Category Archives: Fall

With Every Beet of My Heart

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in Fall, Miscellany, Red, Roots and Tubers, Spring, Winter

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Confession time: I’m a convert.

Red BeetIf you can believe it (I can’t), I once said (on this very blog!) and I quote: “Some raw food types grate them into obscurity or juice them in order to eat them, but I don’t recommend it. ”

Ah, the ignorance of youth! Or at least the fears of a beet newbie. You know what’s awesome? You know what is possibly the greatest salad in the history of salads?

Raw Beet Salad.

Raw.

DSCF8560

Bloody.

grated beetsRed.

Cut beetrootBeets.beetroot closeupI know! I astound even myself. Or, rather, Mark Bittman does.

Red beets are indeed bloody and gory (and, not to be too déclassé, but seriously – put a note in the bathroom that you ate beets yesterday. Seriously. Especially if you have kids. You’ll think someone’s hemorrhaging. Everyone thinks someone’s hemorrhaging the first time you eat a lot of beets. If you’re pregnant? Forget about it. You’ll be on the way to the emergency room before you remember that you’re only chock-full of vitamins, or, ahem, no longer quite so chock full of vitamins). But the redder they are, the sweeter they are, and though I used to prefer Golden Beets and I still think Candy Cane Beets are just the cutest, if you’re going raw, you’ve got to go red, baby.

DSCF8566This isn’t just because of the taste, though it’s mostly that. The other reason you should go for the red beets (or beetroot if you’re British) is that the other kinds change color really darn quickly. We’ve tried the below salad with golden beets, and they turn greenish-mud and look kind of like a bowl of vomit. The white parts of the chioggia beets turn brown, and when grated you lose all their cuteness (though they might work okay if mandolined and eaten quickly – I can’t say, I haven’t tried it).

But the red beets – grate them or slice them thin enough, and you have sweet, crunchy, earthy, beets coupled with a fresh and bright dressing, offset by the smooth, tangy creaminess of little dabs of goat cheese and rounded out by hearty, silky walnuts. It’s perfection.

Valentine’s Day, however, deserves a little something extra. {Drumroll, please}

Heart Beet SaladRed is great; hearts are better.

Heart Beet Salad
adapted from Mark Bittman’s Raw Beet Salad

I’ve adapted this recipe for 2 adults and 2 young children, because that’s what I serve – If it makes too much for a romantic dinner for two, save the hearts you mangled and the parts you trimmed off the beetroot, grate or slice thin, mix with the dressing, and store in the fridge. It will keep for a couple of days – but mix with the dressing first. Unlike leaf salads in which the dressing makes it soggy, the vinegar here helps keep the beets from losing their color – but only for a day or two. Then they’ll get soggy, too.

Dressing:
1-2 large shallots, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1-2 teaspoon Dijon mustard, or to taste
1/2-1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1-2 tablespoons champagne vinegar (the original recipe uses sherry vinegar; we prefer champagne; red wine vinegar is too strong)
1-2 sprig fresh tarragon, minced
1/8-1/4 cup chopped parsley leaves (a nicely-sized ripped off bunch)
*the measurements vary depending on how much dressing you like. Start on the low end of all if you’re not sure or don’t like everything drowned. Make the higher amount if you don’t mind leftover dressing, and then dress to taste.

2-3 medium beets – if you’re making hearts, the more spherical, the better
1-2 inch log of goat cheese, crumbled
1/4 c walnuts, crumbled

In a small bowl, whisk together salt, pepper, mustard, oil, and vinegar. Taste to adjust seasonings (keep in mind you’ll be adding herbs – taste for ratios of oil to vinegar, and saltiness, not so much for exact flavor). Stir in shallots. Avoid mixing herbs into dressing to save a step – the whisking and tossing bruises the leaves and makes them lose a little of their floral sweetness.

To make beet hearts:

Peel beets. Cut off the top and bottom where the greens sprout and where it gets spindly – you want a nice-looking circle with two flat sides.

beet circlePlacing one flat side down, cut in half (lengthwise if it’s not a perfect circle). Working with one half-circle, cut the bottom round edge off at a diagonal – this will be the bottom edge of half a heart. beet heart

Trim the top edge to remove the corner and round it out.

Beet Heart Half Repeat with the other half-circle.

Beet Heart CompleteTurn round side facing up and slice into very thin slices. Place two halves next to each other to form hearts on the plate.

My heart on a plate

Crumble goat cheese and walnuts on top, drizzle with dressing, and sprinkle with minced herbs.

Grated Beet SaladIf you want to just make the grated salad version:

Peel the shallot and the beets and put them through the shredder blade of the food processor, or pulse to grate. Don’t overprocess.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the dressing, leaving out the herbs. Toss the dressing with the shredded beets, then toss briefly with herbs. If you’re making it for a crowd, you can sprinkle the goat cheese and walnuts on top now, and serve, but if you’re making individual plates, dish up the beets first, then crumble goat cheese and walnuts on top so that the beets don’t turn the cheese pink. (Vegans: the original has no goat cheese and is also awesome.)

Info on peeling, seasonality, etc. is the same as Golden Beets.

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A note: It takes a lot of time and effort to create these posts. I share the information I’ve found because I want to be helpful, but I’m also a professional writer, and other people pay me for my work. Please, please, STOP STEALING MY POSTS. I don’t disable copying because the majority of lovely, honest people who come around might want to copy and paste the recipes to their computers – but I also really, really don’t like thievery. If you find my information useful, please give credit where it’s due, and post a link to my page! The vegetables, the universe, karma, and your mother will thank you. And I won’t have to get all high-security up in here or shut the whole thing down.

 

 

 

Teeny Tiny Prune Plums

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Blue, Color, Fall, Fruit, Purple, Stone Fruit, Summer

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I saw these babies at the market a couple of years ago and couldn’t resist taking them home:

DSCF9497So cute!  And they looked great for quick snacking.  Unfortunately, though they were called French Sugar Plums, they weren’t very sweet, and the lack of juiciness was unexpectedly disappointing.  They tasted so nondescript that I didn’t know how to respond – they weren’t bad, but that’s because they weren’t anything.  They didn’t even really taste like plums, just like they were some generically labelled Fruit.

French Sugar PlumsBut because I’d bought a whole pound of them anticipating snacks to last us at least a week, I started surfing the Internet for how I could use them up.  They’re also known as Italian Prune Plums, so there were suggestions for turning them into homemade prunes, but that seemed a lot of trouble for a food I didn’t really love anyway. Italian prune plumsAnd then I found The Cake.

Apparently, I’m slow to a whole bunch of trains, because this recipe was published in the New York Times every year for about 20 years, but I only found out about it recently.  But it’s what these plums were made for.  Their tiny little oval shapes wink at you as the syrupy topping settles into the crevices left by their big, fat pits DSCF9544(you don’t see syrupy topping in the link?  That’s ‘cuz I changed the recipe.  Scroll down.), and the heat of the oven transforms their blah generic flavor into something layered, complex, concentrated with sugar but not overwhelmingly sweet.  In short?  It’s the best coffee cake in the history of the universe.

