Kale salad, again

After making the kale and quinoa salad the other day, it occurred to me that kale and any old grain is a good combo, because the toothiness of the grain offsets the crunchy of the kale nicely.  Recently, in Whole Foods, I had seen some kamut in the bulk aisle, and I was intrigued, so I got some.  No idea what it would taste like, so I figured I'd give it a try tonight.  It was tasty! and exactly what I wanted in my kale salad.  To add some other flavors and colors, I went with a grated carrot, a few sliced kumquats, and some dried cherries (since I still had them on hand.  Another reason I love Russos - they had dried cherries for "only" $11.99/lb, as opposed to Whole Foods' $18.99/lb. I don't even pay that for STEAK!).

For some protein, we fried up some tofu.  This is remarkably easy - add a quarter inch of vegetable oil to a small nonstick pan, and put in the tofu pieces, let them sit there for a few minutes, then flip them over. I found chopsticks were an excellent tool for this.

The dressing was a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of oil, and a pinch of kosher salt.  Pretty tasty, and got a good Ed-rating, too!

Strawberry balsamic goat cheese salad

While we were in California, they had a lot of strawberries, and a lot of avocados, on sale for really cheap at the gas-station-esque fruit stands in the central valley.  Most of the produce sort of looked too ripe for shipping, so I'm hoping it was just stuff that wasn't going to make it to grocery stores.  We may have gone through about 20 pounds of strawberries with not many people in not many days... yum.  Did you know strawberries are my favorite food? Anyway, we made a very tasty salad upon returning to San Francisco, with strawberries, toasted walnuts, avocados, goat cheese, and Russian purple kale. The dressing was a spicy balsamic, made with a habanero-infused olive oil and some awesome balsamic vinegar.  I could have eaten that all night long, but we ran out too soon... 

I suppose we can make this at home, no trip to California required, now that I think about it... 

(that's a pile of guacamole on the side. Another necessary part of being in CA was eating a ton of avocados. I did my part).

Kale almond cherry salad

So, I saw this. I'm more a fan of cooked kale than raw kale, but when it comes to raw kale, the dinosaur kale is definitely the way to go.  And I love me some dried cherries and toasted walnuts.  May as well give it a try.

It ended up being quite delicious!  The kale and the quinoa sort of just are there as a base for the toasted almonds and the cherries, and without the almonds and cherries, it would have been a pretty sad dish. That said, I never quite got around to making the dressing, so that would probably improve things drastically on the kale front.  

1/2C dry quinoa

1 head of dinosaur kale

~1/4C dried cherries

~1/2C slivered almonds

~1C grated salty hard cheese, like pecorino or parmesan or ricotta salata or whatever hard goat cheese it was that I happened to have on hand

The lemony dressing sounded good, but I didn't get around to making it, and kept bringing the undressed salad for lunch and kept eating it and enjoying it, so I suppose it's optional, though probably delicious.

Also, I didn't realize that washing quinoa before cooking it was a Thing.  It is. Wash your quinoa before you cook it.  

This got a good Ed-rating, but that may have been because he was really hungry and working at an orienteering event and hadn't eaten real food in a few days.

Spinach Ricotta Pie

I first had a spinach-ricotta pie at Anna Mcloon's house, and it was from this awesome cookbook she had from the Moosewood cafe. It was good enough that I wanted to make it again, but I was worried about Ed's reaction, because he's not a huge fan of quiches. But, we were in luck, because the spinach and the ricotta create a firm enough texture that it's not quiche-like at all - no jiggling here!

The recipe is basically this one. I don't think I actually changed much, but I did just use my usual pie crust recipe. This was tasty! It got a good Ed-rating, and even his colleagues liked it when he brought in the leftovers. So, don't hesitate, make yourself a spinach-ricotta pie!

Roast lamb with pomegranate molasses and ras el hanout

Not too long ago, Ed and I (well, mostly Ed) cooked a leg of lamb for his family.  It was delicious. I love me some lamb, but this was better than anything I had ever thought of before.  It was a boneless leg of lamb, from the folks in Vermont that make that yummy sheep cheese. Since the boy sheep don't make cheese, they turn into food.  

We did some looking around on the internet, and settled on a 130F internal temperature to pull out the meat.  It rose another 10ish degrees once we'd taken it out.  Ended up medium, mostly, with the ends more cooked than the middle, and that worked well so that everyone can choose how cooked they wanted their meat.  Yum!  

