Sunday, December 28, 2008

Eat More Kale

I come from a family of tall, blonde German Lutherans. Stable and predictable, we've enjoyed the same Christmas dinner for as long as I can remember: fairly dry turkey, stuffing, cranberries (still holding their can shape, of course), french cut frozen green beans with little slivers of almond, Pillsbury crescent rolls, iceberg lettuce salad, pureed squash, mashed potatoes, and gravy. And oh yes, jello. Green jello with canned pears and strawberry jello with canned peaches. Must not deviate. Spices are lacking. Salt is minimal. Plain, simple, and predictable. 

This year, I decided the time was ripe for innovation. I was tired of leaving the table feeling stuffed but somehow still lacking nourishment. So, I turned to my favorite green, the one that inspired my fascination with the green-leafys, to pump up the nutrient density of Christmas dinner. I made a roasted kale and sweet potato salad. It's an extremely simple dish which can be served hot or cold and is quite palatable especially for the green-wary. 

Kale really is an incredible vegetable. It belongs to the cabbage or brassica family, and just one cup of kale provides more than enough beta-carotene, Vitamin A, and Vitamin K for  the whole day. It's also a great source of Vitamin C, calcium, and iron.  To learn more about the many health benifits of kale, visit Whole Foods, the World's Healthiest Foods link. 

Kale is also quite an important part of much of the world's cuisine. In Northern Europe, the Germans, Irish, Dutch, and Scottish have created festivals, named kings, and taken cross-country tasting tours to honor this fine green. In Southeastern Africa, kale is enjoyed boiled in coconut milk and eaten over rice or cornmeal. In Japan, kale juice is popular, and in South America, shredded kale accompanies many traditional dishes. Colcannon, kale and potatoes is favored by the Irish and amazingly kale and sweet potatoes was quite favored my my large family of plain-eating German Americans. 

As the dish made its way around the table, with its vivid green and orange hues bright and beautiful against the red tablecloth, I watched as everyone politely took a bit to pacify their strange, foody niece/daughter/granddaughter. I slight grin may have come to my lips as I watched the many hands reaching back for seconds and exclaiming with significant surprise, "Hmph, this is good." Some did just pick out the soft, salty sweet potatoes, I must admit, but the kale got eaten too! Roasting kale is simple and tasty. Try this recipe tonight.




Roasted Kale

Ingredients
One bunch of kale
Tbs. Extra-Virgin Olive oil
tsp. Salt (Kosher salt or sea salt is best)


Preheat oven to 400 F

Wash kale (any variety will do) and remove the major stem that runs down the center of the leaf. My favorite way to do this is to hold the leaf upside down in one hand and with my other hand, strongly run my fingers along the stem, separating the leaf from the stem. I then, rip the kale up into smaller pieces as if I were preparing it for a salad. 

In a large bowl, I then toss it with a tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle on a teaspoon of salt and voila, it's ready to be put in the oven. 

Spread the kale out on a cookie sheet and pop in the oven for about 5 minutes. It's ready when it turns bright green, gets soft, and starts exuding the wonderful odor of cooked green vegetable. If you let it stay in the oven a little longer, sometimes the kale will begin to get a little crispy. This is a tasty way to eat roasted kale. See what you like. 

Roasted kale can be added to the kale and sweet potato salad below, added to a soup or casserole, or eaten plain. It's delicious!



Kale and Sweet Potato Salad

Ingredients

Bunch of kale
Large White or Yellow Onion
5-7 sweet potatoes
3 Tbs. Olive oil
2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 400 F

Thinly slice sweet potatoes and onions. Toss with 2-3 Tbs. Olive oil and 1-2 tsp. salt in a large bowl so that the olive oil is evenly coating all the vegetables. 

Spread in single layer over cookie sheets and roast in the oven for 10-15 minutes until onions are transluscent and sweet potatoes are soft and starting to grow spots of brown and black. 

Prepare kale as described above separately from the onions and sweet potatoes. 

Toss roasted kale and sweet potatoes together in a beautiful bowl and enjoy hot or cold!




Greens and Me

My love affair with greens began out in the dirt with a big yellow colendar in one hand and a pair of orange-handled scissors in the other. My mom would send me out to the vegetable garden in our Midwestern backyard all set to cut enough lettuce for a supper salad. I would skip out to the garden and settle in to cut the tops off the silky bibb and romaine lettuces, shaking off some of the dirt as I went. Although this job only required a few minutes of concentrated effort, the garden was a place for dreaming and I would get lost in imagining myself as Laura Ingalls Wilder, living off the land in the fertile plains of Iowa, or I would become a wise, healer woman who was harvesting her herbs for magic potions. Eventually, my mom would call impatiently from the back porch, and I would quick snip a few more greens, grab a handful of parsley and chives, and head in for dinner. I never associated greens with the gooey, tasteless mashes that come out of a can or the freezer.

Although, we grew greens in our garden every year, my midwestern family was not too experimental in our greens growing and so my childhood green intake was limited to a variety of lettuces and some spinach here and there. However, I feel extremely lucky because I never associated greens with the gooey, tasteless mashes that come out of a can or freezer box. Instead, greens were alight with the fresh green magic of the garden.

When I went away to college with a blossoming interest in nutrition and holistic health, the scope of my love for greens expanded. I started frequenting the local organic market and was intrigued by this dark, tough leafy green which I soon identified as kale. I started eating daily salads of this stuff with lots of carrots and sprouted nuts. Due to the enormous amount of the nutrient, carotene, in both the carrots and the kale, my skin started to take on a noticeably orange hue. When I came home for Christmas, my horrified mother made me promise to cut down on my kale and carrot intake. I was hooked on greens though and the world of healing through nature.
In order to pursue my passion, I decided to leave my middle of the road college in the Midwest and journey west to Seattle to study natural medicine. My mom and I drove across the country together and when we finally reached my new school, nestled on the bank of Lake Washington, surrounded by the tall, lush majesty of the Northwest forests, we got out of the car and walked into the school’s courtyard. The gardens were planted with masses of decorative kale, and I knew that I had found the right place.
Because of Seattle’s damp, temperate climate, greens thrive throughout much of the year. Every time I went to one of Seattle’s many excellent farmers’ markets, I got to meet new greens. Chards, kales, spinaches, collards, and mustard greens became good friends. My second year in Seattle, my childhood fantasies of living off the land were reawakened in full force when I began learning about wild greens but that story if for another time.
This blog is dedicated to glorifying the green leafies. Greens are jam-packed with nutrition, flavorful, diverse. They add great texture and are just beautiful. I realized a few days ago at Christmas when I brought a roasted kale and sweet potato salad to dinner and my cousin, Kelly, with eyes wide with surprise, said “Wow, this is really good. What is it?” that we just don’t know enough about greens. So, it is my hope to journey with you and learn all that we can about the greens of the world. We’ll learn about the diversity, the nutritional benefits, how to grow them, and most importantly, how to prepare them in a delicious, delectable ways. Please post questions, comments, wonderings, ponderings. Let’s celebrate greens!