Except it wasn’t.  I mean, it was clearly delicious and was clearly what these plums were made for (being baked, broiled, roasted or otherwise made delicious by the magic of fire), but I found it a bit dry.  So finally I decided to fiddle and futz, and now, if I do say so myself, it is the greatest coffee cake in the history of the universe.  It’s amazingly easy, moist, beautiful, and easily swappable with apples, pears, or other fruits that are not particularly juicy – I wouldn’t use peaches or overly ripe pears or something along those lines because the juice runs out underneath the seam of the pan and makes you have to clean your oven afterwards.  But feel free to swap out another liquor or flavor of your choice as well – I’m not a fan of orange myself, but I think cranberries or pears and cointreau might be very nice…

Slice of Coffee CakeModified Plum Cake  adapted from Marian Burros
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
14 tbs softened unsalted butter
1 cup sugar (can reduce slightly)
2 eggs
1/2 cup 2% or higher Greek style plain yogurt or European-style yogurt (thicker kinds with no sugar or flavorings added – you could probably sub in sour cream if you can’t find either of these, but I haven’t tried it)
15-20 prune plums depending on size of fruit and your pan
1-2 tbs brandy, amaretto, or other liquor
1 tsp cinnamon for tossing, 1 tsp cinnamon for batter
2 tsp sugar
almond extract (could use vanilla or combination of the 2)
springform pan, lightly sprayed or lightly buttered

Preheat oven to 350.  Halve the plums (over the bowl to catch the juices). The easiest way to remove the pit is to simply cut in half, and twist:French plum

 

 

 

 

 

Prune Plum

 

 

 

 

 

Then remove the pit.

Toss with approximately 2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, splash of almond extract, and generous splash of liquor. Let sit while you make the batter.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Cream butter, yogurt and sugar and blend with well-beaten eggs.

Plum cake batterAdd in flour mixture just until combined without flour streaks. Spread into the bottom of springform pan (it will be very thick).

 

 

 

 

Press plum halves skin side down in concentric circles (if you want it to be pretty)

pretty plum cake

 

 

 

so flat sides of plums are level with batter.

 

messy Plum cake

Messy plums before cooking

halloween etc 137

Messy plums after cooking

 

If your plums were overripe and fell apart while you were taking out the pit, that’s okay.  It won’t look as glamorous, but will still look nice and taste just the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoon remaining syrup in bowl over the top of the cake.  Bake at 350 for 40-50 mins or until set in the center and pale golden. Separate the edges from the sides of the pan with a knife while the cake is still hot and let sit for about 5 more mins before removing the sides. Serve warm or room temperature.

plum cakeFor French Sugar/Italian Prune Plums:
Look for small, oblong, slightly plump fruits.  They should have a little bit of give when you squeeze them, but not be soft. Wrinkled skin means they’re on their way to prune-town; too soft means you’ll definitely need to cook them (but these should really be cooked when fresh for best flavor anyway, and if you’re making cake or sauce, the wrinkled ones will plump right up with a little liquid…)  DSCF9516Small bruises and brown spots can be easily cut out; large scales are a bad sign.  The fruit is too small to save when it gets a large blemish. They don’t smell like much of anything when ripe -at most, a slightly acidic, plum-like scent.

Peel?  No.
Edible seed?  No.  It’s a stone fruit.  Less ripe plums will actually pop off the pit very nicely; as they start to overripen they will hang on, so stick with fruits a little on the firmer side if you want them to look pretty when pitted.
Edible when raw?  Yes.  If you’re just eating them plain, let them ripen a little more so that you get the maximum juice possible.
Worth the price of organic?  Probably.  Imported plums are high on the lists for pesticide use, though domestic aren’t bad.  If you don’t know where yours come from, I’d err for organic.  If you know your farmer, you could probably get away with conventional.
In season: Late Summer into Early Fall. (In L.A., all the way into early January.)
Best with: Heat.  Cook them to concentrate the flavor and bring out the juices.  Otherwise, cinnamon, nutmeg, almond, vanilla, cream (and creamy substances – yogurt, sour cream, pudding, etc.), and orange all go nicely for sweet uses.  Because of their small size and subtler sweetness, they’re also ideal for use with dark meats or game, like chicken thighs, rabbit, lamb and duck.
How to Store:  In the fridge, they’ll keep as long as 2 weeks or more.  If they start to shrivel and get prune-looking, they’re still great for baking though less tasty for eating raw.

You Can’t Go Wrong with a Name Like Candy Roaster

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Fall, Orange, Squashes, Winter

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OMG. WTF. LOL. #WhateverAcronymTheKidsAreUsingTheseDays

Over a year??? Over a year since I’ve been on here?!? I’m officially fired, I suppose.  But I’m full of excuses (bought a house, construction on new house, two toddlers, brand new built-by-hand-from-scratch complete urban farming oasis of which I hope to grow many things to share with you, excuses, excuses), and I have not been completely absent from my food and camera this whole time, just absent from my blog.  But I’m here! I’m here! Yowp! And I have so much deliciousness to share.

banana ghost fairy tale blue hubbard squashFirst up: This funny-looking squash.

candy roaster squashAdmittedly, we bought it for a Halloween display.  It looked to me like a swaddled baby (perfect for that extra creepy touch to a Jack O’Lantern massacre!) but, much like everything else, time got away from us in October and the baby never came to be.  Luckily for all concerned (including the early colonists, I suppose), squashes keep! So two and a half months later, we sliced it up.

cut candy roasterIt turns out it is NOT a Swaddled Baby Squash.  It’s either a Pink Banana or a Georgia Candy Roaster, though it seems those names might just be interchangeable.  But come on. “Hey kids, would you like a banana squash salad for dinner?” sounds like a bad episode of Chopped and potentially some sort of smoothie. “Hey kids, have some nutty baked Candy Roaster!” Sold!

I don’t always like squash. Patty pans and several summer squashes are nasty and mealy, and winter squashes can sometimes smell like cucumber and taste like mush. And that quality that made them so valuable to the colonists (Feed a crowd with one giant vegetable!) can be, frankly, annoying to a modern family that does not want to eat the same punk squash for the next 43 days. Plus, you need to be an ogre to chop into the darn things. I don’t own a cleaver or an axe, and if you’ve seen my history with knives, that’s probably a good thing.

Yay for Candy Roaster! It’s small enough both that my husband could hack it for me (I am not to be trusted) and we weren’t stuck eating it until the end of time. Actually, I made the recipe below for a holiday party and there wasn’t enough left over to take any home-

The outside is a pale pinkish-orange color, and the inside is bright orange. Some sources suggest cutting it lengthwise, but I did not read those sources before beginning, of course, so I cut it in half the other way. Bonus: I could slice it into pretty circles this way. Less bonus: to scoop out the seeds I had to go elbow-deep in squash goo. Hats off to you, midwives and OBG’s…banana squash circles

The seeds are pretty easy to scoop out, and the stringy goo not as stubborn as some squashes. You’ll be able to feel the difference between orange gunk you don’t want and orange flesh you do – the strings are very slimy and mushy, where the meat part of the squash is very hard and will crunch a little when your spoon goes too deep.  Clean it completely, and you’re good for roasting!

