Kale! One of My Favorite Food Super Heroes.

People seem to shy away from Kale...maybe it's because they just don't know what to do with it? Or because they think it's doomed to be a tough, bitter vegetable, rotting in the back of their fridge. But it has so many awesome health benefits, you can get rid of the bitterness, and you can just do so much with it.

Here's a link that talks about some of the health benefits of kale: 

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4408/Top-10-Health-Benefits-of-Eating-Kale.html

Here's a list on ways to use kale, that I'm going to be building as I explore:

Kale chips:

http://www.katheats.com/favorite-foods/kale-chips

Kale can be added to quiche, lasagna, pizza, and anywhere else where you might normally use spinach...except it has greater health benefits! Just blanch it, or saute it in some oil and water until softened. The less you cook it, the more nutrients it holds on to...so keep that in mind. 

Here's how I normally cook it, as mentioned in my last post on kale ravioli:

My Standard Kale Procedure: Strip the leaves off the stalks, chop them up a little bit, throw them in a frying pan or wok with some oil (coconut oil is my absolute favorite!), salt, pepper, and enough water to steam them...Add whatever other herbs/spices sound good at the moment. You can have so much freedom with this recipe. Stir, then cover to steam on medium high heat for about 10 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Once they're lightly cooked, if there's water left in the pan, drain it out. 

Kale is also great for juicing, if you have a juicer, or for mixing into smoothies. It's best to eat it raw (in forms like this, or in salad), but you do have to combat the bitterness with other flavors. A little goes a long way!

Kale-sweet-potato-ricotta Ravioli!!!

Last light was the first time I've made ravioli from scratch! It was difficult to roll out the dough by hand, but I'll give you a tip on that. Other than that, it was super easy to prepare, and they only cook for about 5 minutes! I would recommend making a whole bunch at once -Jared and I made a night of it, haha- and saving them in a ziplock in the freezer for when you want something quick to pull out for dinner. Almost like store bought ravioli at that point....but with maybe 10x less ingredients...it's worth the time, to me!!

Here's the recipe for the dough:
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/ravioli-pasta-dough.aspx

It is SO much fun to make it right on the counter. Except I didn't make my flour "well" deep enough -you'll want to pretty much have it go down to the surface of the counter, just with flour around it- and my eggs overflowed. It takes a good amount of patience to knead the dough, especially after watching videos of the pros doing it...the first time will probably be rough, unless you've done it before. But it's so fulfilling, let me tell ya! Knead it until all the ingredients are well incorporated, and it's reached the point of a happy dough ball. I actually separated my dough into three parts, so I could handle it better. After that, put it in the fridge until you forget about it.
I think after this point, they assume you're going to run it through a pasta maker, but I don't have one of those! You can use a rolling pin. You'll want to keep everything- your flat surface, the rolling pin, your hands- very well floured. The dough takes some work to roll out, especially if you don't wait for it to warm back to room temperature. But if you keep plenty of flour under it, it will slide outward as it expands, rather than sticking to the surface and hindering progress. Jared figured this out, once I had turned the rolling pin over to him.
Get the dough thin, then cut it with something...we used the rim of a wide recycled jar (we keep all our jars to use as glasses...so we had a selection to choose from, haha). You could also use a cookie cutter, or a wire coat hanger, maybe? You just want something that you can press into the dough to cut it.

The Filling:
Standard Kale Procedure: Strip the leaves off the stalks, chop them up a little bit, throw them in a frying pan or wok with some oil, salt, pepper, and enough water to steam them...stir, then cover to steam on medium high heat for about 10 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Once they're lightly cooked, if there's water left in the pan, drain it out.
Sweet potato: I had been baking it for about 45 minutes, but it wasn't quite as soft as I wanted it, so I sliced it up, removed the peel, and threw it in with the kale to saute them both for another 5-10 minutes.
I added curry powder and cinnamon at this point.
Dump the kale and sweet potato in a bowl, and combine the ricotta. Mash it all up, and you're ready to start stuffing the ravioli!

To stuff:
This is the time consuming, you're-going-to-want-to-turn-on-music-and-dance-while-you-cook part. Take a spoonful of the filling and place it in the middle of one of the wrappers that you just cut out.
Crack an egg into a bowl and whisk it a little.
Take another wrapper, dip your fingers in the egg bowl and wipe egg around what will be the internal edge of the wrapper, then place it on top of the wrapper with fill, and press down around the edges. Go back with a fork and press down with that around the edges to give it a finished, crimped look.
DO NOT STACK THE FINISHED RAVIOLI BEFORE YOU COOK THEM.
You're going to have 40+ ravioli laying, not touching eachother, on every surface in your kitchen. Unless you freeze them immediately, which is a good option for whatever you're not planning on eating that night.

When you cook them:
Bring the water to a boil, add a teaspoon of oil. Place the ravioli in, and cook them for about 5 minutes on a high boil until you think they might be done but not overcooked. I have no scientific measurement of time for this, I'm sorry...ours were done after about 5 or 6 minutes.

Here's the SAUCE I made:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 stick of butter (2 tablespoons or so...or more)
2-3 tablespoons cream cheese
A happy amount of pepper jack cheese (about 5 slices? 1/2 cup?)
1 1/2 tablespoons of hummus (I added this for the tahini flavor...if you don't happen to have it, no worries)
Salt, plenty of pepper, dried basil, minced garlic...use these at your own discretion.

