Sunday, September 28, 2008
kale (or collards) and cabbage with white beans on garlic toast
feeding my farmers
Yesterday afternoon, after we finished selling our whole grain sourdough bread at the Saturday South Anchorage Farmers’ Market, we brought my friend (and farmer, and market manager) Arthur home with us. Farms where he lives in Palmer (53 miles north of Anchorage) have experienced their first frosts, and the snow is creeping farther down the mountains every time it rains here in town. Our market was shrouded in a bone-chilling blanket of fog all morning before the sun burned it off and turned it into a beautiful, crisp clear day. I love the golden leaves against that brilliant blue backdrop!
Beautiful it may be, but still, we get cold standing out in it all day! It sure was nice to get home. After a warm bowl of soup and hot showers, we thawed out and felt tired but happy. Welcome to our weekend!!
Then Arthur’s wife, Michelle (also a farmer), and their three sweet kids arrived from Palmer to join us for the afternoon and dinner. Meredith, our only child, was delighted—it’s not often she gets to have three kids over to play! And I was almost as excited as Meredith, because while the kids played with Meredith’s blocks and trains and beads, I got to do something special: cook for my two favorite farmers, who grow so much of the wonderful, fresh produce that nourishes us all year!
It feels so good to give something back for all the wonderful, fresh meals I’ve made with their beautiful broccoli, lettuce, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, potatoes, onions, carrots and more… I chose this meal, because it feels somehow like alchemy: combining these very basic ingredients creates a meal that is truly extraordinary: warming, savory, and nourishing. It was the perfect dinner for tired and hungry bodies at the end of the week.
kale (or collards) and cabbage with white beans on garlic toast
This is one of my favorite recipes, believe it or not. The ingredients are so unassuming and humble, but when you cook them all together, they become wonderfully good. The onions are sweet, the garlic and greens are savory, the parsley is fresh and vibrant, and the cabbage is tender. You don’t have to put this on toast, but I love it that way. If you add lots more bean broth, this is a good soup, as well. It’s a meal on its own.
It makes a big batch, but I’m betting you won’t have any trouble finishing it off as leftovers. It tastes even better the second day, after the flavors have had time to meld. This recipe is a variation of one in Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets
beans:
2 cups white beans, soaked for 4 hours or overnight
1 onion, peeled and quartered
4 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
2 bay leaves
sea salt or kosher salt
vegetables:
2 large onions, finely diced
2 bunches dino or Tuscan kale or collard greens, leaves stripped from the stems and sliced into ½” slices
1 small cabbage, either Savoy or green cabbage, quartered, cored, and sliced thinly
4 plump garlic cloves, minced
1 cup of chopped parsley
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt or kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper
toast:
thick slices of hearty whole-wheat bread (1 or 2 per person)
garlic
extra-virgin olive oil
1. Drain the soaked beans, then put them in a pot and cover with cold water by at least an inch. Add the quartered onion, garlic, and bay leaves and make sure the water covers the onions. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the beans are tender. This could take 45 minutes to 1 ½ hours, depending on the size of the beans and how old they are. When the beans are tender enough to easily squish between your tongue and the roof of your mouth, turn the heat off. If you have time, let the beans sit in their liquid with the aromatics until cool. Remove the quartered onions and whole garlic and discard. Add salt to the beans to taste.
2. While the beans are cooking, chop all the vegetables and bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the kale or collards and boil them until tender. The boiling time could be as short as 3 minutes in the summer, or as long as 10 or 12 minutes in the fall, depending on how big and old the greens are—just keep tasting them. Drain the greens.
3. Warm the olive oil in a heavy, wide skillet or pot (non-stick works especially well). Add the onion and cook over medium heat with 1 teaspoon salt until the onion is soft and golden brown, about 12 minutes. Add the kale or collards, cabbage, garlic, parsley, and 2 more teaspoons salt. Cook over low heat with the pan covered until the vegetables are soft and the volume greatly reduced, about 15-20 minutes.
4. When the beans are done, add them, along with a cup or two or their cooking liquid, to the pot. Simmer until the greens are completely tender. Taste for salt and season with pepper. (You may have to add quite a bit of salt—kale and collards need a lot of salt, as do beans.) Save the rest of the bean broth for vegetable stock in soups and stews—just freeze it until you need it.
5. Toast the bread slices. Rub the toasts with a peeled clove of garlic and sprinkle with a little salt. Spoon the beans and greens over the toast and serve, drizzled with a little olive oil, if desired.
print this recipe
Saturday, September 20, 2008
toast with almond butter and peaches
I admit, I have a weakness for peaches. Born and raised here in Anchorage, I grew up eating a fairly limited selection of fruit: apples, bananas, and oranges. The annual grapefruit in the toe of my stocking at Christmas was cause for celebration.
I’ve only lived near peach country once in my life, when I spent four years in graduate school at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Toward the end of my degree, I was disillusioned and depressed; I no longer wanted to be a college professor (the reason I’d gone to Ph.D. school for Geography in the first place), and I was sick to death of academia.
However, there were two things I knew to be positive beyond doubt that came out of the grinding, belittling experience that was Ph.D. school. First, I met my one true love: my husband Dan, who had escaped from his own academic hell (his was in biochemistry in New York City). Second, I ate a LOT of peaches.