You can peel it before or after cooking.  Before cooking has the advantage of being able to eat it hot, but the squash is pretty hard (if your slices are thick, you may have trouble cutting neatly without losing too much meat).  After cooking, you’ll have to let cool first, but the peel comes off so easily at that point it’s almost easiest to peel by hand than with a knife. I always prefer to roast it before peeling, because by the time I’m done cleaning and hacking, I want a 40 minute break…

sliced pink banana squashYou can roast it giant hunks (great if you want to make a mash, a puree, or use in pies – it’s a great alternative to pumpkin they say, if not even tastier, in baked goods) or slice it first. We sliced it into half moons in order to fit them on our baking sheets, though the circles looked prettier. Drizzle olive oil on top or toss in a little oil to prevent sticking. (I cook almost everything on aluminum foil in our house because I hate cleaning pans, but you only need to do this if you’re as lazy as I am.) Bake in the middle rack of the oven at 375 until very soft, about 50 minutes to an hour total, flipping halfway through.

carmelized banana squash moons If you can get this gorgeous carmelization on there, do. It’s delicious. If I can figure out a better way than luck to ensure it, I’ll update this post.  About half my slices came out like this, and the other half still orange but cooked through, so out of the oven the pan came.

The raw squash smells a bit like cucumber and banana, of all things, but when roasted it’s sweet and nutty, with a touch of bitterness like when you accidentally eat a walnut shell. I didn’t like that aspect of it very much, which is why I went searching for some recipes with good acidity and maybe a little sweetness to offset it. And I found a winner!

The original recipe was from Real Simple for a butternut squash, but I thought it would adapt well for the Candy Roaster.

Roasted Squash saladRoasted Squash with Mustard Vinaigrette

1 Candy Roaster squash (or, obviously, butternut, or most likely buttercup, acorn, or other sweetish squash)
2 shallots, sliced
olive oil
Mizuna, arugula, or other mesclun green (baby mustard, baby kale, or other spicy/peppery leaves should do well) – measurement depends on how much greens you want.  For a side dish, I would do about 3/4 cup.  For a salad, I might go as much as 2 cups of greens.
Optional add-ins: Dried Cranberries; pomegranate seeds; other dried fruit; toasted nuts

For the dressing:
1 cup apple cider (all we had was apple juice – pretty sure they’re the same thing?)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 tbls olive oil
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2-3 sorrel leaves chopped fine (a lemony spinach-looking herb), or a tiny squeeze of citrus (lemon or orange) juice, or a dash of citrus zest
1 pinch fresh tarragon, chopped fine, or one shake dried
1/2 tbs roasted walnut oil

Before roasting your squash as above, toss with sliced shallots.  Roast squash and shallots for 30 minutes, turn squash slices, and roast until done (another 20-30 minutes). Immediately on removal from oven, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. If not done before cooking, peel before adding to salad (they will be HOT out of the oven. You’ll need to let them cool at least 5 minutes if not longer before doing this with your fingers, or you’ll need to use an oven mitt and/or a knife).

While the squash is cooking, simmer the cider in a small saucepan until reduced to ¼ cup.  The original recipe said 12 to 15 minutes, but it took me closer to 20. Let cool for 5 minutes. Whisk in the other ingredients.
mustard vinaigrette dressing

Slice the mizuna into bite-sized pieces. Toss with the peeled squash, and drizzle vinaigrette on top.  This is the version we made (and loved!) but I couldn’t help thinking as I made it, and again as I was eating it, that dried cranberries, or pomegranate seeds, would be a great addition, and then while writing this up, I thought dried raisins, cherries, or even figs might be interesting, or toasted walnuts.

The peppery sharpness of the mizuna goes so well with the sweet dressing – I thought it would be too sweet, but it was just what this squash needed to cut that funky mustiness I tasted when it was on its own. It’s a great little squash, but like many squash, I think it needs some spice or some sugar to cover up its less admirable qualities. Then again, don’t we all?

Peel? Yes, though theoretically they’re edible if you like tough, chewy hunks of blandness in your food.  Also, if they’re conventionally grown, they’ll most likely be coated in wax. So, you know, there’s that. Peel it.
Edible when raw?  No.
Worth the price of organic? Yes. Winter squash, because of its hard shell, is treated pretty liberally with insecticides, which can sink through the surface.  It also has the tendency to draw certain harmful chemicals up out of the soil. Good for renewing the soil, not so good for your insides if you’re worried about that sort of thing.
Best with:  Pretty much everything in the spice department – chili, coriander, cumin; rosemary, thyme, sage; cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice; chinese five spice, soy and sesame; parsley; nuts, especially winter nuts like walnuts and pecans; sour flavors like goat and blue cheeses, greek yogurt, sour cream; fruits, especially dried; honey; heavier flavored meats like lamb, roasted chicken (especially dark meat), steak
In Season: Summer through Fall, Winter in Warm Climates
How to Store: Winter squashes will keep as much as 6 months or more if stored, uncut, in a cool, relatively shady spot, like a garage or cupboard. Once cut, it will keep wrapped in plastic in the fridge for a few days, perhaps a week. If it starts to get slime on the surface, toss it. Once cooked, it will keep in the fridge a few days if well wrapped.

Figs in a Blanket

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Black, Brown, Fall, Fruit, Green, Miscellany, Summer

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Growing up in a humid, mid-Atlantic suburb on the East Coast, the only figs I knew of were the Newton varietal – but man oh man were they tasty!  So when I moved to California and starting expanding my fruit and vegetable repertoire (not a difficult task, when my chosen produce at the time consisted of apples, berries, and iceberg lettuce), what could be tastier, I thought, than the inside filling of a cookie fruited cake.

black figsBleh.  Raw fresh figs do NOT taste like fig newtons minus the cake part, just FYI.  Some people, lots of people in fact, love them, but I am not one of them.  So I thought I hated figs.

But as with  most things in life sliced figs(I swear to you, I promise on all that is good and holy, at some point soon I will post a whole series of posts that are kosher and/or vegetarian and/or vegan and/or don’t negate all their yummy nutrients by simply mixing with bacon and/or goat cheese…but today is not that day) they just needed to be wrapped in pork product to change my view.

Raw figs have a hint of sweetness, and a somewhat earthy, flowery flavor.  When very ripe, they’re quite syrupy and gain sweetness, but to me the flavor is like a mushroom masquerading as a pear, with a suggestion of banana.  fresh figIt’s the mushroom quality I don’t care for, along with the slightly slimy texture broken by the rows of seeds that makes me feel a little like I’m biting into a raw sea creature.  Dried figs, on the other hand, are basically candy, a concentration of sugar so sweet and yet so complex that I knew there was something in there worth exploring, even if it wasn’t eating the fruit raw out of hand.

Do something to a fresh fig, however, and you’re in entirely different territory – and when I say something, I mean almost anything.  Poach in red spiced wine for a winter dessert served over ice cream, roast with any number of meats for a restaurant-quality entree, or bake into pies, galettes, tarts, cakes, or custards for a multi-layered flavor extravaganza of a dessert.  Figs are incredibly versatile, and incredibly delicious if you pair them with anything that stands up to their complexity.

figs and prosciuttoThere are several varieties of figs, ranging in color from dark almost black, to almost lime green.  They’ll get softer and softer as they ripen, and are at their sweetest when fully ripe (edible even to the point of mush if you plan on baking or something), but they don’t travel that well once they get close to that stage, so look for a little softness without bruises.  They should feel slightly heavy for their size, and should smell slightly sweet, not sour.  Very firm figs will not ripen further, so don’t buy them.  To prepare them, I like to slice off the hard bit of stem at the top, but otherwise everything is edible, skin, seeds and all.

