Kale is a Sickness.

I need a bigger refrigerator.

Since my family joined the Urban Oaks Organic Farm CSA, I’ve created a massive collection of greens that has exploded beyond the capacity of the veggie drawers.  Both drawers are full.  There is lettuce on the top shelf, arugula and herbs on the middle shelf, and when you open the door, there is a booby-trap effect, wherein you get attacked by two bags of kale, collards, and mustard greens that leap out and try to smother you, screaming, “You better eat me before I eat you!”

I’ve eaten so many greens that my eyes are starting to change color.  I think I’ve even been dreaming of kale.  I wake up every morning wondering how, on earth, am I going to get all of that greenery into our three little stomachs.

I’ve made kale chips and mustard green pizza.  I’ve started just chopping it all up into little tiny pieces and putting it into EVERYTHING.  It’s made it into my chicken soup and stir fries, my potato latkes, and my quiche and scrambled eggs.  Get this.  Today I had kale pancakes.  And they were good.  This is truly getting out of control.  Somebody help me!  If kale is a sickness, I’ve got the worst case I’ve ever seen.

In the meantime, here is the basic recipe for the griddle cakes, which I am proud to say, have all kinds of whole grain goodness added in.  As a self-admitted carbaholic who lived on Eggo waffles for years, I feel like this is a step in the right direction.

Working from the Joy of Cooking recipe (of course), and adding quite generously and substituting freely, I ended up with this:

In a bowl whisk together:

• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal
• 1 tablespoon of wheat germ
• 1-2 tablespoons of soy flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 3/4 tablespoons of baking powder
• a generous sprinkle of cinnamon or apple pie spice
• some finely diced kale (however much looks good to you…  I used a generous handful of small leaves)

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together:

• 3 tablespoons of melted butter (unsalted)
• 4 tablespoons of applesauce
• 4 tablespoons of yogurt (I used Fage for extra protein)
• 2 eggs
• 1 and 1/2 cup of milk
• a nice splash of vanilla

Rapidly whisk the wet ingredients into the dry, and then add a bit more whole wheat flour if necessary to thicken up the batter.  If you like a thicker pancake, obviously, you need a thicker batter.  If you like a thin, floppy pancake, keep it watery.  Mine came out poofy and soft with a yummy whole grain taste and truly a balanced meal for me, S-Man, and our 9-month-old little muncher, who, despite being adamantly anti-being-fed by anyone but himself, still needs to get his whole grains, proteins, fruit and veggies.

Almost Banh Mi

Still forced into drastic veg-experimentation by the unusually huge quantities of greens in the fridge, I’ve gone into uncharted territory once again.  Here is the lineup: daikon radish, carrot, green leaf lettuce, pea sprouts, cilantro, and scallions.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never purchased a daikon radish in my life.  Nor would I probably ever buy one without a good reason.  Yet, in last week’s veggie pickup, there it was, huge and white like an exsanguinated carrot (you’ll know what I mean if you ever read Bunnicula).  Inspired by my recent perusal of Momofuku, a book chronicling the rise of chef David Chang, I decided to go for the quasi-Banh mi sandwich, and got started with pickling that massive Moby Dick of a root, along with some carrot.

I basically followed a recipe for a quick pickle from the Food Network, but instead of slicing my radish, I julienned it with this bad boy:

Imagine the razor burn you could get with one of those!  After approximately 5 and a half hours of julienning, I was left with a little bicolored haystack which eventually became two jars of pickles.

Pickled Daikon Radish and Carrots!

All this in advance preparation of the Banh Mi, a fresh, crunchy little Vietnamese number that is generally stuffed with layers of fatty pork products, topped with pickles and herbs, and then bedazzled with Sriracha chili sauce and mayo.  In honor of David Chang’s advice, I went with the Kewpie mayo, known as such because, it, um, has a Kewpie doll on the bottle.  Don’t ask me.  I have no idea.