Not owning a car then, I would ride my bike to my local King Soopers and load a huge paper bag with enough Colorado peaches to fill the middle section of my backpack. My other groceries stashed as best they could beneath and atop my motherlode of the fragrant stone fruits, the full extension of my ski pack towered over my head as I wobbled up the hill toward home. I would eat peaches for every meal, plus snacks. Consuming six peaches a day was not unusual.
Now that I’m back in Anchorage, I’m far from those Colorado peaches, but I do have access to some remarkably good ones at Costco. Maybe they aren’t tree-ripened (they certainly aren’t local), but they taste pretty dang good to me. I can never understand my friends who lament “I just can’t get through a Costco case of peaches!” I buy two cases at a time, and let them finish ripening while I’m busy consuming the previous two cases.
How can I eat so many peaches? Usually I have two slices of almond-buttered, peach-piled toast for breakfast on summer mornings. The photograph isn’t completely accurate, because I pile the peaches on higher, and then eat them alongside, as well… So before 9am I’ve already pounded two peaches. Then I might eat a peach for a snack, and for dessert? Well, let’s just say I don’t always stop at one.
toast with almond butter and peaches
This is hardly a recipe… it’s just a description of the finest breakfast known to humankind. Also it’s a fabulous snack, if you need a little pick-me-up in the afternoon. Of course we always use our Rise & Shine bakery whole grain sourdough pan loaves for the toast, but any full-flavored, whole-grain bread will be fine.
And here’s my deal with almond butter. I love roasted almond butter (not raw), and I like it a little bit salty, like peanut butter. Most almond butters don’t come salted—but it’s easy to mix in salt when you’re stirring in the separated oil when you first open the jar. I scrape the whole mess into a mixing bowl, add salt (I use about ½ teaspoon sea salt for a 16-ounce jar), and whisk it all together. It makes a couple more dishes to wash, but it’s WAY easier and much less messy than trying to stir it up in the jar without getting oil everywhere.
If you don’t prefer almond butter, you could use peanut butter, but almonds are extraordinarily good with peaches. You might want to give it a try!
slices of whole wheat sourdough bread (thick or thin, as you prefer)
almond butter (I prefer roasted and salted)
perfectly ripe peaches, washed, pitted, and sliced
Toast the bread, and spread it with almond butter. Cover the nut butter with peach slices. Eat more peach slices alongside your toast. Sip tea or coffee between bites. Enjoy pure bliss.
print this recipe
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
broccoli with golden raisins
air-fresh Alaskan broccoli
We’ve had broccoli on the brain these days, at the South Anchorage Farmers’ Market. You just can’t beat Alaska-grown for sweet and tender broccoli! And there’s so much of it! To try and create a bigger market for that proverbial powerhouse of nutrition, I started promoting it in earnest!
First I loaded a bunch of new broccoli recipes and photos on our website. Then Dan helped me make a YouTube video about processing broccoli for the winter. And just a couple of weeks ago, we had a special event at the farmers’ market where you could clip a coupon for three heads of FREE broccoli. Meanwhile, I’ve been promoting the broccoli mania in my weekly South Anchorage Farmers’ Market email newsletter.
But my newsletter doesn’t just go to folks here in Anchorage. I have plenty of subscribers all around Alaska, including my friend Roselynn, in Fairbanks. Recently, she emailed to tell me that she’s coming to town for a work trip, and she can spend the night with us! Now, many of my friends from Fairbanks head straight for Nordstrom when they come to the big city. But not Roselynn! She’s caught the broccoli bug, and she wants to head straight to the Wednesday Farmers’ Market to fill her bags with big heads of bargain broccoli to freeze for the winter!
She’s bringing her biggest suitcase, and we’ll see how much broccoli we can stuff into her Samsonite for the trip back to Fairbanks!
broccoli with golden raisins
I love this broccoli recipe—it’s great hot on toast, or warm or at room temperature as a salad, or as a side dish to almost anything! I love it as a snack. It’s loosely based on a recipe in Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast
1 ½ pounds broccoli, tops cut into bite-sized florets, and stems sliced into ¼” slices (peel the stems first if the skin is tough)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
½ cup golden raisins
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
sea salt or kosher salt
optional toast:
4 slices thick whole-wheat bread
extra olive oil for the toast
1. Put about an inch of water in the bottom of a pot that you can put a steamer basket in. Cover the pot and bring the water to a boil. When the water boils, put the golden raisins in the steamer basket and steam for 5 minutes. Remove the raisins, but keep the water in the steamer.
2. Put the broccoli stems into the steamer basket, and steam for 4-6 minutes until barely tender. Check them every minute after 4 minutes, poking with a sharp paring knife. Remove the stems, drain them, and immediately spread them out in a single layer on a baking sheet spread with a dishtowel. (This cools the broccoli quickly and allows it to dry out.)
3. Put the florets in the steamer, and steam for 3-5 minutes until barely tender, keeping a close eye on them. Remove the florets and spread them out on a dishtowel as with the stems. When they are cool enough to handle, chop the florets and stems a bit finer with a large chef’s knife.
4. In a large skillet over high heat, warm the oil. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the broccoli, stems, raisins, and red pepper flakes and sauté until the broccoli is quite tender, and the flavors are nicely combined—about 5 minutes. Season with plenty of salt—it will need quite a bit.
5. If you want to serve the broccoli on toast, toast the slices of bread until golden, and drizzle with olive oil. Pile the broccoli on top.
print this recipe