I love sweet and savory together.  Medieval cuisine, aka gamey meats and dried fruit? Awesome.  Mediterranean couscous salad with raisins?  Bring it.  Chicken salad with grapes? My favorite.  My husband? Not so much.  And by not so much, I mean I sneak the fancy prepared salad bar at Whole Foods when I have to buy lunch, and that is the extent of my exotic pairings.  He doesn’t even do pork chops with applesauce or lamb with jelly (which, come to think of it, neither do I, so I guess our marriage is saved).  So imagine my delight when I not only discovered this dish, but discovered that he loved it.  Sweet, salty, savory – it could be a dessert if you put a sweet balsamic glaze on it, but makes an even nicer salad on top of a bed of arugula and a simple balsamic vinaigrette; but we like them just the way they are: delicate appetizers that you can pop in your mouth, the prosciutto crisp around the edges and the juices of the meat and fig mingling into a salty sweet syrup that pools beneath each morsel.  As fancy appetizers go, they’re fast, decadent, and would be elegant if we didn’t end up licking our plates afterwards.  A true endorsement, indeed.

figs are doneFigs in a Blanket

      • Fresh figs
      • Goat cheese
      • Sliced prosciutto (2 slices per 3 whole figs)

Options: balsamic vinegar, crusty bread, arugula, blue cheese

Slice the figs in half lengthwise.  Slice each slice of prosciutto into thirds lengthwise.  Place a small portion of goat cheese in the center of the fig.

goat cheese figWrap the fig and cheese in a thin slice of prosciutto

DSCF6335fig in prosciutto

fig wrapped in prosciuttoand place in a 400 degree oven for approximately 10 minutes, or until the prosciutto begins to brown and crisp at the edges.  (We cook them on an aluminum foil-wrapped sheet in the toaster oven for easy cleanup – it gets messy.) Serve warm, but not immediately – the centers get very, very hot and we always burn ourselves when we pop them in our mouth too quickly.

Other options?  Drizzle with balsamic for a little acidity to cut the sweetness, serve with crusty bread to sop up the syrup that will form on the pan, or serve over arugula for an elegant appetizer/salad.  Some versions call for blue cheese instead of the goat, so feel free if that’s your preference, but we’ve tried it both ways and in my opinion, the goat lends a sweet tanginess that goes better with the fig.  If you use blue, I would definitely add the drizzle of balsamic.

figs in a blanket

For fresh figs:

Peel/Trim?  No.  Everything is edible, though I do like to cut off the top stem – just a centimeter or two.
Edible seed?  Yes.  Technically, it’s an inside-out flower, but whatever, you can eat the whole thing.
Edible when raw?  Yes.  Best when very ripe.
Worth the price of organic? Unclear.  Figs aren’t that common,  so they don’t show up on various “Dirty Dozen” or “Safe” lists at all, and from looking into growing them, it looks like they’re easy to grow in the right climate, and the main problems that affect fig trees can’t be controlled chemically, so it’s probably a reasonable assumption that conventional figs are not heavily doused in chemicals.  If you’re buying dried, however, I would err on organic because whatever’s there is going to be concentrated in the drying process, as well as probably have sulfites added, as most conventional dried fruit does to keep them moist.
In season: Early Summer briefly, and then Late Summer through Fall for the main crop – though in a place like Southern California where they grow well, you can usually find them all summer long.
Best with: Almonds, hazelnuts, vanilla, orange, cinnamon, black pepper, rosemary, arugula or other sharp greens, gamey or strong meats, rich/creamy cheeses or desserts (custard, ice cream, etc.), deep red, jammy wines (port especially)
How to Store:  In the coldest part of the fridge for up to 3 days, max.  Don’t wash them before storing – if they get wet, they’ll mold quickly.  If they’re already soft or squishy, use immediately as they won’t keep.

Brussels Sprouts

12 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Fall, Green, Miscellany, Spring, Vegetables, Winter

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This is how pathetic my life has become: when my husband goes out of town, I live it up by eating brussels sprouts.  Seriously. (Did you know there was an ‘s’ on the end?  No?  Me neither.  I mean, I know they were named for the city, but I always assumed the vegetable was “brussel sprouts.”  Ah the wonders of google’s super-condescending Did you mean brussels sprouts? as if google was channeling the annoying grammar kid in grade school…)brussels sproutsBut they’re lovely little nuggets of nutty vegetable goodness and he hates them, or did.  Conventional wisdom (read: the label on the bag when you buy them at the store) suggests popping them in the microwave for a few minutes with a hole cut in the corner for venting, and voila! Delicious veggies!  So here’s a tip: NEVER TAKE COOKING ADVICE FROM A PLASTIC BAG.  Even if it does have halved sproutfriendly-looking exclamation points and promising adjectives.

Brussels sprouts microwaved in the bag taste like, well, vegetables microwaved in a bag.  They’re sorta steamed and sorta healthy-tasting and sorta mushy and definitely edible and definitely fast, but when all is said and done they taste a little…sad.  And definitely need to be smothered in soy sauce.

Like any somewhat tough, somewhat bitter vegetable, the key to brussels sprouts is to roast them.  Sweeter roots and tubers like sweet potatoes and beets can be cut thin and survive a quick 20 minute roast and come out just fine, but with brussels sprouts?  You’ve got to roast the crap out of them.  trim

 

Cut off the ends,
trimmed v untrimmed
half sprout

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cut in half,

 

 

 

toss with a bit of olive oil, and pop them in a 400 oven for at least 30 minutes.  About halfway through cooking time, shake the pan to toss them around a bit, and then back in they go.  When they’re done, they’ll be absolute mush in the center, which sounds really unappetizing, but what happens is that all the bitterness dissolves away and the residual sugars caramelize in the heat and the mush you’re left with is a little sweet and a little caramelly and a little nutty and tastes awesome with anything with a little strength behind its flavor – red onion, goat cheese, walnuts, steak, or just very nice sea salt.  They’re very earthy when they’re left almost whole like this, and would probably be wonderful smoked.

shredded brussels sproutsBut if you don’t have time for a long oven roast, there’s another secret that we only recently discovered that makes them even better, and way faster and easier: shred them.  If you have a food processor, run them through the slicing blade.  The resulting pieces are thin enough to pop into any pan for a quick saute or stir-fry with whatever else you’re serving, or even edible raw.  I’ve swapped them out for the kale in my raw kale salad with fantastic results, used them in place of the cabbage in a cole slaw (since brussels sprouts are really baby cabbages anyway), and tossed the shreds into a spinach salad with warm bacon dressing for a little vegetable variety.  When shredded, the natural bitterness is not nearly as noticeable, and just lends a little sharpness; if you’re cooking, you’ll get to that sweet nutty flavor ASAP instead of waiting for the slow roast.

A quick recipe:  Throw some sprouts and a shallot through the processor, and into a pan with a little olive oil.  Cook until everything is soft.  Feel free to leave it without turning much, ‘cuz you know I like my bitter things a little burned.  Splash some champagne vinegar on there if you have it, or cooking sherry, or rice vinegar, or apple cider vinegar.  Sprinkle with salt.  Eat by the panful because it really is that good.tiny cabbages

Look for tight sprouts without yellowing or curling on the outer leaves and few spots.  If you’re buying them from the market instead of the store, you may see them in their natural state, which is attached to a giant stalk, which looks bizarrely attractive but is inedible.  If you do buy them on the stalk, you can cut each sprout off with a knife, or just twist and pull each one off – the little stems that sometimes come off too are edible, but will need to be steamed or roasted very well first.  You get a lot more bang for your buck when you buy on the stalk, but a lot more work, and frankly, my fridge isn’t big enough to hold it…so no pics.  Sorry.  When we move to a bigger house and get a bigger kitchen, I swear I’ll buy a giant specimen just for you.