While I waited for S-Man to return with a fresh French baguette from Ho Foo, I began to construct my concoction:

a layer of lettuce, a layer of pepperoni (the only porky meat product I had in the house), then pea sprouts, more lettuce, next a handful of my pickled carrots and daikon radishes, a layer of cilantro and julienned scallions, then topped with a final slab o lettuce and drizzled with Kewpie Mayo and Sriracha.

Plopped into a slightly warmed chunk of the baguette, this sandwich was just Banh Mi-esque enough to warrant a repeat.  Yup.  I’d make it again.

Mama-Knows Pizza

Thanks, sis!  The pizza stone and peel you gave me years ago is still in use.  It’s pizza night again.  Which in my house means one heck of a hot kitchen.   Nothing like cranking your oven up to 500 degrees for about an hour and then hovering over it for another half hour or so.   That’s how I get my rosy cheeks on.

I’ve made plenty of pizza dough in my day, mostly when my in-laws were hatching some sort of capitalist plot to bring pizza to Laos, but currently I prefer to just buy a lump-o-dough from Whole Foods or from ShopRite, and then focus my energy on serving up a variety of healthy and unique toppings. 

For my toppings tonight, I rummaged through the fridge and the bowl of produce on my counter and came up with: mustard greens, pepperoni, turkey bacon, fresh rosemary, sweet potato, goat cheese, and parmesan.

Recombined into four flatbread pizzas, we ended up with:

Pizza 1: olive oil, garlic, parm, rosemary, and goat cheese

Pizza 2: olive oil, garlic, tomato and basil red sauce, mozz, and pepperoni

Pizza 3: olive oil, mozz, sweet potato, and mustard greens (seasoned with soy and sesame oil)

Pizza 4: olive oil, tomato and basil red sauce, mozz, pepperoni, turkey bacon, and rosemary

I use this sort of labor-intensive process that I stole from some food blogger (what a LOSER!!!) wherein I roll the dough extra thin, put it on the hot stone for about 2 minutes to crisp it up, then take it out, load it up with toppings and pop it back in until the pizza is done.  It gives you a very thin crispy crust that you get at fancy schmancy places at about 1/4 of the price.  Hoo rah.

And no, I don’t currently deliver, but if you order a week in advance and give me a tip when I drop it off, I might consider it.

Gaeng Naw Mai Som

What? Chicken butt!  Why?  Chicken thigh!

It’s a chicken part extravaganza!  Plus, it involves pickled bamboo.  Who knew? 

 So since I started dismembering whole chickens instead of buying pre-packaged poultry parts, I’ve been making a lot of soup.  This is mostly because when you cut the legs and wings and breasts off of a broiler, you are left with the backbone and surrounding fleshy bits and the chicken heiny.  And even though I know, thanks to Andrew Zimmern, that in some places they serve up chicken butts on a skewer, I have yet to collect enough bird booties to make even one toosh-kebab. 

Which leaves me with one option: chuck random bones and parts into a pot, brown them up along with onions, celery, and carrots, and then make chicken soup.  Today, since I forgot to buy my quick fix cheater chicken stock in a box, I used the vertebral bitties to make a batch of stock to keep on hand in the freezer.  And I’m using some of that stock as the base for a simple and unique sour soup that surprises with its flavors and textures.  In Lao, it’s Gaeng Naw Mai Som; in English, we’d say Sour Bamboo Soup.

For this soup, you’re going to have to really dig in to the Asian market scene.  Chicken stock you can get anywhere.  Same for chicken thighs, lemongrass and fish sauce.  But pickled bamboo is a bit more elusive.  I still remember the first time I set foot in the A Dong Supermarket, and no, I did not make up the name, and yes, that is actually the name.  And yes, it is big.  Not that that matters.