Really, there's no way to go wrong with the sauce. Cook at medium heat until all the ingredients have melted and combined for about 5 minutes. Don't panic if it looks too thin, maybe add a bit more cream cheese. It WILL thicken once it cools!

I served this with another baked sweet potato on the side! All you have to do is bake them as-is until they're soft, and the skin feels crispy. Cut in half, they're amazing plain. Or you can add butter, salt, oil, honey, herbs, ANYTHING!

Squash Soup, Focaccia, and the Benefits of Homemade Stock

Okay, I'm a little behind!
Tuesday for dinner, I made squash soup and focaccia bread. My first time making either of them, and they turned out great. I wish I had taken pictures...that's something that I want to start doing, but my hands always end up too covered in dough (or something) to hold my camera, haha.

The soup:
3 yellow squash, sliced thick
1 cooked acorn squash (these are one of the simplest side dishes ever, but also great in soup...I'm make another post for cooked squash!)
Any other squash you have...really, just throw any squash in there.
2 russet potatoes (keep in mind that you can really use any potato and any number of potatoes...this is just what I did!)
1 zucchini
3 (or so) stalks of celery
3 (or more) carrots
1 tomato (I wish I had used a tomato)
Lots of spices....I used salt, pepper, curry powder, a tiny bit of chili powder and cinnamon, and 3 cloves of garlic (minced, of course)
Some sort of stock (veggie, chicken, beef, etc) for a richer, deeper flavor, and additional water

Jared keeps a ziplock bag of chicken bones in the freezer for making stock. I started by boiling 5 large bones for...hours. You want to wait until you see the water become thick, and the meat/bones kind of fall apart. Really, you can't boil it down for too long. The longer you wait, the more flavor and nutrients are released from the marrow. (Note: you can hammer the bones a little to crack them before you boil them, to speed up the process a little. You have no idea how fun it is to clobber your food with a hammer until you try it!)
The great thing about making stock this way is how extraordinarily cheap and easy it is....and there aren't any weird ingredients like in the $5 cartons of store bought stock...even the organic stocks have strange preservatives and things, and there's just no need for this- if you eat chicken, you can save the bones and make stock. Easy. If you want vegetable flavor in there with the chicken (or just do veggies!), you can boil carrots, tomatoes and any other veggies you want in there as well. It all gets strained out in the end, though, so this time I decided to keep my veggies aside for the actual soup.
When I couldn't wait any longer, I poured the stock through a colander, and then put the broth back into the stew pot (we have an enormous stew pot, it's wonderful).
I chopped up all the squash and veggies, and threw them in the pot, then filled it up with filtered water until the water covered everything else.
Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat down to a medium simmer, and make sure you don't forget to stir it every 10 minutes or so. Keep it covered, otherwise. If the water level drops, add a bit more. Cook it until the squash breaks apart...you shouldn't really be able to see peels in there anymore, except for the potato peels. You'll still see the carrots. Trust me, it will all break down. I cooked mine for probably 4 hours total. It ended up with a thick and almost creamy texture.

The focaccia:
I used this recipe...
 http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/focaccia-recipe/index.html

The only difference is that, at 425 degrees, mine was done and golden on top after about 10 minutes...you'll want to keep an eye on it!!
Also, it's really good with some sliced chicken and pepper jack melted on top, after you've baked it already. Amazing bread. The salt on top added such an awesome flavor, and it was surprisingly buttery...especially because I didn't use any butter!

Frozen yoghurt and kale lasagna

Frozen Yoghurt:
Ice cream is a funny thing with Jared and I. He doesn't like sweets enough to want to buy it as often as I do, and I'm trying to cut down on sweets in general. However, whenever we do have it, it becomes this sacred, nearly-untouchable thing in the freezer except for when we absolutely MUST HAVE ICE CREAM. So today as I was guiltily dipping in to it, I was idly comparing the ingredients to that of yogurt (we get Blue Bunny ice cream, which has the most bare-bones ingredient list I've ever seen for ice cream, with real vanilla, etc etc) and even if the ice cream is healthy for ice cream, the yoghurt is much better. Double nutrients and protein, half as much fat, and all that good stuff. So it occurred to me to look up how to make frozen yogurt...maybe it'll take the place in my heart that ice cream is currently holding, once I try to make it.
Here's the link:

http://www.refinery29.com/frozen-yogurt-recipe?page=1

p.s. Isn't it wonderful when yoghurt is spelled with an H?? It totally changes the pronunciation, and I just find it delightful. Apparently, "yoghurt" is preferred pretty much everywhere except in North America, where "yogurt" was established to be proper in the 1960s. North American that I am, I had no idea that there was another spelling for it, until I saw it labeled in the store. The word originates from 17th century Turkey, and has gone through numerous other spellings, like yoghurd, yogourt, and yahourt. Just a fun little side note!

____
Kale Lasagna...is delicious. I'm going to have to rave about all the awesomeness of Kale in another post. I had never thought to put it in lasagna! Jared actually found this recipe, and surprised me with dinner when I came home the other night.
Here's the link:


http://www.marthastewart.com/313468/lasagna-with-sausage-and-kale


We made slight variations, like only using one onion, and instead of tomatoes we used pre-made marinara sauce (I want to start making it from scratch- super easy- once we run out of this stuff). I would recommend using a sauce instead of tomatoes, whether you buy it or make it yourself, because it's not as watery as fresh tomatoes. It's what we always do for lasagna...watery lasagna is just far less than desirable.

Anyway, that's all so far, this week! I'm making squash soup tonight, so I'll add the recipe for that soon!