What's cooking? part 4

guy at farmers' market sells $1/lb kale and you can't get less than a pound. i could never figure out how to use it all in a week!

I blend it in smoothies in the morning

yeah i used to do that it's just that my blender sucks!

I made that salad for a dinner party using lacinato/Tuscan/dinosaur kale and it was sooooo gooooooood

I have some chicken stock in the fridge I made on friday that needs using or freezing. I always addd all the celery leaves into mine as well as celery sticks. Also some whole black peppercorns, some bay leaves, some stalks of fresh thyme and oregano.

Also I didnt think you could eat kale raw! I thought it was like silverbeet and really bitter raw?

(I have some growing in my garden that should be ready to harvest in maybe 2-3 weeks Im hoping)

I had some asparagus salad on vacation that I somewhat recreated:
- Grilled some asparagus, leaving it with grill sear but crunchy (somewhat overcooked this time)
- Coated walnut chunks w/raw sugar and roasted them on the grill next to the asparagus (overdone, but mostly fine)
- minced raw shallot
- dressing w/some white balsamic raspberry blush vinegar, a little oil, and some sugar

Could use some fresh herbs, but it was good on its own. I bought some feta to throw in but it didn't need it.

I eat raw kale all the time! All kinds, but I think lacinato is best raw. We go through about a pound a week...my lazy favorite is the 1lb box of rainbow kale they sell at whole foods -so easy to throw it in anything.

Hmm ill have to try some of my now-growing tuscan kale and see what its like while its still young :)

mh next time you should put some cayenne pepper (just a light dusting) with the sugar on the walnuts before roasting/toasting -- heavenly!

i made a raw kale salad last night with pine nuts, pancetta, parmesan, lemon, oo and it was vv good.

also grilled chicken on top

Baby kale is really easy to have raw but if you're nervous about raw kale massage a bit of olive oil on the leaves and let them rest for a while -they'll be a bit softer.

I never see the kind of kale around anymore that's so tough it's almost like plastic? The kind that would actually cut your hands. We used to use it around the containers in the salad bar when I worked in a dining hall! I don't know what that was, but it's not the kind you should be eating raw? But all the kale at stores and markets now is perfectly edible raw, it's not even that tough.

Yeah when i was a kid my parents said kale was for garnish. Sometimes we'd bring it home in our doggy bags from restaurants and feed it to the neighbor's bunny. I didn't realize humans ate it til a few years ago!

i just made the most delicious dwenjang stew. after all this kale talk, i went and added a bunch of kale and it was amazing.

i have broccoli, pea shoots and bell peppers that i want to save for a stir fry next week, bc i am unexpectedly gonna be out of town the next couple of days. i really really don't want to cook them at all - can i just chop and freeze them? will pea shoots freeze ok?

Pea shoots last FOREVER (like, weeks) in a Baggie in the fridge!

I wouldn't freeze them -- my guess is that they would freeze like lettuce ie not well. Surely they'll be ok in the fridge?

yeah all those things last a long time except for brocs in my experience

this stuff is already a week old

the bells were a little wrinkly when i bought them

i planned to make stir fry last night, but i made this huuuge pot of red lentil curry at the start of the week, and it turned out way better than i expected. my house has smelled like really good curry all week.

i also thought i would make the stir fry tonight but i don't think i'll have the energy to cook after i get through cleaning - my house looks like some teenage gutter-punks have been squatting here for weeks.

bell peppers freeze really well

so i can just chop up the bells/brocc, put in a ziploc and freeze? no pre-cooking or par-cooking required?

I've thrown even whole peppers in the freezer before, tho chopping them up before is nicer. They are a little more flaccid when you've thawed them out, but tbh I mostly use peppers as flavoring base in shit you cook a long time,like shrimp creole, so not a big deal.

don't know if I've asked this before... but electric ovens, how do I minimize that smoke the damn coils give off if I'm doing roast meat?

I made that kale w/ lemon and pecorino salad upthread, it turned out really good... though I could probably just eat bread + olive oil + pecorino cheese + garlic + lemon juice by itself for days

im eating it right now out of a huge bowl of it while i wait for my potatoes to cook for nigel slater mustardy warm potato salad

Vichyssoise for dinner last night (the leeks were bland and so was the soup until I added 1c heavy cream. Bland no more!) and shakshouka (cuminy spicy tomato sauce w eggs poached in it) for breakfast. Very tasty all around.

All I do is eat shakshuka. With TJ's garlic naan and some feta, maybe over rice.

I need a better shakshuka recipe

can you used canned diced toms bcz waking up at 7am and dicing 8 roma tomatoes is not as fun as it sounds for me.

I didn't know this name for it, but we make this occasionally -- Eggs in Hell. Actually Eggs in Purgatory because I don't make it very spicy. Canned tomatoes all the way.

Here's recipe I use. It's super-easy: http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/04/shakshuka/
For some reason, the recipe calls for using a can of whole tomatoes and crushing them with your hands. This is silly. Just used a can of crushed tomatoes.

I think I read once that whole tomatoes are just generally a higher-quality fruit than the ones that go into crushed...? I could be misremembering. I usually use whole tomatoes and hit them with the boat motor or a potato masher depending on the consistency I'm after. Makes it easy to remember what I'm looking for at the store.

that and also using your hands gives more texture contrast which can be fun in your mouth.

Cooks Illustrated seems to prefer Muir Glen and Hunts brand canned tomatoes btw!

also sliciing garlic instead of mincing is such a good look imo

I like Hunt's. When I was working at a grocery distribution warehouse in the 80s, we got in a truckload of Hunt's stuff that had enough damaged product to reject the whole thing. Hunt's didn't want to haul the whole thing all the way from MS back to CA and said "here, have a trailer load of free stuff -- think your employees would like it?" Everybody grabbed boxes and hit the trailer like a locust swarm.

Muir Glen fire-roasted are my mainstay.

Whenever the co-op has a Muir Glen on sale, I snap up soooo many.

I do too! Now I don't feel like such a loon!

i usually get a can of whole tomatoes and put it in the food processor for stuff that calls for crushed tomatoes. i like the texture a little better. shakshuka looks like i would want to eat it, have poached eggs in sauce before though and i can never get them to cook right. the white doesn't set on top and the bottom gets overdone.

Maybe cover for part of the cooking so the top steams?

yeah. i gotta get like a saute pan sometime. i don't have anything shallow with a lid.

I use a dinner plate, though for smaller pans/bowls I've got these silicone covers that are pretty great.

Or spoon the hot sauce over the top as it's cooking? More labor intensive.

but i like watching the egg cook! i think it was just because it was uncovered. i had the same problem with poaching eggs in the poach pods. i didn't have a shallow enough pan with a cover so they cooked unevenly in a covered dutch oven.

I've only seen fancy san pomodoro canned tomatoes which I like, I tried to use a can of TJ tomatoes once and they were awwwWWWwwwWWWwwfuuuUUull