Dreamy Kale

When you start dreaming about kale, you’re eating too much kale. This is exactly the situation I found myself in one morning, waking up to wonder, “Was it really a dream? Did I actually dream about cooking kale? Do I have any kale in the fridge?”. Well I don’t know if it was dream or heavenly vision but I woke up in possession of a new recipe, and a new reason to fall in love with kale all over again.

In the dream, I was washing and ripping kale leaves, getting ready to make my staple kale and chickpeas (recipe at www.orangette.blogspot.com) and sighing, wishing that Boyfriend found it filling enough for a meal, when it hit me: not chickpeas but chicken! I decided to make the switch to satisfy my ever-loving carnivore. As the dream continued I saw myself sautéing the chicken with prosciutto, for flavour. What an idea! Where had that come from? A few hours after waking I was still mulling it over in my head, so when I went home for lunch I took out some chicken to thaw. And thus, that night I had the best kale yet.

Dreamy Kale

• Two chicken breasts, cut into cubes
• ¼ cup prosciutto, shredded
• 1 tbs Olive oil
• A big bunch of kale, washed and cut into ribbons (should still be wet)

Heat oil in a large, deep skillet. Add prosciutto and chicken and sauté until chicken is browned. Add the kale, cook until wilted. (You may need to add it in batches, but as it wilts it will shrink and you should have room for all of it). Reduce heat to medium-low and cover. Cook another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serves 2

Soupy Sunday!

Yesterday I had yet another example of how the simple things in life can be some of the best.

I woke up in the morning and baked bread. I have never actually done this before. I used the recipe for "Rancho La Peurta Whole Wheat Bread" that I found here: www.orangette.blogspot.com . It was a little denser than I like my bread, but very good. It was pronounced fantastic by AC, who is a connoisseur of homemade bread, so I'll take that as high praise. AC and his girlfriend KW joined Boyfriend and I for soup for lunch. The soup, as usual, was one of Julia Child's. It was the saffron potato variation on her garlic soup. I was a little nervous as I was spooning it up. It was far too easy to make, for one thing, and for another it looked like nothing. Small pieces of boiled potato in a clear broth. Oh dear, I thought to myself, They're all going to hate it.

But JC didn't let me down. It was delicious! Unaccountably delicious, in fact. One of those meals that are double or triple the sum of their parts. And just too simple not to make all the time. Add friends, homemade bread, cookies, port and wonderful friends and you get a perfect Sunday.

(I made my usual chocolate chip cookies as a fall-back in case the rest of the meal was a disaster. I aged the dough for 36 hours after reading an article that claimed that this was the holy grail of baking tips. I don't think it made that much difference.)

Julia Child's Garlic Potato Soup:

I haven't given measurements for some of the herbs because she called for dried and I used fresh. Herbs are something you can play around with anyway.

1 head of garlic
thyme
sage
four sprigs of parsley
2 cloves
pinch of saffron
3 cups chopped potatoes.

Separate the cloves of garlic and peel them. Throw them in 2 quarts of water with the thyme, sage, parsley and cloves. Simmer for 30 minutes. Strain the broth and discard the garlic and cloves. Add the potatoes and saffron to the broth and simmer for 20 minutes more.

And that's it! Seriously, that's all you have to do for a foolishly yummy soup.

Too big a promise

First, you must understand: I think that mashed potatoes are the perfect food. Nice ones, not too lumpy, not too watery and made of real potatoes. Extras, like garlic, are nice but not really necessary. Boiled potatoes, some butter, some cream and some seriously vigorous mashing and I am a very happy person.

So when epicurious.com readers declared cauliflower puree, "just as good as mashed potatoes" I was understandably wary. But I had been looking for something to do with the lovely white cauliflower we'd picked up at our last farmer's market, and you could add garlic, cream and butter, so I decided to give it a try.

You start by boiling chopped cauliflower for ten minutes in water and milk and garlic. Then you drain (saving the broth) and roast the florets in the oven for 10 minutes at 250 degrees. At this point, you toss the cauliflower in the blender with some of the broth, and puree. Boyfriend seemed aghast at this. It turns out he's something of a blender virgin (Seriously? In this day and age?) and hot vegetables and broth offended his delicate sensibilities.

We wound up with something that looked like rice pudding, and that didn't taste like mashed potatoes at all. I considered adding more butter, more cream, more garlic, but I soon realized that I was considering a cream and butter soup with a cauliflower base. This goes against the spirit of the current vegetable theme, which is to let the veggies speak for themselves with minimal assistance. Anyway, Boyfriend loved it, eating the last half of mine as well as his own. Me, not so much. I doubt I'll make it again.

But the veggies were not a complete failure. When in doubt, listen to the gospel of JC (Julia Child) we had her carrots. I don't remember the French, but the dish consisted of boiled carrots tossed with a glob of butter and some chopped parsley. Delish, fab, and not trying to be something it's not.

We got beets!

So Lisa Simpson happily declared many, many years ago. The joke being, of course, that no normal child would ever be excited about beets. I completely agreed.