I’m pretty sure I was curious about what you could find in a massive Asian supermarket, and I’m pretty sure that the friend who was there with me was pretty cheesed off at being forced to be a tourist when she was about to have explosive diarrhea.  I’d be like, “Ooooooh!  What’s that?” and she’d be all, “Oooooooooh, if you don’t get me out of here in the next 5 minutes I’m going to poop all over you.”  Needless to say, it was a short trip.

Since then, I’ve gotten to know many of the intricacies of the market.  I know where to find frozen pig blood.  I can direct you to the cow intestines and chicken feet.  I can even tell you where to find fish balls.  They’re not what you think.  The pickled bamboo hides somewhere between the preserved turnips and the dried black fungus.  You’ll need one package for a small batch of this gaeng. 

If you are lucky, you might somehow also be able to find some lemon basil, among the multitude of herbs labeled in Vietnamese.  So far, I have not been this lucky.  I did manage to find some sort of basily looking herbage and purchased that instead.  I’m hoping it doesn’t ruin the soup by being too basily.  I’ve got the lemongrass from this week’s CSA pick up, which will hopefully make up for  my basil’s extreme lack of lemon essence.

Once you’ve gathered your gaeng members, it’s time to rumble!  Boil your pickled bamboo for a few minutes to get the sour out of the shoots.  BUT, and this is a big butt: when you drain them, hang onto the water, because you do need a bit of sour to add back into your soup later on.

Put your chicken stock in a pot, add a halved stalk of lemon grass, and flavor your broth to taste, with the sour liquid that you saved earlier on, and with some fish sauce.    Once your broth is tantalizingly sour and savory, add a chicken thigh or two, depending on how many people need to chow down.  Simmer on medium-low heat for a while to let the flavors get their freak on. 

When your chicken is mostly cooked, add the bamboo slices.   Maybe, if you feel like it,  pop in some golden or straw mushrooms, a red thai chili or two, perhaps some lemon basil or your closest equivalent.  Give it a bit more time and then serve yourself up a bowl of golden broth with earthy undertones and citrusy pickly freshness.  Make sure you’ve got a thigh and some bamboo slices, and then grab your soup spoon and chopsticks, or fingers if you prefer, and have at it!

*Note: If you don’t have chicken stock, that’s okay.  I’m pretty sure my mom-in-law starts with water, chicken, fish sauce, lemongrass, lemon basil, and sour liquid from the bamboo and just lets it simmer for a while until it becomes flavorful.  I prefer to be a little bit more quick about it, plus I prefer a bit of a more richly flavored broth, hence the starting with pre-made chicken stock.  Whatever floats your boat.

The Blizzard Antidote

Seeing as everybody can’t stop complaining about the snow, I thought I’d share something to counteract the whiteout.  And yes, I know I can’t stop talking about all of the goodies that popped up in my CSA this week, but it is ridiculously fun to get fresh veggies in the middle of winter.   

And to counteract the seemingly endless sea of white that is draped over every outdoor surface, I assembled this fresh selection of root veggies, green leaves, and citrus and created the official Blizzard Antidote.

The only time-consuming bit is the roasting of the beets.  While I usually roast my beets in little bitty cubes, I decided to quarter the beets this time, coat them with a light layer of olive oil and wrap them in aluminum foil and then pop them in a 350 degree oven for an hour and a half or so.  The beautiful and unexpected part of this process is that the red beets bled all over the bottom of the foil package and dyed the golden beets red on the edge, giving me the feeling of a summer sunset at the beach! 

Start with a nice bed of lettuce, some thin-sliced celery, grated carrot, two-colored roasted beets, and toss a few walnuts and bits of goat cheese on top (you have to acknowledge the snow somehow, I guess).  Then take a beautiful orange and squeeze out the juice into a bowl, add some red wine vinegar, some salt and pepper, and then wisk in the olive oil.  Dress the salad and enjoy all of the colors of spring, summer, and fall, right in the middle of winter!  Fight the white!  (And yes, I’m only referring to snow.)