Easy Kale With Pecans Recipe

It has been forever since I’ve posted a recipe, and I apologize. The thing is, I’ve been really busy. And when I’m busy my meals don’t tend to be super interesting or fancy.

But they are definitely delicious.

Kale has been my favorite instant meal lately. I can usually find three different kinds–curly, Tuscan (aka dinosaur), and red Russian–and they all work with this recipe. You can also substitute chard or any other sturdy greens to mix things up. If you want to make your life even easier look for kale with smaller, young leaves so the stems are tender enough to leave in while cooking.

The key to making a plain green vegetable worthy of an entire meal is adding something with protein or fat (preferably both). Nuts work perfectly, as do any kind of beans or lentils. This recipe calls for pecans, which are wonderful, but I usually use roasted pistachio nuts since they don’t need to be chopped. I was out of pistachios today since I ate so much kale last week (these things happen).

For me this meal is a perfect lunch. Alternatively you can serve it as a side dish and it can serve a few people. If you would like a little more substance serve it with lentils and brown rice or quinoa. I will sometimes have sardines or smoked mackerel or trout on the side.

Super Easy Kale With Pecans Recipe

Serves 1-3 people. 10 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch kale or chard
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans or pistachios
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Sea salt to taste

Start by mincing your garlic, just to make it a tiny bit healthier. Rinse your greens and place them all on a cutting board oriented in the same direction. If the leaves have very thick stems you may want to remove them as explained here. Personally I buy greens that are fresh and tender enough that I rarely bother removing stems.

Pile the greens on top of each other. Starting at the tip of the leaves, cut 1 inch strips until you have cut the entire bunch. If you are using Tuscan or red Russian kale, a lot less chopping is necessary because the leaves are thin and only need be cut in one direction. If your leaves are wide, cut them into 1-2 inch squares. It’s okay if your greens are still wet, the water will help them steam.

Using a pan with tall sides and a lid, add the nuts and turn it on medium heat. Lightly toast the nuts, stirring regularly with tongs. After 2-3 minutes, add olive oil to the pan and allow it to heat up. Add your chopped greens to the pan, sprinkle generously with sea salt and toss with tongs. Cover.

Stir the greens occasionally so they don’t burn, always replacing the lid after stirring. Continue cooking the greens as they wilt and turn dark green. If they start to burn lower the heat, add 1-2 tbsp of water and cover again to steam.

Kale is done cooking when it is dark green and the stems are tender. Unlike spinach, it is very difficult to over-cook kale because it retains its crispness very well.  Before turning off the heat, use tongs to clear a space in the center of the pan and add your minced garlic in a single layer. Allow the garlic to cook until it becomes fragrant, about 30 seconds, then mix it up with the kale and nuts. Add half cup of beans or lentils at this point if desired.

Continue to cook greens uncovered for another minute or two. Taste test a leaf for saltiness and adjust to taste (be careful if you are using chard, it is naturally salty and easy to over-season).

Serve immediately.

Who loves kale as much as I do?

Tags: dinosaur kale, kale, red Russian kale, time

Winter Salads

Today Nathalie Lussier is sharing her secret tips for making tough winter greens soft enough to eat in salads. Winter salads are a perfect use for all the lovely radishes, kohlrabi, carrots, beets and other sweet vegetables available this season at the farmers market.

Top off your salad with hazelnuts, grapefruit and some shaved cheese for a satisfying winter meal or side dish.

Nathalie Lussier helps people overcome unhealthy food cravings so they can eat more fruits and vegetables, and experience the magick of raw foods. She’s known as The Raw Foods Witch.

How To Use Winter Greens In A Salad

by Nathalie Lussier

Winter might not strike you as salad season, but there are plenty of delicious hearty greens to be had this time of year. One trick is to marinate the leaves so they soften and are easier to chew.

Here’s how to prepare some of these tougher greens and enjoy rich, satisfying salads year round.

Choosing Hearty Greens

The foundation of any good salad is the green component. Usually we think of lettuce, but there is a world of other greens to explore.

So what options do we have when it comes to hearty greens?

1. Kale: Kale is a tough vegetable that can handle the cold. It has a strong taste, but with a little bit of massaging it can make a really satisfying salad green. There are a few varieties, from the most common curly green to the spotty dinosaur (aka Tuscan) and beautiful purple kales. They are each slightly different and you should experiment with them all.

2. Cabbage: Cabbage is a tried and true winter veggie, but we can go beyond the usual coleslaw, saurkraut and cooked cabbage. Different colored cabbage adds beauty and variety to your salads, as well as sweetness and a crispy texture.

3. Swiss Chard: A relative of spinach, Swiss chard has a thick midrib that comes in a rainbow of colors like green, white, red, pink, and yellow. Swiss chard is great in salads and can be easier to chew than some of the others.

Washing & Cutting The Greens

De-stemming Tuscan Kale

Wash the greens thoroughly, you never know when a caterpillar will decide to make her home in a leaf of kale.

The way you cut the greens is important because you want them to absorb the marinade and soften.

