The kale in the greenhouse has gotten massive! I had Justin bring me some tonight to make kale chips. The kale bakes up so light and flaky/crunchy. I can eat ridiculous amounts of these. Super easy. Super healthy. Super cheap. Pretty much, they're super.
Which made me think of Goldfinger's "Superman". -jen
KALE CHIPS
Time: 20 minutes Difficulty: Way Easy Makes: however much kale you want to use
one large bunch of kale
olive oil
salt and pepper
grated Parmesan, optional
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
Remove kale leaves from stems and discard stems (or save in the freezer for soup stock!) Tear larger leaves into big bite-size pieces. Fill a Ziplock bag full of leaves. Toss with 2 tablespoons of olive oil so that all the leaves are lightly coated (may need 3 tbsp if you really filled the bag). Place in single layer on two baking sheets. Lightly sprinkle salt and pepper over the top. Bake for 17 minutes.
I like to sprinkle a little grated Parmesan or Asiago over the kale chips immediately after removing them from the oven.
The lentil soup was really new for me. I'm sure I'd had lentils in soup before, but I have no immediate memory of it. I know we didn't grow up eating lentils. Believe it or not, we DO try to eat healthy at home most the time. And in an effort to better our carb intake (which means cut out the bad carbs and add in the good ones that are low on the glycemic index - ooh, science!), we picked up some green lentils. They sat in our pantry for a couple of months before I pulled them out and just decided to throw together a random soup... which was deliciously successful. I'm not even sure it's fair to call this a "soup". I wanted something a little thicker and hardier, so I suppose it's almost stew-like. Whatever it is, it's good. And that's what counts.
We rocked out with our friend Betsy's excellent Boston choice - The Unseen, singing "False Hope". -jen
ITALIAN SAUSAGE & LENTIL SOUP
1 pound Italian sausage (I used 1/2 mild, 1/2 hot)
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
4 ribs celery, chopped
3 large carrots, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 Anaheim peppers, chopped
1 jalapeño, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1.5 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/4 cup flour
1 can (14.5oz) peeled tomatoes
8 cups chicken broth
2 cups lentils
1/4 cup sherry
dash of hot sauce
dash of Worcestershire
salt and pepper to taste
In a stock pot over medium-high heat, brown sausage. When nearly cooked through, add 2 tablespoons of butter. Then add onion, celery, carrots, bell pepper, Anaheim peppers, and jalapeño. Cook until onions are just becoming translucent. Add garlic basil, thyme and rosemary, cooking for another 2 minutes. Sprinkle flour over vegetable and sausage mixture, stirring to mix in and cook 5 more minutes. Then add tomatoes, chicken broth, lentils, sherry, hot sauce and Worcestershire. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat and simmer for 30 minutes until lentils are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.
We've been having a lot of soup weather here in Humboldt lately so I decided to make some delicious Italian soup, ribollita, that I'd first tried a few months back. The ingredients are cheap, it's simple to prepare, it makes a good amount, and it tastes heavenly. If you like minestrone, then you'll love ribollita, as ribollita simply means "re-boiled" and is a classic Italian "day after minestrone" leftover soup. It's a way to stretch another meal out of the leftover minestrone in a way that tastes very similar. The bulk of the soup is veggies and almost any veggies you want can be used. It really is a "toss whatever you have in the fridge that you need to use up" dish.
For tunes with this recipe I decided to go with some old school, New York Dolls, Chatterbox. It's dirty, grungy, dissonant, and it's the very early 70's garage rock that would eventually become punk rock as it was known in the late 70's and early 80's. -justin
Ribollita Time: 3 hrs Serves: 8 Difficulty: Easy
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp sea salt (or 2 tbsp kosher salt)
1/4 lb bacon, diced
2 cups chopped yellow onion
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1 tbsp capers
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 can (28 oz) whole pealed tomatoes in puree, chopped
4 cups roughly chopped cabbage
3 cups roughly chopped kale
1/4 cup fresh chopped basil
6 cups chicken stock
1 can white beans
3 cups bread cubes
freshly grated asiago cheese
In an 8qt dutch oven, or similarly large soup pot, heat the oil. Add the diced bacon and onions and cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until the onions are translucent. Add the carrots, celery, capers, garlic, salt, ground black pepper and red pepper flakes. Continue cooking over medium-low heat for an additional 10 minutes or until veggies are tender. Add the tomatoes with their puree, cabbage, kale and basil and cook, stirring occasionally, for another 10 minutes.
Drain the beans, reserving the liquid, and add half of the whole beans to the veggies. Puree the other half of the beans in their liquid and add to the stock pot along with the 6 cups chicken broth. Bring the soup to a boil and reduce to a low simmer for 1.5 hrs. Add the bread to the soup and simmer for another 30 minutes.
Taste for seasoning and serve hot with a little drizzle of olive oil and the grated asiago.