Trim? Yes.  Slice off the bottom brown edge.  Some people say to just put an ‘x’ in the base, but that seems like more work to me and I don’t like tough stems.  Remove any wilted leaves.
Edible when raw?  Yes, but better sliced thin or shredded first.
Worth the price of organic? Apparently not, though I would have thought otherwise.  Organic brussels sprouts are particularly hard to grow, so they’re not that common, and because each little sprout is packed so tightly, they don’t harbor a lot of bad stuff.  So give ’em a good wash and save your pennies.
Best with:  Strong flavors with a little sweetness that can stand up to the bitter earthiness but bring out the sweetness of the sprout – shallots, lemon, soft cheeses, pine nuts, walnuts, bacon/ham/piggies…  Strong flavors that have a bitter edge, like marjoram, turmeric, or even my beloved garlic, can heighten the sulfuric edge, making them taste a little like rotten eggs if you’re not careful.
In Season:  Fall through Spring.
How to Store: In the fridge, in a produce box or loosely sealed plastic bag, they should keep for ten days to 2 weeks.  If they start to yellow at the edges, peel off the outer leaves and eat within the next day or two.

Haricots Verts, Golden Wax and Other Sorta Green Beans

21 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Beans and Peas, Fall, Green, Miscellany, Purple, Summer, Yellow

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I used to hate green beans as a kid.  Frankly, in most cases, I still do.  I don’t blame my mom for this – she bought high-quality frozen green beans as I recall – but to be honest?  They taste like vegetables.  Like the vegetables of kids’ tear-induced tantrums – a little sharp, a little bitter, and very, very green.  And they squeak.  Seriously.  Some people actually know them as squeaky beans.  And God forbid, in my opinion, you buy them canned.  Add to the squeaky bitterness a metallic aftertaste, and it’s like eating medical equipment.

I discovered 2 problems with my green bean past.  1) I was eating the wrong kinds, and 2) I was cooking them wrong.  Most of the time, if you buy something labeled green beans, it’s probably Kentucky Wonder or Blue Lake – a relatively fat, fleshy bean with a succulent pod surrounding thin, tiny seeds.  I’m sure plenty of people like the somewhat meaty, earthy flavor, especially when smothered in cream of mushroom soup and fried onions, but I am not one of those people.  I am, however, something of a Francophile, so I’m pretty sure many of those same green bean loving people think I’m merely being pretentious by saying that I hate green beans but I love Haricots Verts.  Which, yes, translates to “green beans,” I know.

But Haricots Verts are a different breed entirely from the fleshy cut variety that taints many a side dish.  For one thing, they don’t have to be green.  They come in purple and yellow and speckled and all sorts of beautiful colors.  Haricots Verts and their slender brethren are thin, dainty, unimposing in their somewhat parched state.  They crisp easily or soften and blend in with the crowd when necessary while still maintaining a wee bit of vegatative flavor.  They’re milder than their heartier cousins.  They still squeak, but I like to imagine more of a dainty accident than the bold mouse-like squeak of their friends.

As for eating them wrong, every blog and recipe I can recall commands steaming, blanching, boiling or microwaving.  And to that I respond: bleh!  It’s a good way to release some vitamins, sure, and to soften them up, of course, because they can get a bit stringy or a bit of a chewy-wood thing going on when they’re not cooked enough.  Sure.  But…bleh.  What a way to make them taste like earthy, mineral-y mush.  Nope, the trick I discovered?  Burn them.  Burn them all.  (And if you’re not picturing a creepy Donald Sutherland in Backdraft right now, you don’t watch nearly as many movies as I do, and also, I envy your uncluttered brain.)

I don’t like burnt food.  I scrape burnt toast, pick around burned roasts, hell, I throw out burned cookies and if you know me that’s practically a hangin’ crime for all the rules it violates, but green beans, as far as I can recall, are my one exception.  Get a little burn on them and all that metallic minerality takes on hints of something akin to a savory caramel, the last wee traces of succulence get dessicated into crispness, and you’re left with something sharp and sweet and so tasty we always end up eating all the green beans before we even touch the main.

When buying haricots verts and their friends, look for fleshy, bright beans that snap easily.  They shrivel and get tough and bendy as they dry out and get older, and as much as I like them drier, you want to do the drying, in the pan, not nature on the vine.  Any variety that’s young and slim will do (have I lived in Hollywood too long?) but I like ones labeled Haricot Verts,  Haricots Jaune (the thin yellow ones at the top), Golden Wax for something a bit fleshier (the ones in the red bowl), or these Purple Queens for Halloween – they look almost black.  All of them, really, are varieties of filet beans, so you can look for those, too.  Snip off the ends with the stem still attached, and burn away.

Burnt Green Beans

Any color Green beans
olive oil
Herbes de Provence (or at least Rosemary)
garlic cloves
sherry (optional)
goat cheese (optional)
sea salt

Heat enough olive oil in to lightly cover the bottom of a pan, preferably cast iron (you want a pan that will get nice and hot, and that’s not a brand new non-stick – the non-stick doesn’t give a great burn, though it’s serviceable if that’s all you’ve got).  Toss the green beans into the pan, and let them sit.  This is the hard part.  DON’T TURN THEM, toss them, or otherwise touch them.  Make something else, do the dishes, whatever, until they start to get a little burn on the bottoms.  (If your beans are on the fleshier side, you may want to add a healthy dose of sherry here to steam them open a little, then let them burn afterwards.)  Toss/flip and let them start to get a little burn on the other side – you don’t want them burnt beyond recognition, but you want some blistering/black color going on.  Chop the garlic (I like 2 cloves, but one will do.)  Sprinkle liberally with herbes de provence and stir.  Add the garlic and cook very briefly, until you can smell it, maybe 1 minute tops.   Put on a plate and sprinkle well with sea salt.  If you like goat cheese, mix some in just before you remove from heat – they’re AMAZING with goat cheese, but just as nice on their own if you’re not the dairy type.  Added bonus?   They don’t work well if you fuss over them, so screaming babies, rambunctious toddlers, and a big, balloon glass of wine can all be addressed while your green beans get nice and crispy.  THAT’S the kind of side dish I like.

Trim? Yes.  Snip off the stem end.  If they’re larger or fleshier, you may want to peel the string down the side as well, but younger specimens don’t need it.
Edible when raw?  Yes.
Worth the price of organic? Yes.  Green beans don’t make the Dirty Dozen, but they make the Dirty Twenty, and that’s enough chemicals for me, thanks.
Best with:  Stronger flavors – goat cheese, lemon/citrus, garlic, ginger, vinegars.  Woodsy flavors  like rosemary, sage, thyme and mushrooms complement nicely.  They hold up well as a side dish from everything to the lightest sole to the meatiest steak, so there are really no holds barred.
In Season:  Summer, though in warm-season climes like here in L.A, that actually means Late Spring and Early Fall, since the hot months are too hot for the vines to flower.
How to Store: In the fridge, in a produce box or loosely sealed plastic bag, they should keep for a few days.  If they start to get bendy or a little shriveled, they’ll still taste fine if you crisp-cook them as above; if you can see bean seeds outline through the tight, shriveled skin, they’ve crossed the hump and are no longer very tasty.

