Before you go hanging that halo on me, you should know that this was followed by day-glo nachos at the hockey game. (Yes, I believe that actually going to the game calls for nachos, even a few days into a brand spanking-new year.)
Also, I need to brace myself for re-entry into a world where Toblerones are not considered an acceptable breakfast. And it appears hardly anyone drinks their coffee with Bailey’s in January.
I had a beautiful big bunch of kale, a hankering for walnuts, and the last of the garlic from the last of the CSA boxes last year (potent stuff – I’m good for keeping away Vampires until at least Halloween). It was inspired by this version, which I decided needed to be upgraded with a little browned butter. (Really, the butter browns as you toast the walnuts and garlic – but doesn’t it make it sound better?)
Kale with Browned Butter, Garlic and Pan-fried Walnuts
1 large bunch kale, stems and center ribs discarded
1 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1-2 Tbsp. butter
1 cup walnut halves
2-4 garlic cloves, finely crushed or grated
Tear kale into large pieces. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the kale for about 5 minutes, until tender. Pour into a colander and press with the back of a large spoon to remove excess liquid.
Meanwhile, heat the oil and butter in a large, heavy skillet (cast iron, if you have it) set over medium-high heat. Add the walnuts and cook, stirring, until golden and fragrant. Stir in the garlic. Remove the walnuts and set aside, and add the kale to the pan. Season with salt and pepper and cook until heated through. Add the walnuts back to the pan and serve immediately.
January 03 2011 | veg | 14 Comments »
We’re leaving for New York in the morning. (I HOPE – I did the web check-in and while M and W’s boarding passes have seats assigned, mine has an ominous GTE where my seat should be…) I just finished teaching a bacon class, and I realized I haven’t told you about my potato condo yet! I built a potato condo! I grew my own potatoes! In my back yard! I’m an urban potato farmer! For real!
Let me rewind. And calm down a little bit.
W has a new favourite book, called Two Old Potatoes and Me. Which I noticed in Rod & Chad’s truck (Calgary’s urban SPIN farmers) when I went out to photograph them for this story. I recognized it immediately, as one of his previous favourite books was by the same illustrator. So. I bought it at the farmers’ market, and we read about planting seed potatoes – those shriveled-up ones that start to grow eyes, and piling up dirt on top of them. Building a potato condo – a neighbour had built one this spring – enables you to pile the dirt up, giving them more space to grow upwards, which is what they normally do in their little hills of dirt on the ground – without taking up too much space. And so when we put in our garden, I took the galvanized steel garbage pail I tried to turn into a smoker a couple summers ago (with little success) and turned it into a potato condo.
Here’s what you do: put about a foot of dirt in the bottom and bury a few potatoes. Or if you have bigger ones with lots of eyes, do as Carolyn says in the story and cut them into chunks, making sure each piece has an eye protruding from it, before planting it. When the greens poke through the top, load on more dirt and compost. We went away to Tofino and came back to a can full of greens. You won’t smother them by piling on the dirt, although it seems to go against what little I do know about gardening. You water it, and pile on more dirt if more leaves burst through.
And then you wait until the first frost, until the plant dies, and then wait another two weeks. You can, of course, dip your hand in and grab a handful of potatoes anytime you fancy. (How satisfying a feeling is that – running out to the back yard to pluck new potatoes straight from the dirt?)
Once fall settles in (which it hasn’t done yet, but I don’t want to leave for a week and leave them out for a deep freeze) you can tip your container over and dump the contents, and sort through the dirt for potatoes. Potatoes! POTATOES I GREW MYSELF IN MY OWN BACK YARD (damn it’s tough to type and pat myself on the back at the same time).
New York!
New York!
Bacon Smashed Potatoes
I thought if this was to be German potato salad-esque, grainy mustard would be in order, so I added a squirt and left out the dill. (Although Brassica makes a dill mustard that would be pretty fab in this, come to think of it.) It was adapted from here.