Cutting Kale and Swiss Chard

For both kale and Swiss chard, you need to remove the stems by using a knife and slicing them out vertically. You can then chop up the stems and add them back to the salad like you would celery or other hard vegetables.

After you’ve removed the stems, slice the kale and chard horizontally into 1 inch strips. Put the sliced greens in a large bowl.

Don’t worry if you think you sliced up too much, it will shrink down in size as it marinates.

Cutting Cabbage

If you’re using cabbage, cut the cabbage in half and then use a knife to cut thin strips. These should look like coleslaw slices. You may have to cut them lengthwise if they are too long.

I recommend you cut the whole cabbage and make a big batch, unless you have something else planned for the other half. Making large batches at once makes future healthy meals that much easier.

Massaging & Marinating The Greens

This is the magic part that will take regular tough greens and turn them into the perfect salad.

Ingredients

• Your chosen greens or a combination of them (1 bunch)
• 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil or more as needed
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• Pinch of Celtic sea salt

Now it’s time to get your hands dirty! Add the ingredients into your mixing bowl and massage them into the greens with your hands.

You really want to squeeze the oils and juices into the greens, because that’s what will make them truly mouthwatering.

The Final Touches

After you’ve thoroughly massaged your winter green salad, add any other chopped vegetables you like, or any of these salad toppings.

Dress the greens and veggies for a hearty, satisfying winter salad!

Don’t let tough winter greens turn you off salads. Once you know how to make those winter greens more palatable, you’ll be eating delicious raw salads all year round!

Do you have any winter salad tips?

Tags: cabbage, chard, guests, kale, Nathalie Lussier, salad

Bruschetta

Bruschetta was the first sophisticated dish I could really make. That’s probably because it doesn’t require any cooking and is entirely dependent on the quality of your ingredients. Find some good ripe tomatoes, a decent baguette and you’re in business.

For this recipe I used the abundance of spectacular tomatoes I found this weekend at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. I chose one big striped heirloom tomato, several dry-farmed early girls and half a basket of mixed cherry (red) and sungold (orange) baby tomatoes. It doesn’t matter much what varieties you choose, just make sure they are ripe and have good flavor.

Bruschetta Ingredients

The next essential ingredient is a good baguette. I bought sour and Italian baguettes from Acme Bread Co. To turn your bruschetta from good to amazing, be sure to brush your bread slices with olive oil and lightly toast them in the oven.

For this recipe I added a diced roasted pepper, but feel free to get creative with your ingredients. Chunks of fresh mozzarella are a great addition, especially if you are having a hard time choosing between bruschetta and caprese salad.

This recipe is the perfect summer snack and can be served as a starter, side dish or brought to a potluck (keep bread and topping separate until you arrive).

Summer Tomato Bruschetta

Ingredients:

• 2 c. diced summer tomatoes
• 1 clove garlic, worked through garlic press
• 1/4 c. good quality extra-virgin olive oil
  

  Roasting Pepper

• juice of half lemon
• 8-10 basil leaves, sliced into ribbons
• paprika, to taste (optional)
• good sea salt, to taste
• red bell pepper, fire roasted (optional)
• splash of balsamic vinegar (optional)
• sour baguette, sliced into 1/2 in. discs at an angle

If you are roasting a pepper, start by turning on a burner and placing the pepper on top. Blacken the skin evenly by using tongs to turn periodically. When the pepper is completely blackened, remove from flame and allow to cool. Scrape off blackened skin with a dull knife or fork, remove seeds, dice and set aside.

Bruschetta Mix

In the meantime preheat oven to 325 F and slice bread.

Combine first 9 ingredients in a mixing bowl. Some people add sugar, but I prefer to add a splash of balsamic vinegar if I want a little more sweetness. Paprika is also optional, but I find it adds a nice, subtle complexity. Don’t be shy with your sea salt in this recipe. Allow mixture to marinate briefly, stirring occasionally.

Olive Oil on Baguette

Next brush your baguette slices on one side with olive oil and place in warm oven. Toast for 6-10 minutes. Monitor carefully and do not allow to burn.

Place baguette slices on your serving plate and heap marinated tomatoes on top. Add extra small spoonfuls of juice on top of the mixture to add flavor and soften bread.

Serve immediately and crack the champagne.

What do you add to your bruschetta?

Tags: baguette, bruschetta, potluck, roasted peppers, summer tomatoes

Roasted Beets With Fresh Mint and Chèvre

I am very proud to share this recipe with you since it came by special request from my dad–a self-professed beet hater. I won him over with these beets several years ago and he is still talking about them! The same recipe stole my heart back when I thought I hated beets too.

Are you convinced?

Roasted Beets with fresh mint and chèvre is an elegant, impressive dish that hardly requires any cooking skills. If you are still worried you will not like the flavor of beets, you can look for the milder and less messy golden or candy-striped beets. Whenever possible I like to use a few different beet varieties to mix up the colors and flavors, but today I’m sticking with the common red garden beet.