Swiss Chard (now with Sweet Potato! and of course bacon…)

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Fall, Green, Leafy, Miscellany, Red, White, Winter, Yellow

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There’s a lot of repetition in my recipes and posts, if you haven’t noticed already.  Greens are greens, and they all go nicely with bacon.  That’s not my fault.

Swiss chard is no exception.  Of all the bitter greens you’ll find at the market, swiss chard is the mildest and the prettiest.  Rainbow chard is the most common variety, simply because it’s so pretty.  Red, white and yellow stalks wink at you as they snake up the center of the phenomenonally large, deep green leaves.  Look for fresh looking leaves with slightly firm stalks – ignore a few rips, tears, or bug holes.  Chard leaves aren’t as hearty as something tougher like kale, so they do rip easily.  The stalks do bend a little, but they shouldn’t be bending on their own or wilting.  The leaves can range from almost purple in the red varieties to kelly green in the yellow or white, so look for those signature brightly colored veins, rhubarb-like stalks, and wide, soft leaves.

Wash well – I recommend at least 2 rinses – scrubbing the stalk with your thumb under the faucet.  They trap a lot of dirt.  

Chard is slightly sweet as greens go and a little nutty.  (I feel like I should make some sort of vaudevillian pun here.  I’ll resist the urge.)  Because it’s a little milder, it can sneak its way in to almost any recipe, though it really shines with other fall vegetables – winter squashes and pumpkins, walnuts, root vegetables.  I had planned to use this chard in a sneaky green way by slicing it up very fine, mixing with ricotta, stuffing it into giant pasta shells, covering with sauce and cheese, and baking.  But we had our very first fall day in Los Angeles last week – cold and rainy and absolutely delightful – and I wanted something far more Autumnal.  (I don’t think that word means what I think it means…  Autumn-y?  Sure.)  So instead, I made a Chard and Sweet Potato Gratin.  I made enough for the husband and I to have some for dinner, to save some for the toddler for tomorrow’s lunch, and maybe even a little leftover for my lunch.  No dice.  We ate the whole pan.  Oops.

Sweet Potato and Chard Gratin

This is not a real gratin because there’s no bechamel.  I like to think of it as lazy (wo)man’s gratin – mix ricotta with another soft cheese or a splash of whole milk and you have something not at all as rich and delicious as bechamel, but serviceable and super fast for a work night supper.

  • Sweet potatoes – I used 3 smallish/medium-sized for a 2 1/2 qt oval casserole dish, but if I’d used the giant ones in the bag I might have only used one.  You’ll have to eyeball.  And yes, botanically I think these orange ones are yams, but I call ’em like they’re labeled.
  • Swiss chard (I used 4 or 5 giant leaves)
  • Ricotta (I used about 1 cup)
  • Goat cheese (I used about 3 inches from a goat cheese log) – as above, if you don’t like goat cheese, you can sub in something else like farmer’s cheese – very mild – or just a splash of whole milk to thin it out
  • Cheddar or other melting cheese (I used about 2 oz)
  • 1-2 slices bacon (If you’re lucky enough to have a Trader Joe’s, get the bag of Ends and Pieces – a steal at something like $2.99 a pound and perfect for recipes in which you’re cutting up the bacon anyway.)
  • olive oil

Chop the bacon into bite-sized pieces and fry until almost crispy.  Preheat oven to 400.Slice the sweet potatoes into long, thin slices.  Drizzle a little olive oil on the bottom of your dish to coat.  Layer one layer of sweet potato into the dish.

Slice the chard into thin strips, discarding the bottom stalks. Layer half the chard on top of the sweet potatoes.

Place the goat cheese in a bowl in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to soften (not melt).  Mix thoroughly with ricotta.  Using about half the mixture, dollop spoonfuls on top of the chard and use the back of the spoon to spread them over the layer.

Sprinkle half the bacon on top.

Place the rest of the chard on top.  Layer another layer of sweet potatoes to cover.  Spread the remainder of the ricotta mixture on the sweet potatoes.  Sprinkle with the remaining bacon.  Grate the cheese or break into chunks and disperse over top to cover up any “holes.”  Bake at 400 until sweet potatoes are soft when stabbed with a fork and cheese is melted, about 20 minutes.

ugly but delicious!

For Chard:
Trim? Yes, at the bottom of the stalk where it gets tough and splintered, though some people lose the whole portion below the leaves as well.
Edible when raw?  Yes, when young.  It’s very chewy, however, so if you get large/older leaves, definitely cook the stalks, and probably the leaves as well.
Worth the price of organic? Yes.  Greens are generally considered high on the Organic Preferred list.
In season: Fall, Winter.
Best with: Fall foods – winter squashes, pumpkin, squash, sweet potato, even apples and dried fruit like raisins.  Walnuts, pecans, bacon or sausage for protein – earthy, smokier flavors do well.  Garlic, carmelized onions, goat cheese – sweeter flavors complement the greens’ slight sweetness.
How to Store: Like other greens, wash in warm water, give them a cold bath, and store in the fridge for a few days or possibly as long as a week, though that’s pushing it.

Kale Chips

13 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Fall, Green, Leafy, Spring, Winter

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I was a little slow to the Kale Train, I think.  The only kale I’d ever seen or heard of prior to a year or so ago was Curly Kale, the green kind sold in supermarkets that looks a little like brain coral and gets chopped up very fine and stirred into Irish Champ.  Or at least, that’s the only thing I knew to do with it.

But kale comes in plenty of other varieties, and the one that was most revelatory to me was Tuscan Kale, also called lacinato kale or dinosaur kale.  Flat and deep green with a giant kale-like rib up the middle, Tuscan kale begs to be made into chips.  You can eat it any other way you like – sauteed into other dishes, or as a side, or my personal favorite, as with all bitter greens, prepared in any way, shape or form with bacon – but kale chips are really the perfect venue for this particular kind of kale to shine.  They’re quick, they’re easy to make, they keep for a good week if you can actually keep them around that long, and best of all:

My toddler loves them.  Ask any parent what they do to make their kids eat their veggies, and you’ll get various purees and promises and smothered in cheese and snuck into brownies, but my answer always is: Kale Chips.  On those days where he refuses everything, throws even fruit and generic O’s I bought because they were organic and it turns out they’re chock full of sugar, he’ll eat kale chips.  And for that, I love kale.

Look for dark, deep green leaves, ranging almost to a blackish-green in color, with a pale thick rib up the center.  The leaves look like they’re almost flat, though they do curl a bit at the edges, but up close you’ll see that the surface of the leaf rises and falls with the veins, like rolling hills.  Leaves can be smallish (4-6 inches), but usually range much larger than that, as much as a foot or two in length from stem to top.  Most recipes will tell you to remove the rib from all kale before eating, but we often don’t.  I usually get rid of the really tough splinter-y looking part at the bottom, but the rest can usually be sliced up small and tossed into whatever you’re putting the kale in.  Kale chips, however, are the exception to my lazy/cheap tendencies: lose the rib.  If you do plan on using the stem, be sure and scrub it with your thumb when washing – dirt tends to stick to the thicker part of the rib.

