greens

I love the greens from our garden and, really, never get tired of cooking them in a very simple way.  Usually, I saute onions in olive oil, then add the greens (collards, kale, chard, mustard and turnip greens, in whatever combination was available on a gardening day).  I saute it all a bit, then add just enough water to facilitate steaming, and steam, covered, until the greens are tender.  Usually, I season with just salt, pepper and a little celery salt.  It's perfect! We not only eat it hot with our dinner but, also, I put it cold on my salads for lunch.

But, tonight, I wanted to try something different.  I turned to Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" cookbook, my "bible" over the summer when the veggies are fresh and varied.  I chose the recipe "Kale and Cannellini Beans" but I used a mixture of greens from the Garden, kale along with Swiss chard, collard greens and some turnip greens (from salad turnips) instead of just kale.  I also used a vidalia onion.  Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe, though I used a bit more olive oil (2 Tbsp instead of 1.5) and garlic (4 instead of 2 cloves).  I used organic canned white kidney (cannellini) beans from Trader Joe's, thoroughly rinsed.  I also used dried rosemary from Penzey's, though it would have been better to have taken fresh rosemary home from the Garden.  I was too lazy to drive back up there to take some.  I used a very yummy Nobilo New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for the dry white wine.  A bit of overkill, I guess, but it was what we had.  (I drank a glass while cooking the dish, and it was much appreciated.) Enjoy!

 As of a few days ago, we still had some greens in the garden, particularly kale.  Recently, I -- a bit of a "gourmet" potato chip fiend -- learned of kale chips as a healthy way to satisfy our cravings for crispy, salty snacks!  There are many, many recipes to be found online, most calling for oven baking, with a few instead calling for a food dehydrator.  I experimented a bit with the oven methods, since many people don't have a dehydrator and, also, I figured that baking was likely to give more flavor.  

The first step is to cut the heavy stem out from the kale leaves.  While some recipes I found suggested using a sharp knife, it turns out that you can tear the kale away from the stem readily.   Tear the kale into pieces that will be "bite size" once they're dehydrated.  About a 3 to 4 inch dimension seems to work fine. 

I washed the kale pieces thoroughly in water, and dried them as well as possible.  I used a salad spinner and then blotted them with a towel. 

Then, I placed the kale pieces in a bowl, and added some extra virgin olive oil (at least I hope it was EVOO -- mine was from Trader Joes). I massaged the olive oil into the leaves, so that all were as evenly coated as possible.  Then, I seasoned them generously with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.  The coated kale looks like this:

Right now, the arugula is beautiful in the garden.  There is plenty of it, and it’s still tender, as well as spicy.  Last week, I used my arugula in a salad.  But, tonight, John used our share of  Saturday’s harvest in one of our favorite pasta recipes, “Pesto of Sundried Tomatoes with Arugula”.  The book Pasta Fresca by Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman features very simple, delicious pasta recipes and this is one great example, from their section on “Pasta with Raw Sauces”.  Note that, in the printed recipe, John changed the “3/4 cup” sundried tomatoes to “entire jar (8 oz)”.  We use sundried tomatoes from Trader Joe’s, though the cookbook authors urge readers to make their own.  I’ve not done that yet, though I understand that tomatoes can be readily oven-dried. 

As you can see, this dish is very colorful and, with the spicy arugula, sweet sundried tomatoes, dried hot pepper, and garlic, it has a lot of flavor!  It’s also vegetarian, as are many, though not all, of the Pasta Fresca recipes.