Mint Leaves

To begin you must eliminate all thoughts of substituting canned beets for the fresh ones in this recipe. Fresh roasted beets have a rich, sweet and earthy flavor that is completely unlike the flaccid purple slivers that come in a can.

You will also need fresh mint leaves. Most grocery stores and farmers markets will have fresh mint this time of year. Dried leaves really don’t cut it in this recipe.

Chèvre is a soft goat cheese that a close friend of mine describes as “like cream cheese only better.” A little bit goes a very long way, so I always buy the smallest amount possible (this time it cost me $2.89).

Chèvre

Be careful not to add the cheese directly to hot beets or it will melt and form an unattractive pink slime. It still tastes good, but it’s better to avoid this problem by cooling the beets beforehand. An hour in the refrigerator works well, but if you are in a hurry you can get away with 10-15 minutes in the freezer.

This dish is very easy to scale for large batches, making it ideal for parties and potlucks.

Roasted Beets With Fresh Mint and Chèvre

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of beets (3 large), any garden variety
• 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, loosely packed
• 1/4 oz. chèvre, crumbled
• Olive oil
• Sea salt or kosher salt

Preheat oven to 375.

If the leaves are still on your beets, twist them off leaving enough stem to use as a handle for peeling. If your beet greens are still fresh and springy I recommend cleaning them and cooking them up with some onions and garlic (cook them like spinach). Beet greens are so full of potassium that they are salty to the taste, so be careful with your seasonings because they are easy to over-salt. Both beets and beet greens are extremely good for people with high blood pressure.

Peel your beets using a vegetable peeler (I recommend this one) and chop evenly into bite-sized cubes. Discard stems. Cubes should be approximately 3/4 to 1 inch on each side. Keep in mind that the larger your pieces the longer they will take to cook.

Add 1-2 tbsp olive oil to beets and toss to coat. Sprinkle beets with salt and place in a single layer in a large Pyrex baking pan. Place in oven on middle rack and roast until beets are tender and have a glazed-like appearance, stirring every 8-10 minutes. Roasting takes approximately 35 minutes.

When beets are finished roasting, transfer them to a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. Chill for at least 30 min, but 45 min to 1 hr is preferable.

5 minutes before the beets are done chilling, stack mint leaves on top of each other and chiffonade them by rolling lengthwise like a cigarette and slicing into thin ribbons. I like to cut the ribbons in half once by making a single cut through the middle of the pile along the vein of the leaves. Discard the stems.

Using a fork, crumble a small amount of chèvre into a small bowl or plate and set aside.

Sprinkle mint onto the beets and stir, leaving a few ribbons for garnish. Adjust salt to taste. Transfer beets and mint to a serving bowl and sprinkle with chèvre and remaining mint. Serve immediately.

Do you love beets? Hate beets? Interested in having pink urine?

Tags: beets, chèvre, chiffonade, mint, picky eaters, potluck, roasted vegetables, root vegetables

Balsamic Asparagus and Carrots

Nothing represents springtime quite like fresh asparagus. This easy recipe highlights its unique flavor by pairing it with sweet carrots and reduced balsamic vinegar. It is simple, delicious and can be prepared in under 10 minutes.

Start with the freshest, greenest asparagus you can get your hands on. These should be easy to find in California throughout the month of April and possibly into May.

The trick to keeping asparagus tender and not fibrous (a question asked last week by a Summer Tomato reader) is to snap off the bottom of the spears with your hands. The asparagus will naturally break where the fibers are thinnest and most tender, leaving all the thick and chewy fibers on the end you throw out. After washing, grip each asparagus spear near the middle with one hand and use the other hand to snap off the bottom. Foolproof.

This recipe is fantastic by itself, but can be made more substantial by adding lentils, beans, tofu or canned salmon. It is also a great side dish for fish or poultry. Here it was served on a bed of brown rice that I pulled from the freezer. It is also really delicious with quinoa.

Balsamic Asparagus and Carrots

Ingredients:

• Asparagus (1/4 – 1/2 bunch for single serving)
• Carrots, 3-5 medium-small carrots
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2-4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• Sea salt

Crush and mince your garlic clove and set aside. Prepare your asparagus spears as described above and cut them into 1-2 inch bite-sized pieces. Peel your carrots with a vegetable peeler (my peeler recommendation can be found in the Shop under Kitchen Gear > Accessories) and slice at an angle into half inch pieces. Angled cuts increase the surface area of the carrot and are better for cooking.

Heat 1-2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Add carrots to the pan and stir to coat with oil. Add asparagus to the pan and stir again. Sprinkle sea salt onto the vegetables and allow them to cook until asparagus is bright green and starting to sweat, about 2-3 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Clear a space in the center of the pan and add garlic in a single layer. Allow to cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir to mix garlic with the vegetables. Drizzle on balsamic vinegar and stir. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally until the carrots are tender and a thin balsamic glaze begins to form on the vegetables. Remove from the pan and served immediately.

What is your favorite Quick Fix for asparagus?

Tags: asparagus, balsamic vinegar, carrots, easy