When I myself was a child, I was both picky and willful. Some vegetables were eaten after long, drawn out negotiations (I would eat 23 peas, no more, no less) but some vegetables I would not even consider. Beets fell into the latter category. It wasn't a vegetable my parents ate regularly, so it wasn't much of an issue. The end result being that I ate beets for the first time yesterday.

A quick survey of food writers has revealed what seems to be a unanimous opinion on beets; they must be roasted, not boiled. The recipe we chose was from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry by Janet and Greta Podleski of Loony Spoons fame. As their cookbooks combine two of my Father's favourite things, healthy recipes and terrible puns, Loony Spoons was a big part of my childhood, and the subject of many negotiations. My tastes having matured, I accepted the complimentary copy I was given with some excitement. Having read through it, I decided that I would have bought it for myself, if I'd needed to.

So last night we got out the beets and turned to These Beets Were Made for Walking. Boyfriend wrapped them individually in tin foil and roasted them for an hour while I did hill sprints and took a shower. Then we took them out and let them cool while we roasted shallots in olive oil with fresh thyme. Boyfriend peeled and chopped the beets while I made chicken and broccoli to complete the meal, then we tossed the beets in a bowl with the shallot mixture and some balsamic vinegar.

I don't know exactly what I was expecting for my first beet experience, something mushy and turnip-like, I suppose, but it wasn't what I got. It was firm, with a rush of juice. My first bite quite surprised me. I ate my beets slowly, desperately searching for descriptors, but few were forthcoming. Beets are very different from anything in my (admittedly limited) experience. In the end I can only describe them as adult. Of course it was ridiculous for a child to like them, because beets are a grown-up food. But then, Lisa was always well beyond her years.

An Unusual bit of Experimentation

In an attempt to eat healthier in general, Boyfriend and I have taken to loading up on vegetables at the Farmer's Market and then looking through cookbooks for interesting ways to cook them. We found huge stalks of purple kale with bright pink stalks and purpley veins running through firm, dark green leaves. It was irresistible. The recipe we chose was from my favourite food blog, orangette (see link below) but there were some changes. The recipe was for braised greens with chickpeas, and seemed pretty simple. We substituted shallots for the onions, because we'll need them for a recipe later this week (stay tuned) but we were a bit stumped when we found that our local grocery store had no chickpeas. Seriously, no chickpeas. No brand-name chickpeas, no store-brand chickpeas, no organic chickpeas. No chickpeas at all. We were in disbelief. How could there be no chickpeas? There was a big gaping hole on the shelf between the beans and the lentils where the chickpeas should have been. The beans and lentils were both decently stocked. It made no sense. Boyfriend and I wandered up and down the aisle, muttering "no chickpeas? no chickpeas!" over and over. Eventually, we were forced to give up.

Now, I very rarely make changes to recipes. Shallots for onions are one thing, but how could we not have chickpeas with braised greens and chickpeas? After much, much deliberation, we decided to go with the lentils. Neither of us are very experienced with them, but we figured they looked similar and are both involved in Indian food in similar ways, so we nervously went ahead with it.

Boyfriend washed the Kale while I sliced it into ribbons. The kitten had a very odd reaction to the Kale, she seemed to be afraid of it. When boyfriend shook a leaf she'd leap at it, then mewl at me with fear and confusion in her eyes. She later took a stalk (about a foot long) and ran upstairs with it.

We cooked garlic and shallots in olive oil in the large skillet until the onions were nice and soft, then added the lentils. We weren't sure how long to cook them, as it turns out lentils are very tiny and probably don't need to be cooked long at all. Anyway, we gave it a few minutes and then added the kale. Looking from the bowl of kale ribbons and the pan they were supposed to go into, my elementary understanding of physics warned me this couldn't possibly work. I threw in a a handful, and the kale shrunk up wonderfully. I was able to add it, handful by handful every few minutes until all had somehow found room in the skillet. Orangette then advises gently simmering for 15 minutes, but we found this to be unnecessary. Either because the lentils were so small or because it took so long to get all the kale in, we worried about overcooking after about 5 minutes.

The result was one of my favourite things: warm mush. Comforting and yummy. I once dated a vegan who said that he liked his food to taste as much like dirt as possible (we didn't last long) and I think I almost understand what he was saying when I ate this. There was a simple earthiness to it. Boyfriend found it a bit bland, and not quite filling enough, but it was just right for me and I think it'll make a great lunch. Next time I'll have to see how well it keeps.

The best food blog out there: www.orangette.blogspot.com

In which Emily runs 18k, witnesses an accident and makes soup

Before today the longest I'd ever run was 16k. I've done this distance a few times but never gone beyond it. Today the schedule called for 18k so away I went. I tend not to think about running while running, but it was hard not to today. I was very aware of how everything felt, and not in a good way. It was even worse because I ran over the same terrain three times. The time dragged and it felt very long.