2 lb. thin-skinned potatoes, cut into chunks if they need it
a few (or several) slices bacon, coarsely chopped
2-3 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. grainy mustard
1 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper
Steam potatoes in a steaming basket or in an inch or two of boiling water, covered, until very tender, 20 to 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook bacon in a heavy skillet over medium heat until crisp. Transfer bacon with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain, reserving fat in skillet. Add 2 tablespoons vinegar, mustard, sugar, and a bit of salt and pepper to the hot bacon drippings, scraping up the browned bits.
Transfer potatoes to a large bowl, reserving 1/2 cup of the steaming water. Add vinegar mixture to potatoes and smash with a potato masher to desired texture, adding reserved water if you like to thin it a bit.
November 03 2010 | veg | 21 Comments »
I’ve been trying to get rid of all that will potentially go slimy before we leave – for New York! New York!! It’s been booked for weeks, but I’m just realizing it now. We’re going to New York! All 3 of us. In a little over 24 hours. Yowzah.
But first, I have muchas work to get done, and we have to eat our beet greens.
We grew beets in the back this year, but the greens flourished far more than the beets themselves. (Ditto the radishes, which were virtually nonexistent underground, but high and leafy up top.) I’ve cooked with beet greens before, but given the choice I’d pick kale or chard. However. We had plenty that were about as fresh as local (the 100 foot diet?) as you can get. I came across it here, searching for beet green inspiration, but it seemed naked without the goat cheese. I’m not sure I could eat a roasted beet salad without.
W was not impressed. I recalled myself at his age and older, so bummed out that my mom made fish for dinner. And stewed tomatoes. Why would any grownup do such a thing, when they have full control over the decision-making-process every mealtime?
Roasted Beet Salad with Oranges, Beet Greens and Goat Cheese
adapted from epicurious.com
6 medium beets, greens attached
1 small sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 large oranges, peeled and halved, then sliced
1/3 cup red wine or balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup canola or extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp. brown sugar or honey
1 tsp. grainy mustard
1/2 cup(ish) crumbled soft goat cheese
freshly ground pepper
Preheat oven to 400°F. Trim greens from beets. Cut off and discard stems. Coarsely chop leaves and reserve. Wrap each beet in foil. Place beets directly on oven rack and roast until tender when pierced with fork, about 1 hour. Cool and peel beets, then slice or cut each into wedges.
Cook beet greens in a pot of boiling water just until tender, about 2 minutes. Drain well and squeeze to remove excess moisture. Put them into a bowl with the beets, onions and orange slices. Whisk vinegar, oil, garlic, sugar, mustard and orange zest; add to beet mixture with goat cheese and toss to coat. Season with pepper, and let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving.
One Year Ago: Spaghetti with Braised Kale
November 02 2010 | salads and veg | 11 Comments »
I think I may officially be a grown-up.
I rushed through a department store to buy socks and (practical) underwear today. I met with a speech therapist concerned with my kindergartener’s inability to properly say his Ls. I talked to neighbours about the parent council meeting. And when grandma took the boys to soccer, instead of getting some work done in the quiet house, I was more motivated to do something with the tower of potatoes and bunches of kale that needed using. Thus, Mike and I ate potato and kale galette for dinner, with a glass of zinfandel, and I was excited about it. Even though I ate at my desk and he in front of Dr. Who.
(Also? I’m very excited about these glasses. I got them at Nood. Guess how much? Six for a dollar. Six! One dollar. I’m totally done with stemmed wineglasses. They are not at all practical for curling up on couches or reading books in bed. They’re awkward to store and always look spotty.)
This galette looks scary – and it kind of is. But once you’ve done it, it’s not so big a deal. If you have a mandoline (my fingers are afraid of them) it will make slicing easy – but if you have a spanking new Japanese knife, it will be a snap. It works best if you have a nice big, heavy cast iron skillet – even better if you have two – one will make the bottom crisp and golden while the other weighs it down on top. I put a plate on top to invert it, and both times the bottom layer stuck to the pan, but then lifted off easily. No biggie. Just don’t make it on a night when you have people over who may be concerned with aesthetics and whom you want to impress. (Why are they over, anyway?)
