All Hail Kale Salad: Swipe!

Swiper, no swiping!

Those of you that have young siblings as I do or children of your own
might catch that reference. If not, I just swiped or knocked off a dish
from everyone's favorite Veggie Grill.

To be honest, I've never even had the darn thing. Yes, everyone raves
about it, blah blah blah-- but I have a hard time bringing myself to
pay $8-10 for a bowl of kale. I don't care how good it is. If I'm going
to go out to eat and drop dollars in the double digits, it better be
something I can't make at home or have never experienced before.

Its Ok if you can't cook and like to eat out because its the only decent
way to get good food, but you have to at least tell me you're trying to duplicate these things.

What is this All Hale Kale stuff? Apparently it is Kale and Quinoa
marinated in a papaya vinegarette, topped with purple cabbage,
walnuts, carrots, and a roasted corn salsa and chic'n/tempeh (opt).

I basically had everything but the papaya, so I subbed out some OJ for
that baby. Voila. Pretty delish. I didn't do the grilled plant protein,
since we were already eating quinoa and quinoa is high in protein.
Although, we did have some assorted baked sweet potato fries on the
side: orange, purple, and white sweet potato!

FYI: although many people do, there is really no need to remove the
stems from kale. Just cut off the very end and roll the whole leaf with
a rolling pin to tenderize. Crush the stem so it is soft and chewable.
Why waste a perfectly good piece of kale?



All Hail Kale Salad for 4

8 stalks of kale, tenderized and shredded finely
2 cups cooked quinoa

1 cup purple cabbage, shredded
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/4 cup raw walnuts, chopped

1/3 cup orange juice
2 tbsp olive oil or a nut oil
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp agave
juice from one lemon
1/2 tsp grated ginger
salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup fresh corn
1 tomato, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 small clove garlic, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
juice from one lime
salt and pepper to taste
cilantro (opt)

Once the cooked quinoa has cooled, toss it with the kale and add the
dressing. Go ahead and mix the salsa, let it sit to 'age' the flavors.

Once you're ready to chow down arrange the salad on the plate
starting with the marinated kale, salsa, cabbage, carrot then walnuts--
or whatever you like, it's all ending up in the same place anyway!

This is where you go "WHAT? That's it?!" and I smile and laugh manically.

I guess it's the Forth of July... Don't go out and roast dead animals
or burn a forest down with stupid fireworks... please and thankyou.
No, we are not celebrating today. Why? I dunno, should it be a priority?

Pizza Pizzaz Part Four: Strawberry Fields Forever

Cooking is easy with minds closed, boring foods are all you see.
It's getting hard to be different, but it all works out.
It really matters much to me...

Let me take you down cuz we're going to Strawberry Fields.
I promise it's real. Not thing to get weird about.
Strawberry Fields Forever.



It still strawberry season here in California and I've been
hitting up the local vendors every week now. We've been having a
lot of strawberry smoothies and I've been adding them to my
cereal for weeks now. I plan to make some preserves too, but need
to find all my jars. But somewhere along the way I figured, why
not pizza?

Why not indeed. We put all sorts of sweet stuff on our pizzas right?
Well, some of us do. Pears, pineapple... ok thats all that really
comes to mind right now, but we need to try more sweet stuff. I'm
not saying throw gummi bears on your pizza, but more naturally
sweet stuff.



That's where this pizza comes in.
Its topped with a delicious red sauce, kale (although, I'd sub out
chard instead), grilled strawberries, pecans, and tofu feta.
Seriously, that is it.



We used the Tofu Feta from Jo Stepaniak's The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.
It was good. Better baked than raw, but tasted a little too much of
miso when you think about it. I'll try the recipe again without so
much miso, while looking around for better recipes that I can incorporate.



Baked at 450F for about 10-15 minutes we served it topped with
balsamic vinegar-- very important! Come on! Get out there and try
something new for god's sake!

Green with Envy

From my endless reading of foodie lit, cookbooks, and online food
postings I've been reading more and more about the holy green
smoothie. Now I'm a little green to this pure green smoothie fad,
but I'm no stranger to adding veggies to my fruity blends.

I must admit that I am the ultimate smoothie master. I conquered
the secret recipes of jamba juice and have gotten people addicted
to my concoctions.

I talked to my Mom on the phone a couple days ago and she said that
my little brother was begging everyone to make him smoothie like I
used to do for him all the time. My Mom told him that she didn't
know how to make a good smoothie and he told her that it's easy,
"you just have to put bananas in the blender".

I was putting some veggies in with the fruit when I was on a
liquid diet last year after getting all four of my wisdom teeth
surgically extracted in one go. Don't worry, I'm still a wise guy.
I remember drinking gallons of smoothies and a lot of carrot soup.
For some reason, none of my smoothies never had even a slight
green tint. I guess I wasn't adding enough X.

So I gave it another whirl.

First shot....

4 leaves of kale, 2 bananas, a handful of ice cubes and about 6
strawberries- thinned out with some OJ


Second shot...

4 leaves of kale, 2 bananas, a handful of ice cubes and 1 small
mango- again thinned out with OJ.


The second was definitely more 'green' tasting. I like almost always
using bananas because it helps retain that thickness and prevents
a lot of the separation that you get in some smoothies. If you're
at all adverse to eating your greens this really is a great trick.
The colour may be a bit... unusual, but you really cannot taste
the veg at all. It tastes pretty much like a really bitchin' fruit
smoothie.