I was heading up the last hill, about half a kilometer from home, I heard a crunch and scream of metal. I broke into a sprint as saw a car hit a building and careen through the intersection. It came to a stop on the other side, and I ran forward as fast as I could. As I got there, people were starting to converge and two were already calling for help. Fortunately, no one seemed to be hurt, but the older lady who was driving stayed in the car just in case. We were close to the central fire station, so it didn't take long for help to arrive. I gave a statement to one of the firemen and then ran the rest of the way home. It was very hard to start running after being stopped for so long, my knees felt creaky, but it was only about three minutes.

After two big glasses of blueberry juice and a very hot shower, Andrew and I started Sunday's soup. Being so tired, I decided to take more of a supervisory role so I could sit with my feet up. It was a very simple soup, potato and leek. Basically, you just boil a whole mess of leeks and potatoes for about an hour, then mash and stir in cream, butter and parsley. Very simple and good.

Yesterday's hill sprints really took a lot out of me and work was really stressful. So, to relax on my first evening off of the week I decided to cook pasta sauce and bake chocolate chip cookies from scratch. I should confess, I have a kind of "from scratch" complex when it comes to baking. I got it from my mother, who has never and will never use a mix. There are four main reasons I will never use a mix:

1. It doesn't taste as good. It just doesn't.
2. Most mixes contain weird ingredients and additives. Why bother with that if you don't have to?
3. Mixes don't really save you that much time. I've seen mixes where you have to add milk, eggs and oil. So all the mix does is combine the flour, baking powder and sugars for you. Is that really that difficult.
4. In "from scratch" baking, you can taste the love.

Anyways, I consider myself something of a chocolate chip cookie connoisseur, and there's one recipe I always found trumps all the others. It's the recipe that comes on the back of the Baker's brand chocolate chips. It can't be improved upon. I don't always use Baker's chips, but I long ago copied down the recipe and fixed it to my Betty Crocker Cookbook. My only advise is to turn the cookie sheet every five minutes while to cookies are baking, so they cook more evenly.

As for the sauce, it was nothing original, but impossible to mess up. Dice about 6 cloves of garlic (Did I mention I have a pop chop? Envy me.) Cook the garlic in about a half cup of olive oil until it's soft but not brown, add a can of diced tomatoes, oregano (fresh if you have it, and I did!) salt, pepper and whatever other seasonings you fancy. Give the tomatoes a quick mash if you don't like big hunks of tomato in your sauce (I don't) and let simmer for as long as possible (at least an hour). We had it over cheese totellini that was on sale at the grocery store.

It was a good time and made for a delicious dinner, but I probably should have been resting more. I completely collapsed afterwards and realized there would be no way to get my 8k in this morning. I'll try again this evening.

A Weekend Off

Last weekend I had two full days off in a row for the first time in over two months. I scarcely knew what to do with the extra time, so I pulled down Mastering the Art of French Cooking for answers. Now, I'm no Julie Powell, but Julia Child has become a sort of idol of mine. Especially since reading her memoir, My Life in France. I always love reading books about food, but this one was something else. It was joyous. It was all about discovery, experimentation. With her insistence that all recipes be perfectly replicable, she made cooking something more akin to baking, my first love. I have also discovered by using her cookbook that if you do what she tells you it will be delicious. They don't just work, they're spectacular.

Anyway, Saturday morning Boyfriend and I went to the Farmer's Market to load up on ingredients and treats. We sipped fresh lemonade (I should say guzzled) while we picked up broccoli, carrots, leeks, lettuce, cucumber, turnip, fresh herbs, blueberry jam, homemade bread and cupcakes.

Sunday morning (after a decidedly ordinary 12k run) we got to work making Soupe au Pistou. Apparently a traditional soup in Provence, which I enjoyed because I've recently finished reading Four Queens detailing the history of the 4 daughters of the Count of Provence who all became queens, despite their relatively humble origins. It was especially fascinating because only two actually married Kings. Marguerite married one of the Louis and Eleanor married Henry V of England. The other two married men who were able to acquire Kingdoms, largely through the machinations of the Provencal family. But I digress.

We started by boiling new potatoes, carrots and leaks with a bit of salt for 40 minutes. Then we added green beans from my own little garden (so fresh they were picked after the soup had been started) Kidney beans, broken spaghetti, breadcrumbs, pepper and and let that boil for 20 minutes. Meanwhile we made the pistou, a paste of tomato paste, Parmesan, garlic and basil (this looked kind of gross but smelled amazing) and then stirred in olive oil. Then we varied from JC a bit. I'm sorry, we didn't have two soup tureens (actually, we didn't have one, we borrowed it from Roommate). We added a cup of the soup broth to the pistou, then transferred all that back into the soup, stirred it in and served it. It smelled amazing, and the taste was something else. So flavourful and satisfying. Not creamy, but thick enough to feel substantial. The vegetables were tender but not too soft. Everything was simply tasty. Boyfriend had balked at the $9 for a tiny bottle of saffron but we decided that it was well worth it, especially because we have a lot left for more soup. Not that we'll need it anytime soon. Boyfriend and I had our fill (with homemade whole wheat bread for dipping yum) and Roommate had had a bowl as well, I was able to bring a litre to my parents and put a litre in the freezer for some warm comfort on an upcoming winter's day.