It’s totally fine without cheese, but would be even finer with, I think. Crumbled goat or feta in with the kale, or grated Parmesan anywhere and everywhere. Don’t forget lots of garlic. I’m eating it as I type.
Potato and Kale Galette
adapted from Gourmet, September 2006
1 large bunch kale, tough stems and center ribs discarded
canola or olive oil, for cooking
a few tablespoons butter, soft or melted
4-5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
salt & pepper
2 lb (about 4) thin-skinned potatoes
Pull the kale off the stems and coarsely chop the leaves. Toss them in a pot of boiling water (even an inch or two will allow the kale to steam), cover and cook for 4-5 minutes. Drain well.
In a large, heavy skillet heat a drizzle of oil and a blob of butter over medium-high heat. Add the kale and garlic, sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes, until the moisture has cooked off. Set aside in a bowl.
Thinly slice the potatoes crosswise as thin as you can. Brush the bottom of the pan with oil or melted butter and layer in one third of the potato slices, overlapping slightly. Dab potatoes with some of the butter.
Spread half of kale over the potatoes, then another third of the potatoes, the remaining kale and the remaining potatoes.
Rub a sheet of foil with soft butter or brush it with oil, and place it buttered side down on top of the potatoes. Place a 10-inch heavy skillet on top of foil to weigh the galette down.
Cook over medium-how heat until the underside is golden brown, 10-12 minutes. Remove top skillet and foil. Set a dinner plate (as big as the pan) onto the top (a cookie sheet works fine too, but is a little more awkward to handle) and invert the galette. Slide it back into the skillet, browned side up, and cook, uncovered, until underside is golden brown and potatoes are tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Slide onto a serving plate. If any of it comes apart at any point, don’t worry – just stick it back together.
Cut into wedges to serve. Serves 4-6.
One Year Ago: Vietnamese Chicken Satay & Fried Rice
October 21 2010 | veg | 21 Comments »
We had a sort of impromptu Thanksgiving dinner tonight… I came into the possession of a turducken (for a story in next week’s Swerve) and with CSA veg piling up it seemed to make sense to have a bit of a feast today. We wound up with a houseful of a dozen or so. Those chilly fall days when I get to putter around and make a turkey dinner are some of the best of the year. Turns out I was about ready for it. (So was my groaning fridge.)
A turducken, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a Frankensteined turkey, partially deboned (but with legs and wings intact, in order to maintain that Norman Rockwell visual appeal) and stuffed with a fully deboned chicken and duck. This one also happens to contain Spolumbo’s sausage.
It’s easy enough to cook – all you do is unwrap it and stick it in the oven – it bakes on low heat (225F) for 7-8 hours (about the same as a slow cooker – you could probably cram one in), which forced me to run across the street to bake the things I mixed up without thinking about the oven being occupied. I had to cover the legs with foil as they browned much more quickly than the rest of the bird. To carve it, you halve it lengthwise and then just sort of hack/slice it up – far easier than the usual awkward dance I do with a whole turkey and carving knife. (A new Calgary company makes these, and they’re available at Co-op stores.)
W helped me shuck the corn, which it turns out has far less appeal when it’s cold and rainy outside – it looks as if some blonde just got her hair cut in my kitchen. I made a big pot of vichyssoise (leek and potato soup – it’s called vichyssoise when it’s served chilled, but we ate it hot, sipped out of mugs) using leeks, potent garlic, sweet little spring onions and thin-skinned white potatoes so fresh and juicy they cracked like apples when I cut into them – skin and all. (Then chicken stock, fresh thyme, simmered and then pureed with a splash of cream at the end.) I didn’t use a recipe, but I posted one a couple years ago if you need it. We had pink and purple potatoes, boiled and roughly mashed, leftover wheat berry and barley salad with chickpeas (left over from last week’s food photo extravaganza) and steamed green and yellow beans and carrots from the farm. And a big salad.