Now they do look pretty similar, but the second was a much richer
green and probably could have been blended longer. That is one thing
to remember! Blend longer than you think you should or else you'll
get a little bit of stringy fiber. We were in a hurry this morning
though, like the usual Monday morning rush.

My only qualm was that I should have frozen the bananas, mango and
berries beforehand, that way I wouldn't have had to add the ice.
For me, a smoothie being cold is essential. Warm smoothies make
me wanna hurl.

Ideally, I'd like to keep up having a smoothie, preferably green if
I can mix it up enough to not get bored, every morning as a new
routine. My next try is going to include avocado, so stay tuned.

7 Days of Irish Luck, St. Paddy's Day: Colcannon

Colcannon is a traditional dish served on St. Patrick's Day for
the lovely green and white, but more commonly around Old Hallows
Eve. A ring would be hidden in the dish and the lucky lady
(or not so lucky if you bit it) that found it was bound to marry
in the spring.

The traditional recipe uses a lot of fat, I cut it down and added
a bit of nondairy milk to retain the creaminess.

It can be made with curly kale or cabbage, I used regular cabbage
and purple cabbage to make it even more beautiful!

Colcannon

Ingredients

about 4 potatoes, ready to boil
1/2 cup regular cabbage, shredded
1/2 cup purple cabbage, shredded
1/4 onions
1/4 cup earthbalance
a couple green onions, diced
1/4 cup soymilk
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste

While your potatoes are boiling, saute your green cabbage,
garlic, and onions together just until tender. After saute
the purple cabbage, so as not to dye the others.

Alternately, you can saute just the onions and garlic and
set aside (or omit) and blanch the cabbage in your hot
potato water after pulling the potatoes out.

Anyway, after the potatoes are cooked place them in a dish
and mash the butter in, adding just enough nondairy milk
to make it creamy.

Mix in your cabbages (and onions if using) and season with
salt and pepper. I topped my with green onions and stuck
it the the over for just a few minutes, partly to keep it
hot while I was cooking other things and partly to give it
just a little be of a different texture on the top.

I love the way that the purple cabbage dyed just a wee bit
of the surrounding potatoes, they looked like puffy little
clouds...

Mossy Soup

So much Kale,

how to use it?

No time how

to manage it...

Stomach is

growling what

to feed it...

As usual

the answer is

probably

soup.

Soups are about as easy as you can possibly get.

Who needs to say more.

I sauteed a couple of cloves of minced garlic in

a little bit of olive oil and added some minced

celery, chopped carrots, chopped potatoes

and green peas. Vegetable broth... Let it cook.

Cooked some Kale in salted water separately

then shredded it just so I could make sure I

didn't over cook it. Fresh parsley and let simmer

until everything is cooked.

I served it up with some black olive, whole wheat

focaccia and waited. When there is food, they will come.

Summer Salads

Alright, so I'm pretty lucky. Its not that hot where I live.

In fact, its usually pouring rain. No matter what the rest

of the island looks like, guaranteed- its raining at my house.

So I don't need to worry about it being too hot to cook

or too stick to make soup for supper. But I pretend.

I have to give myself the illusion of seasons somehow,

or else I'd probably run mad!

Well, hitting the beach is a different matter. We went

yesterday and it was darn tootin hot! So cool watermelon

and fuji apples were the perfect choice.

I also hit up another one of my campus survival foods...

a cool Purple Salad. My buddy used to steal my beets

when I was eating lunch cuz she was crazy for them.

I try to make this for potlucks too. I've convince people

that hate purple potatoes that they love them now,

all thanks to this lovely little dish.

Every time I eat this I forgot how much I loved it and

wonder why I don't eat it more. We all need a little more

of the rainbow in our lives...

Its mostly just a potato salad with beets and purple sweet
potatoes, but I'm working on it. I'm talking about the potato
salads with vinegar, not mayonnaise...

So far? I think the peas have gotta go...

Braised Kale and Figs

I've been playing around with kale for a while.

I bought three huge bunches at the farmers market,

which encouraged me to cook it up quickly. The longer your

greens sit, the more bitter they become. I usually

cook it up with raisins and serve it over pasta.

However, I was in luck this past Sunday.

I went over to the west side of the island with some

friends and we went to Costco. (yes yes I know, but

we have very few choices in Hawaii. Unfortunately,

Costco is often the lesser of evils.)

While we were there I was stunned to find a large

flat of fresh figs for $8. I was so excited. Its the first

time I've ever seen fresh figs in Hawaii. Its been almost

a decade since I'd had one.

Figs originate from Western Asia, but spread through the

Mediterranean. They were brought over to California in

the 1500s by explorers and became an established crop

in the missions of Southern California. Figs are really high

in dietary fiber (two figs contain the same amount of fiber

as a half a cup of beans), as well as high levels of potassium,

and manganese.

So, aside from munching them

constantly I figured I'd give them a whirl with some

braised kale. I wish I could make this more often, its

across the board gorgeous.

Braised Kale and Figs

ingredients

1 large bunch of Kale, cut to ribbons!

1 clove of garlic, minced

5 medium fresh figs, cut into quarters

2-3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

water

salt to taste

crumbled walnuts (optional)

cook garlic in a tablespoon of water over medium heat until fragrant.

Add the kale and about a 1/4 cup water, you may need to

add more if it starts to look dry. Cook until Kale looks like its starting

to wilt and look tender but not soggy. Add figs, vinegar, and a dash of salt

(and walnuts if you like)

Continue cooking until figs are tender and kale is soft, but still bright.

Excellent served with toasted ciabatta bread.