Ed marinated the lamb overnight with pomegranate molasses on the outside, and some ras el hanout spice on top of that, which is a spice mixture that just made me drool as I dreamed about roasting meats.   We got it from one of the Armenian shops on Mt. Auburn street.  I recommend.  Anyway, after marinating all night, we brought the lamb to room temperature, filled the rolled-up part with caramelized shallots, and then we roasted at 400 for 20min, and 325 for the remainder of the time (an hour, maybe? kept checking the thermometer and removed at 130F).

The lamb was scrumptious.  I recommend it!

Fennel salad

For Thanksgiving, Ed and I headed over to his aunt's house in Lexington, with 34 other guests. This meant an easy time for cooking for us, as we didn't have to deal with a turkey, but we were assigned to bring some sort of salad or vegetable. Browsing through the Ottolenghi cookbook, I saw this salad, and I instantly knew I wanted to make it.I'm not a huge raw fennel fan, but it turns out that when you slice it thinly and add a delicious dressing, it's pretty scrumptious.  And so pretty! The salad was a big hit, and we made it again a few weeks later for Ed's family back in Rochester, where it was also a big hit. So, I highly recommend you make this salad! Pomegranates are in season in the fall and winter, so now's the time.

Fennel Salad:
2 fennel bulbs
1/2 pomegranate, seeds only
~1/2C crumbled feta
~1/2C fresh tarragon leaves
~1/4C fresh flat-leaved parsley

Dressing:
Juice of a lemon
Olive oil (maybe 2-3tbs?)
2 tsp sumac
Salt
Pepper

Fennel fronds and more sumac for decorating

Mix together all the dressing stuff in a bowl.  Taste, adjust, taste.  Roughly chop the parsley and tarragon, and add that to the dressing. 

Use a mandolin or verrrry thinly chop the fennel bulbs. I sliced them lengthwise, removed the core, and mandolinned them from there.  Reserve some fronds for garnish.  Crumbled the feta, and put everything except the pomegranate seeds in the bowl - they'll turn it pink if you mix them around too much.  Toss it all around, let it marinate for a bit, and mix in the pomegranate seeds just before you serve it. Sprinkle with more sumac and some fennel fronds on top, for garnish. Enjoy!

Kale rolls

So, back over the summer Ed and I were browsing around the farmer's market in Londonderry, trying not to spend all our money on a single bunch of kale (these veggies can be expensive at the farmers markets...), and totally got suckered into buying a deliciously tasty bread-stuff-with-kale-inside-it thing. I don't remember if it was loaf-shaped or what, but I do remember a deliciously crusty outer bit and lemon-y garlic-y kale mixture on the inside.  Too overpriced to buy more than one of these kale loaves, I set out to make one, but didn't quite get around to that until months after the initial experience.

These kale rolls are awesome.  They're basically a cinnamon bun, only instead of a flaky soft dough, they have the texture of a focaccia, crusty on the outside and moist on the inside.  I highly recommend making some of these.  They can be a hearty dinner roll, or just most of your lunch.  The garlic is a bit much for breakfast, I have to admit...

You need one recipe of normal bread.  I recommend ~2C warm water, ~1tsp yeast, ~1tsp sugar, and as much flour as that takes to get it to a kneadable state.  Knead, then let it rise an hour or two.

For the filling, dice some garlic (ok, lots of garlic, like 3-4 cloves), and toast that in a little olive oil.  Chop a big ol' bunch of kale into small pieces, and add to the garlic, adding more oil as needed and the juice from a lemon.  Cook until the kale leaves are at a texture you like them at - I like them with a little bite to them still, but I know some people like to overcook their greens till they're good and dead. Don't forget some salt and pepper.  The filling should taste pretty good on its own, once you're done with it.

Now roll out your dough to ~1/4-1/2" thickness.  It doesn't really matter; the thinner your dough, the more rolls of kale you get, the thicker your dough, the more bready it'll taste.  This is sort of like a pizza dough - one size does NOT fit all.  

Spread the kale filling across the entire rectangle of rolled-out dough.  You don't want the filling to be too thick, but you also don't want it too thin.  Not the most helpful of statements, sorry.  Roll the dough, starting with the long end, until you have a single snake.  Then cut into ~3-4" slices.  Flip them onto the cut side on a greased pan, with a bit of space between the rolls.  Let that rise another 30 minutes or so, then stick them in a 400F oven for 20-30 minutes; until they're done, really.  One option is to brush melted butter or olive oil on top of the rolls just before baking, and that'll help them turn golden brown on top.

Enjoy!

If these directions are too vague... well, the good news is that even if you don't quite get it perfect, this is a tasty enough bread recipe that it's worth making a couple times to perfect it!