And real creamed corn – it’s what you make when summer turns to fall, you’re a bit done with the whole on-the-cob thing, and you have a nice cast iron skillet to cook it in. To get the kernels off the cob, hold it upright in the middle of a bundt or angel food cake pan, and cut/scrape them off down the sides, letting them fall into the pan.
Real Creamed Corn
1 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
1 small sweet onion or 4 green onions, finely chopped
6 ears fresh corn, husked
1/2 cup cream – heavy, 18% coffee cream or half & half
In a large, heavy skillet, heat the oil and butter over medium-high heat. When the foaming subsides, add the onion and cook for a few minutes, until soft. Meanwhile, scrape the kernels off the cobs of corn, scraping away any milk at the base as well. (You can do this by holding the cob upright in the middle of a Bundt or angel cake pan and scraping down the sides, or merely holding it in a wide bowl or pan.)
Add the corn to the hot pan and cook until tender and if you like, starting to brown. Add the cream and cook for a minute or two, until thickened. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.
For dessert on Thanksgiving we kind of fell into the tradition of upside-down pear gingerbread rather than pie – partly because my Dad has always been cautious of his fat intake, and partly because I made it once when I was a teenager and everyone loved it. Sometimes we make a pie too, but we always have this. With an enormous bag of peaches on the counter, I figured since peaches and ginger were a pretty compatible pair, peaches and gingerbread might be even better. Bingo. I think I like it better than with pears.
Upside-Down Peach Gingerbread
One of the biggest selling points of an upside-down cake is the fact that it needs no decorating. When you invert the cake the fruit slices end up on top, making it look gratifyingly complete with no need for frosting.
Topping:
2 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp. maple or golden syrup
1-2 ripe but firm peaches, pears or tart apples, sliced
Gingerbread:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup dark molasses
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger, or 1 tsp. powdered ginger
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. allspice (optional)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup buttermilk or sour milk
Preheat the oven to 350°F and spray a 9″ round cake pan with nonstick spray. Put the butter (for the topping) in the pan and put it into the oven for a few minutes to melt. Take it out and stir in the brown sugar and syrup. It won’t really be smooth – don’t worry about it. Arrange the peach slices on top, placing them tightly together – they shrink a bit as they cook.
To make the gingerbread batter, beat the butter and brown sugar in a medium bowl until well blended. Add the egg, molasses, and ginger and beat until thoroughly combined.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice and salt. Add half the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir by hand or on the lowest speed of an electric mixer just until the batter is combined. Add the buttermilk in the same way, then the remaining dry ingredients. Pour the batter over the sliced peaches.
Bake for about 40 minutes, until the top is springy to the touch. Let it stand for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the cake and invert it onto a plate while it’s still warm. If it cools too much and sticks to the pan, warm it in the oven again before you try to invert it. Don’t worry if any peach slices stick to the bottom of the pan – simply peel them out and place them back on top of the cake where they belong. Serves 8-12.
Sadie helped me make the cakes, and the ice cream too. This is about as simple as it gets – pure cream (it doesn’t need to be heavy – we used coffee cream) and honey, whirled in the ice cream machine. I made it because I didn’t feel like going to the corner store for whipping cream, but it turned out to be exactly the thing. Go ahead and call it frozen honey cream if you want to be all
shi shi la la (or Winnie-the-Pooh) about it. I love that all there is in this ice cream is cream and honey – no guar gum, carageneen or anything I can’t spell (or pronounce).
Honey Ice Cream
1/3 cup good-quality honey
2 cups 18% coffee cream (or 1 cup whipping cream and 1 cup 2% milk)
If the honey is solid or crystallized, microwave it for about 10 seconds to liquefy; stir into the cream and put in the refrigerator until chilled. Freeze in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer’s directions. Makes about 3 cups.
September 19 2010 | dessert and veg | 19 Comments »