It seems like everyone has a recipe for kale chips out there, from Martha Stewart to Epicurious to Smitten Kitchen and thousands of other sites in between, but after making them week after week, I’ve discovered a few hints:

  • Lower temp is better.  I’ve seen 250, 275, 300 and 350 on different sites, and in my experience, anything over 300 ends up tasting burnt, even if they don’t look it.  Use an oven thermometer if you have an old gas contraption like mine, because the first time I made them, I made the 350 version, but it was pre-thermometer, so it turns out it may even have been more like 400.  That first batch was definitely burnt.  Subsequent attempts have taught me to dry them out rather than roast them.
  • Don’t use canola oil.  We don’t use canola oil for anything anymore, but when we first tried kale chips, we did and we did.  They were awful.  Canola can get a strange fishy taste to it (I read why once but I forget now) and it definitely came through on something as delicate and spare as kale chips.  If you like seaweed snacks, give the canola a try.  Otherwise, go for olive.  (Side note: I’m curious what sunflower seed oil would taste like – since nutty flavors go so well with bitter greens, I imagine it might be quite nice.  Anyone tried it?)
  • Spice it up.  As much as I try to eat greens at every dinner, I have to be honest: I don’t love them.  Hence the predominance of bacon in all my favorite bitter greens recipes.  Kale chips according to most recipes consist of olive oil, salt and kale.  And guess what?  They end up tasting like kale.  Crispy kale, sure.  Salty like a snack?  You betcha.  Kale?  Yup.  I prefer mine with garlic powder, but I’ve done them with garlic, ginger and a dash of soy in with the olive oil for an Asian-inspired version that were quite nice as well, and I imagine if you were someone that could handle spicy foods, some cayenne pepper or chili powder could be really interesting.  Definitely put something on there.  Weirdly, as an FYI, garlic and parmesan?  Not as good as I thought it would be.  It wasn’t BAD, they just taste better with straight garlic.

So my version in a nutshell:

Kale Chips
1 bunch Tuscan kale
olive oil
salt
spices of choice (garlic powder is my go-to)

Preheat oven to 275 or 300 – I usually just turn it on to somewhere in between.

Remove the rib from each leaf by flipping the leaf upside down and slicing on either side of it.  I often ignore this advice when cooking with kale, but with chips, you do not want it there.  Baby leaves or thinner rib near the top can be left alone if you’re feeling lazy, but you really want all leaf for these.

Slice the kale leaves into relatively uniform pieces.  You’ll have a few super skinny ones that were next to the rib and maybe some giant flat ones from the bigger leaves – that’s okay, you just want to try and get everything to be finished cooking at the same time.

Put all the kale leaves in a ziploc bag or bowl.  Add spices, and olive oil enough to coat – don’t be too stingy here, but don’t drown them.  I often go as much as a whole tablespoon, but I eyeball it – start with a little and if that’s not enough, add more.  They’re very flexible, but too much oil will make them begin to wilt.

Toss around the ziploc to coat the leaves, or toss gently with your hands if they’re in a bowl – do use your hands for the bowl.  Utensils tend to rip them to shreds.

On a large cookie sheet (I usually end up needing 2), lay down parchment paper or aluminum foil – this is not necessary, but it makes cleanup a breeze.  Spread out the leaves so nothing’s overlapping; but you can get them quite close to each other, like a game of Healthy Tetris.  Bake about 20 minutes or until crispy.  If they start to turn brown, your oven may be too hot or you’ve baked too long – they’re still edible, but they will taste more bitter.

Remove from the oven, and slip the parchment or foil off the pan with the leaves still on it onto a table, counter, or rack to cool.  Voila!  Clean cookie sheet and you don’t have to burn your fingers transferring leaf by leaf to a rack.  They’ll keep up to about a week in a jar or ziploc bag.  They don’t look pretty, but they sure taste awesome.

*Special Note for people with toddlers and/or people that are stronger than you think you are: You will accidentally crumble half of them into bits when you absentmindedly grab for one.  Save the bits!  They’re great hidden in a quick quesadilla or shaken into any pasta dish to get some quick extra greens that, at that point, just taste like garlic salt.

Looking for how to prepare Tuscan Kale?  Just like Frilly Purple Kale –

Candy Cane Beets

30 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Fall, Purple, Red, Roots and Tubers, Spring, Summer, White, Winter

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Okay, so I know I waxed eloquent about Golden Beets only recently and complained about the earthy, bloody mess that is dark red beets, but how cute are these!

They look like something out of Willy Wonka or Candyland.  I want to skip through the Vegetable Forest, leaping between Chioggia stepping stones.

They’re called Chioggia or Candy Cane Beets, and they’re just like all the other beets except much, much prettier. Look at these stems!

I hope I can find some when Valentine’s Day comes around because I always end up serving tomato soup as the vegetable, and these are much more romantic looking. (Oooo!  I could cut them into heart shapes!  Alright, I’ve gone over the edge…  I’m not sure how a vegetable gets romantic in the first place…  I don’t think I want to know.)

Chioggias are more of a fuchsia or deep pink color on the outside than their bloody brethren, so if there are three kinds of beets lined up, golden will be orange-ish, traditional beets will be maroon colored, and these will be the paler red/hot pink kind you see in between.  (I only bought Chioggias and Golden, so no dark red beets in the picture to the left, just Golden for comparison.)

They also typically have candy cane stripes at the base of the greens where it meets the root, though they don’t have to:Once peeled, the resulting nugget can be almost all white like a potato, or deep pink stripes – the whiter ones will have paler or less pronounced pink stripes once you cut into the center; the deeper ones will make the really eye-catching slices.  The flavor isn’t as nutty as golden beets nor as earthy as red beets – frankly, they’re simply blander, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  They make the best chips, in my opinion, since non-beet eaters won’t be turned off by them.  As much as I love Golden Beets, they do have a distinct beet-ish flavor.  Candy Cane beets are milder and probably a better intro beet for those who really, really are afraid to try beets, though the more red they have (i.e. the more pronounced, eye-catching stripes) the more beet-like they will taste.  But, who cares?  Look how cute!

My biggest issue with Candy Cane beets is really an issue with my food processor.  I have a lovely slicing blade that should have made me beet chips in 5 seconds flat, but the beets are too round to go in properly.  The whole setup is designed for oblong things like sweet potatoes or zucchini.  Arrgh.  So in the meantime while I look on Amazon for a new lid, I had to handslice my beets to get them to look pretty, which is annoying because I have approximately Zero knife skills.  I can’t make even slices if my life depended on it.  (Which would be an odd way to threaten someone, I suppose: “Cut this beet right or I’ll kill you!”)

Regardless, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, lay them in a single layer on a cookie sheet covered in foil, and roast at 400 or 450 until slightly crispy, about 20 minutes.  I like to flip mine halfway through so they crisp up on both sides, but if you’re not a good flipper (I am not), you don’t have to.  They’ll still taste good.  Unless you own a mandoline or some other device (like knife skills, perhaps) that will allow you to get uniform, very thin slices, they’re not going to get crisp like chips – they’ll crisp up on the edges, but the centers will remain slightly soft.  That’s okay.  Sprinkle with salt and munch away.

Note: The cuteness will fade as they cook – the colors become more muted, especially at the higher heat that also will give them brown crispy spots.  If you’re trying to impress someone, stick to the reddest slices you’ve got – the paler whiter ones will be brownish and unimpressive once roasted.

Info on peeling, seasonality, etc. is the same as Golden Beets.  Enjoy!

