So, our farm share has helped me incorporate a few new vegetables into my cooking. Previous to the farmshare, I was in a vegetable rut. I admit it, I was serial buyer of broccoli, spinach, and salad. My farmshare has expanded my horizons a little bit. I do not know how I lived a full vegetable experience before beets, and beet greens, chard, and kale.
Now, of course, the crucifer family includes a whole gamut of vegetable yumminess – broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, collards, turnips, rutabaga, and Brussels sprouts. Now, I love Brussels sprouts, but if I could only have one, it’d be kale. Broccoli is now way down the list. But, if you roast it, I’ll be first in line. I like my broccoli with char (extra carcinogens) please.
I realized this after the farm share ended, and I was hungering for greens, not salad or spinach, but real greens, like I’d come to rely on during the fall. So, I did something I don’t normally do but should do more often – I went to the fabulous food bar at the People’s Food Co-Op for lunch. I knew they’d have kale. Mmmmmm. I realized I needed to eat there more – local, organic, yummy….
Maybe I’ve just started noticing, but Kale seems to have gone mainstream. I mean, it was just featured in Bon Appetit magazine. I’ve been loving their quick recipe “for supper” – blanch kale for 1 minute, then saute with garlic, onions, garbanzo beans, a little bit of stock, and then top with a fried egg. It’s what I eat when I’m just cooking for me. Yum.
I would encourage you to also try to get in on some Leeks – very good stuff.
Les Halles cookbook has some great soups where Leeks place a central role
Hey thanks.
Yeah, I love leeks too :). They came in the farmshare, and again it is a vegetable I’d rarely used before and now needs a bigger place in the repertoire. Thanks for the cookbook recommendation.
D.
Dunrie –
There’s an Ann Arbor food blogger with a new blog “365 days of kale”
http://365daysofkale.blogspot.com/
which is pretty much just what it says it is. We did “kale chips” the other day from her
http://dianadyer.blogspot.com/2008/08/recipe-kale-chips.html
which were easy and delicious.
Hey Ed,
Thanks! 🙂
I did try this recipe for Kale Chips from Bon Appetit and I did like it. The one you pointed out looks even more flavorful (spices!) and I can’t wait to try it.
-D.
For the longest time, kale made me think of Grandpa Heinrich. He brought us kale from his garden & boiled the same bunch every night until we ate it all. Remember? We made a pact to choke it all down so it wouldn’t be served again the next night! He was so excited we liked it!
I knew it was some kind of green, but I didn’t know which one.
I do remember he grew veggies in his backyard (corn and everything) and he washed his greens in the washing machine, which dumbstruck me.
Maybe he’s proud that we both like kale now?