Dehydrating Things...

I kind of love the idea of taking a whole head of something green and easily turning it into something deliciously snack-able. I decided to try more dehydrating since it was so easy and I never otherwise eat chips. Back to "Making Love In The Kitchen" from the National Post, from where I took a few more recipes, decided I didn't quite like them, changed them, and created my own batches of kale chips.

Macro-Asian Kale Chips
Ingredients:
1/2 head of kale, washed and torn into small pieces
juice of half a lemon
1 tbsp miso
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tbsp ground almonds

Sweet Thai Kale Chips
1/2 head of kale, washed and torn into small pieces
3/4 tsp sugar substitute (or sugar, or honey)
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 tsp sriracha hot sauce (the big red bottles at Thai, Chinese, or Vietanamese restaurants, or a sweet hot sauce, or hot sauce plus a bit of extra sugar)
1 tbsp chopped peanuts
1/8 tsp salt

Basically I had some leftover sweetened vinaigrette from some thai noodles in a small container along with some peanuts and hot sauce from the Cambodian/Malaysian festival at Parc Jean-Drapeau last weekend, so I figured I'd use it here instead of on more noodles. I kind of O.D.'d on noodles...mmm...The macro-asian chips I just wanted to try without sesame and oil. Basically I wanted to see if this worked fine without the added fats. I only added the almonds at the last minute for a bit of texture, but kept the quantity very low.

All you do is mix all the ingredients together, lay them out in a single layer in two big baking sheets, and stick them in the oven with the door slightly open on the lowest possible temperature for about 4 hours, or until they're crispy. They stick to the bottom of the pan, so you can use wax paper and save yourself some clean-up (and some waste, since the kale dehydrates and you actually lose a fair bit to the baking sheet).

It kind of helps to turn them halfway, to make sure it all dehydrates evenly, but if you don't it's really not the end of the world. So some chips are more crispy than others. You can honestly use any ingredients here and these will be delicious, as long as there's a tiny bit of salt involved. Dehydrated plain kale is all well and good, but it has no taste. The miso is very salty, so feel free to cut back on that if it's too much, and if you want to avoid sugar, feel free to leave it out, along with honey or other sugary substitutes. The only way to make this gross, I think is to have no real seasoning. Herbs won't cut it. Dairy is not a great idea because you're leaving it out at a not so great temperature. Miso is okay because the fermentation is good, that's why I left it in there, but meat would be an awful idea, because I don't know what this is like for bacteria and contamination. Keep it vegan-friendly and you'll be in the clear. Oh, and happy. Probably glowing, like all those raw foodists seem to be.

Looks Gross, Tastes Amazing: Red Kale Soup

A lot of people get turned off by all this green, but there's no food colouring involved, no grass, no bitter, gross vegetables or a bad texture. It's one nutrient-rich, SWEET soup thanks to miraculous kale. Even the red variety ends up green (it's only called red kale because of the red lines in the veins, which you don't see once it's cooked/puréed anyway. I bought it because it looked a little fresher than the green this week at the market). Probably more people would find this soup attractive if it were actually red. That's what I call racist. Well, that and a few other things.

Kale is not chard. There is nothing swiss about it. That's a very important distinction. Chard looks a bit more like lettuce, and it's tough and bitter. Kale is sweet and smooth. Actually the white part is the tastiest. It may have the visual appeal of iceberg lettuce, but it actually tends a lot more toward the flavour of a good bok choy or spinach. Unlike any of the choy family (pak choy, bok choy, etc.) you wouldn't want to smother its bland form in hoisin sauce because it's better on its own. Buy organic and then call me a vegetable genius. So I usually just boil or steam a few long stalks for a side dish, the same as spinach (kale actually holds up better than spinach to cooking anyway. First boil the white stalks for a minute and then boil the leaves for another minute. Or just turn off the heat when you add the leaves and let the pot sit covered to wilt the greens. You kill fewer nutrients this way, but the leaves still soften).