Frilly Purple Kale

15 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in Fall, Green, Leafy, Purple, Spring, Vegetables, Winter

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It’s a little annoying when I go to the Farmer’s Market and there are seven thousand and three varieties of kale, and they’re all very pretty but they all look a little like something greenspeople plant by the thousands at Disneyland in Autumn rather than something I want to put on my plate, and you ask the farmer, “How do I eat this?” and he replies, “Like any kind of kale!”  Yeah, thanks.

But I guess that’s why I started this blog in the first place.  I don’t have cookbooks full of kale recipes, and even if I did it’s unlikely I’d have tried enough of them to be able to speak nonchalantly about them, like, “oh, of course, I’ll just whip up my Kale a la Bligadibong.”

This guy:

is technically called Redbor Kale, I think, but I like to call it Frilly Purple Kale, for obvious reasons.  He’s not red, for starters.  But he was pretty, and I need more iron in my diet and it’s a little hot for Kale Chips (what are Kale Chips you say?  Glad you asked!  Post on them coming up shortly…  Posted!) so I figured, why not?  Let’s try something new.

I thought a kale slaw of some kind might be nice, since kale is related to cabbage after all, but I couldn’t decide whether to go traditional mayo-type, or interesting peanut dressing, or something else entirely.  Finally, I settled on modifying this one for the main reason that it contained no red peppers which I’m not a big fan of.  In addition to being a lovely little side salad, I very much like that it’s vegan, which makes no difference to a bacon-lover like myself, really, except that bacon is always my go-to for bitter greens, and probably isn’t the healthiest counterpart.  More importantly, though, since it’s vegan that means no dairy, which means it can sit outside at a barbecue most of the afternoon and not poison my friends.  Score!

Kale Slaw with Toasted Walnuts

My changes:  I used 1 bunch Frilly Purple Kale and then at the last minute threw in 1/3-1/2 bunch of Curly Kale because it was in the fridge about to go bad and I didn’t think I had enough salad.  As an added bonus, however, the salad turned out much prettier with a little more variety of color, so I think I’ll do this in the future as well.  The recipe calls for just one large carrot, but I had 3-5 medium (again, about to go bad – end of the week fridge clean-out here) so I went with those instead.  And again, I recommend a little heavier on the carrot – it gives it a nice crunch.  I also wasn’t about to take the time to mince walnuts, so I took my good ol’ trusty bag of Walnut Halves and Pieces and just sort of crumbled them into more uniform sizes with my hands.  I probably ended up using more than the 1/4 c called for, but I also liked that I could actually taste them.  Minced seems…picayune.  But do take the time to toast them – toasting nuts brings out the flavor so you can use less, and the bit of warmth when they’re fresh out helps wilt the kale a bit.

  • 1 1/2 bunches Kale, preferably Frilly types because they’re prettier
  • 3-4 medium carrots – I like  to use multi-colored instead of just orange, again, for looks
  • 1/3 cup red wine vinegar, separated into 2 tbs + what’s left
  • 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, separated into 1 tbs + leftover
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt, more to taste
  • 1/4 – 1/2 c crumbled walnuts (toasted)

First thing after washing, you’re going to want to get rid of this guy:That’s the center rib of each leaf.  I often skip this step when I’m cooking kale, but for raw kale salads, it’s just too fibrous and unappetizing.

The easiest way to remove that rib from Frilly Kale is to fold the leaf in half and just run the knife down the side of the stem.

Please don’t mock my knife skills.  I have none.  I’m amazed I haven’t lost a thumb yet.

Pull all the lovely leafy parts away and toss the ribs into the compost pile.

Line up your leaves and slice them into thin strips.  This will make a giant mess that will severely disappoint your dog when she races over to see what you are spilling all over the floor.

Now comes the kinky part.  Put your shredded greens (purples?) into a bowl, add 2 tbs red wine vinegar, 1 tbs olive oil, and some salt, and give it a massage.

That’s right, a massage.  Don’t just toss it people, rub it in.  That’s the key to eating raw kale.  Raw kale is a tough, somewhat bitter little bugger, and as a tough, somewhat bitter little bugger myself, I can tell you, the only thing that makes it palatable is softening it up through a good massage.  And doing dishes for it.  Oh wait, that’s just for me.

Give it a good 3 minutes of rubdown, working the dressing and salt in, and then let it sit.  Turn on some ocean sounds for it so it can really relax.

Meanwhile, start toasting walnuts on aluminum foil in toaster oven at 325 for 8-10 minutes.

Peel your carrots and remove the tough stem end and maybe a bit of the tip if your peeling skills stink and it’s got dirt on it still.  If you have a food processor, I recommend attempting to put your carrots through the grater because if it works it’s super-fast, looks much nicer, and gives you just a wee bit of crunch without making the salad all about the carrots.  But since my carrots were getting a little wiggly, it only worked on 2 of them, so I had to chop the last one into shredded carrot size by hand.  Pain in the patootie.  Lazy lazy people might just want to buy pre-shredded carrots from the grocery store and I wouldn’t blame you.

Toss the carrots with the now-placid kale.  With a whisk or blender, combine the remaining oil and vinegar, honey, ginger, S &P, and garlic – do use a fresh clove if you’ve got it instead of garlic powder; it makes a difference.  Toss the dressing into the salad.Take the toasty walnuts out of the oven and dump them into the salad – toss quickly and carefully – they will be hot.  You will accidentally burn your hands and may suck on your fingers on instinct and then have to remind yourself to wash your hands again before continuing to toss.  Not that I did that….  You may choose to let them cool first, like intelligent people probably do, but I actually like that the hot walnuts help the kale wilt just a little bit more – if you’re making this salad right before eating, that’s a good thing.  If it’s going in the fridge until tomorrow, it probably doesn’t matter.

I honestly love this salad – it’s good cold, it’s good room temp, it keeps well, and it’s a lot healthier than cole slaw or potato salad for summer barbecues.  Also, it’s pretty.  I like pretty.

Some General Kale Facts:

Trim? Not necessary if you’re cooking it, though often preferred – for this recipe, lose the center rib.
Edible when raw? Yes – it needs to be massaged or wilted slightly to reduce the toughness, but it’s lovely.
Worth the price of organic? Yes – greens are on most “Must Buy Organic” lists, kale in particular, frilly kales especially in particular because pesticides get trapped in the curves and frills.  Organic all the way.
Best with:  Kale in general is good with bacon, goat cheese, vinegars – strong flavors to help counteract the slightly bitter taste of the leaf.  I also like soy sauce, peanuts/peanut oil, teriyaki, and other Asian flavorings for the sweet/sour interplay.
In Season:  It likes a frost, so technically fall, winter and spring, but I’ve never NOT seen it for sale unless it’s been 100 degrees for a straight month.  If one variety of kale is gone, you can usually swap in another.
How to Store: A trick I learned from an Internet stranger on a forum for all greens – as soon as you get home, fill your sink with warmish water.  Soak your greens as you scrub them with your fingers to get the dirt off the stems.  Drain the sink, then refill with cold water – the warm water opens the plant pores so they’ll absorb more water; the cold closes them to prevent wilting.  Pat dry with paper towels or spin in a spinner and put in the fridge.  Kale is a nice hearty green that we’ve been able to keep around for as long as 2 weeks, but I wouldn’t count on longer than a week if you want to be able to use the whole thing without yellowing bits.