recipe assumes that starting point.

So after rinsing the beans and tossing away the few that had (sadly) gotten a bit moldy while the pods were drying, heat some oil in a big pot.

Add some onion and saute until it starts to brown, then add the beans. Cover with a few cups of water, enough so there’s at least an inch or two on top of the beans, and bring to a simmer. Cook for maybe 45 minutes, adding whatever herbs you think will work–I tossed in a bay leaf, a few sprigs of summer savory, and a few inches of fresh rosemary (yay windowbox!). Add more water as needed if it starts to get low.

After about 45 minutes, check on the beans. They should be starting to get soft, but not fully tender yet. Add in some diced potatoes, and more water if necessary, and a bunch of salt. Give it another 10-15 minutes, and then check on both the beans and the potatoes. They should both be just about the right texture for eating, at which point you dump in a couple of big handfuls of leafy greens (stems removed).

Stir it all up, taste for salt, crank in some pepper, and call it a day. Oh, and you might want to remove the bay leaf and the stems from the other herbs if you happen to think of it…

It should be noted that although these recently dried beans did not require soaking, it was maybe not the smartest thing to assume I’d be having soup for dinner. It turned out that I got hungry before it was ready, and had an omelet instead (cheddar and apple). But it has been a great lunch all week.

Maybe when it’s corn season again I’ll try to reconstruct the chowder from that ICE class…

A Study in Contrasts

I went on an Italian kick this week. First I found this recipe for Zucca Gialla in Agrodolce (sweet and sour pumpkin, Sicilian style) on Pinch My Salt that I just had to try out with my carnival squash.

Then I was perusing my copy of The Italian Country Table, drooling over pretty much the entire vegetable section (I have cauliflower and basil! I have carrots and sage! I have potatoes and rosemary and mint!), and I found one for Melting Tuscan Kale. It is not, strictly speaking, all that different from some other kale recipes I’ve seen and tried, other than having the Lynne Rossetto Kasper imprimatur. I have learned this year that, while some vegetables are endlessly mutable, and can be served boiled, grilled, roasted, sauteed, braised, steamed, breaded, or raw, others not so much. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Dan Barber’s kale chips were surprising and delicious. And if I’d had kale on hand when I made mole, it would have worked beautifully in that dish. But when it comes down to it, if you’re going to feature kale on a dinner plate, not just as one ingredient in a stew (or a kooky vegan snack), you don’t have as many options as you do with, say, winter squash.

Case in point: Tuesday night’s dinner.

I actually followed the recipe for the kale to the letter, though it was not complex or unfamiliar. And for various reasons, I neglected to photograph the process aside from the sink-full of kale leaves here.

The process goes something like this: heat some olive oil, cook some onion in it, add the chopped kale leaves, minced garlic, and salt. Stir until wilted, add 1/2 cup water at a time, letting each 1/2-cup-full cook off before adding the next (kind of like risotto that way). After 1 1/2 cups of water and about 30 minutes, you’re done. The gradual addition of the water was new to me, but the results were rather similar to other kale (and collards, and chard) I’ve done.

Now for a contrasting picture, take this carnival squash, so cutely leaning on each other.

Carnival squash, for the record, are marginally easier to peel than acorn squash, but I would still recommend a different variety if peeling is in your future. Delicata, butternut, anything with less ridges. These would probably have been better suited to stuffing and roasting. But anyway, peel them I did, and scoop out the seeds and membranes, and then slice into 1/4″ thick half-moons.

Then they get tossed with some olive oil and minced garlic as you heat up your grill (pan).

It should be noted that although regular olive oil has a remarkably higher smoke point than extra virgin, it does still smoke if you are using high enough heat. It should also be noted that my smoke detector is in working order.

Grill a few minutes on each side, basically long enough to leave grill marks and so the squash is tender. Then mix equal parts sugar and red wine vinegar in a little pot, pour in the leftover olive oil and garlic from the bowl the squash was in, and simmer it until it reduces into a slightly syrupy dressing. Pour it over your squash and garnish with mint and parsley.

It was so pretty I took two pictures.

Maybe it’s just my lack of imagination as a cook, but it had never occurred to me before to grill winter squash. Grilling is a summer technique. Winter squash is obviously not a summer ingredient. The two things would never encounter each other in the wild, like penguins and polar bears. And yet, they get along beautifully (unlike, I suspect, penguins and polar bears). And since one can grill on a cast iron pan all year round (and better in the winter, in fact, if your kitchen heats up as easily as mine does), I think this is a technique I’m likely to revisit.

I am half tempted to see what happens if you grill kale. Probably worse than the time my friend R. grilled slices of watermelon.

Lunchbox Food

Years ago, Amanda Hesser devoted a column of the (old format) food section of the New York Times Magazine to an airplane-appropriate menu that was still Hesser-approved. It was a little fussy for me, if I recall, but I DO recall is the point.