The foundation of a good soup is a good broth. If you don't have any home-made, that's completely okay! Just buy good stuff. Definitely go organic and definitely make sure there's no MSG (monosodium glutamate - a flavour enhancer that's mostly sodium...but worse), corn syrup (candy does not belong in green soup), or things you can't pronounce in the ingredient list. Even some organic ones have yeast in them, so be careful of anything you don't think should really belong in soup, using the guiding principle that home-made broth is just vegetables, recognizable spices, and maybe chicken, beef or fish.

Anyway, the reason this soup was so good was because I defrosted a large yogurt container of home-made shrimp broth leftover from making my seasonal spot prawn stir-fry as the base. All you do is take the shells of however many prawns you shucked, put them in a large pot, cover them with water and bring the water to a simmer (not a boil) for 15 minutes. Then strain off the shells. Voila, stock! Even after making this soup I have 3L of delicious broth leftover in my freezer. That's 2 or 3 more whole pots of soup right there!

Maybe you're not as excited about that as me, but with a soup recipe with only two ingredients that actually tastes good, the potential to make more delicious soup is a cause for celebration.

Ingredients:
About 5 cups broth (home-made or organic fish, chicken, or vegetable. Cubes or powder are fine. OXO is not)
1 package red kale (or green)

1. Bring broth to a boil in a large pot (defrost frozen broth and bring to boil).
2. Tear off leaves of kale and set aside. Add white parts of kale leaves to boiling broth, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 2 minutes.
3. Add kale leaves. Simmer 1 minute.
4. Purée soup in batches in a blender. Return to pot to serve and let the rest cool.

Grand total work time is about 8 minutes if your stove takes awhile to bring things to a boil (add an extra few minutes to defrost frozen broth). The fun part of this is knowing how much kale you're happily eating. You put all this kale in the pot and then once it's puréed you can easily eat half a pot of soup. You probably wouldn't eat the equivalent half a bag of kale if it was just boiled. Well you would if you're me, but I'm an oddity, I know.

Kale with Garlic and Lemon

So many people think leafy greens and immediately think "yuk". It's so annoyingly cultural. Italian kids will go for seconds of the wilted spinach or sautéed rapini, and North Americans of all ages will subtly push their serving to the side. I have huge respect for Josée di Stasio for devoting 2 entire pages in her cookbook A la di Stasio to 5 ways to serve "Greens". This includes stir-frying, steaming, blanching, boiling, and combinations of these. My personal favourite right now is to blanch and then sauté. This is so easy and takes all of 10 minutes to prepare, if you get the water boiling while you remove the leaves from the greens

1 bunch of kale (or rapini, or swiss chard, or spinach, etc.)
1 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
salt
lemon juice, optional

1. Separate the leaves from the stems of your leafy green of choice
2. Plunge the stems into a large pot of boiling water for 30 seconds, then add the leaves for another 15 seconds. Drain the pot. Seems like a huge waste of water, but you can save it, if you wish, for future boiling, blanching or steaming. Or use it as a base for vegetable broth. Swiss chard is actually very sweet and works well for soup stock, while rapini is more bitter.
3. Heat the oil in a skillet or large pot over medium-high heat and when hot, add the garlic. Cook 2 minutes, stirring, until just starting to brown.
4. Add the leaves and stems of the greens and a sprinkle of salt
5. Cover, reduce the heat to medium, and cook until "tender-crisp" (whatever level of crispness you prefer, but the shorter cooking time the better, since the greens lose their nutrients quickly. It's a fine line, because their nutrients are more easily absorbed if they're cooked, rather than raw, but if they're over-cooked you can't absorb any nutrients at all since they've been destroyed).
6. Serve with a sprinkle of lemon juice if desired. Di Stasio also recommends grated nutmeg. I have yet to try it, but I'm a little excited.

(I skipped writing a post on the recipe for Sea Trout in a Spice Rub that I made for the Masters Potluck because it's the same recipe I made the week before).