Even more years ago, there was a scene in Hannibal where Lecter is on a plane, and he has carefully packed his own carefully composed meal because airplane food is clearly not going to cut it for someone with his palate, and then he winds up sitting next to some little brat who, like, sneezes all over it or something and he gives him the whole thing. (Don’t worry, he hadn’t prepared soylent green for himself or anything. It was probably a comte and some foie gras or something.)

Here is what I think about eating when you’re traveling: do it as often as possible, and lower your standards. I don’t mean once you’ve reached your destination, just while you’re on the plane/train/automobile. If you have ever found yourself stuck on a stalled Amtrak train between New Haven and Bridgeport, or forced to spend the night in Rome’s Fiumicino airport, you understand the importance of NOT being hungry for those hours of imprisonment. And if that means resigning yourself to a crappy sandwich from Au Bon Pain for dinner, then so be it. And have a cookie while you’re at it. And a bag of mixed nuts. Avoid the microwaved pizza on Amtrak if you can, though.

My point is that while I like the idea of packing myself a little lunch when I’m about to board a plane, it’s just not going to happen. There are other things I need to worry about, like making sure my passport isn’t going to expire before I get back into the country and that I didn’t forget my Zyrtec. There will be food available somewhere, it will be crappy, and I will buy it and eat it. I will be marginally cranky because it was mediocre but not unmanageably grumpy because I’m starving and passed up my last chance for 2,000 miles to acquire sustenance. Lesser of two evils.

That said: I work in midtown, which is the land of inedible cafeterias and $12 lunch specials. $12 is not a bad deal for a sitdown lunch with table service, but one cannot do that every day when one is keeping an eye on one’s bank account. Plus I have all these vegetables in my fridge that need to be cooked. And it turns out that the requirements for a decent make-your-own airplane meal are about the same as for a brown bag lunch. (Although my lunchbag is an insulated fabric one from Cascade Lemonade‘s shop on Etsy.)

And so (longest recipe intro ever) we turn to Orangette’s Kale and Cheddar Frittata with French-Style Carrot Salad. And what a coincidence! I have kale, I have carrots. I have a shallot. I was strangely out of cheddar (?!) but that was rectified easily enough.

First the salad. Carrots, Cuisinart, grating disc…

…and voila! Dress with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and a little minced garlic.

And then we move on to the main dish. Cut the stems out of the kale and slice the leaves into ribbons.

Cook the minced shallot in olive oil for a few minutes, just until it’s soft.

Add the kale, with a little more olive oil and some salt. Stir it all up, and then cover and let cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally

until it’s all properly wilty and cooked through.

While that’s taking care of itself, beat up some eggs.

Grate in some cheddar, and then mix in the kale/shallot mixture. (A large ball whisk is much better for this sort of thing than the little whisk I usually use–thanks, J., for that.)

Pour the eggy mixture back in the skillet and cook over very low heat until it’s nearly cooked through.

Finish it off under the broiler.

Orangette notes that this is a very thin frittata, and indeed it is much thinner than the ones I usually make. But she also claims that it serves 2 people for dinner, and even I was not hungry enough for an entire half. So we got lunch at work the next day, plus an extra serving in the fridge to boot.

Maybe if I hadn’t had the English muffin alongside? But what are eggs without an English muffin? Isn’t that why we eat eggs?

Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to

A while ago I went on something of a rant about people insisting that they like fake low-fat low-cal versions of things when it is impossible to do so if you have a functioning sense of taste. That said, I am not one to force food down someone’s throat just because I think she’s crazy. And I seem to have a fair number of friends who strongly dislike mayonnaise (and are exceedingly vocal about that dislike). So I submit, for your and their approval, Wilted Kale and Roasted Potato Winter Salad from Gourmet. Although it’s made of fall/winter vegetables (and the author of the recipe even calls it a “winter salad”), it would make an excellent potato salad for the picnic of your choice. And there is not a hint of mayo.

Just cut the potatoes roughly into 1″ cubes and roast in olive oil with salt & pepper.

After 10 minutes, throw in some slivered garlic and roast some more.

Let another 10 minutes go by and sprinkle in some grated parmesan and roast for 5 minutes. While the potatoes are still hot, toss them with the kale (stems removed, sliced into very thin ribbons).

Mix in the tahini-lemon dressing, and you’re good to go.

The note on Epicurious says that this serves 4 as a main course, but I would advise you not go that route. Not because it isn’t entree-worthy, but because it is VERY rich, and even I couldn’t eat a plateful of it.

I Love My Leafy Greens

I have eaten at Blue Hill, the one near Washington Square Park. Once. I’m not sure it’s ever likely to happen again. Nor am I sure if I’ll ever make it to the one at Stone Barns. I dream about it.

But lucky for me, Dan Barber on occasion publishes some of his recipes. Like this one, for kale chips, in Bon Appetit. And hey, didn’t I get kale this week?

So here’s what you do: cut the stems off the leaves of kale. wash them and get them as dry as you can, then toss with a little olive oil and salt.

Then lay them out, in one layer, on a baking sheet (or three) and stick ’em in a 250F oven for half an hour.

That’s it. Super easy, super healthy, and absolutely delicious.

They’re kind of flaky, and thinner than something like potato chips, but so, so good.