KALE CHIPS FOR DAYS

POST #895
NOUVEAU RAW’S KALE CHIPS
I’m a sucker for kale chips. I mostly just make the same ones over and over again, but here and there, I try new ideas to see if there might be another “same one” to add to my repertoire.

Enter Nouveau Raw’s Kale Chips bank of recipes. I say bank because there at least a dozen different recipes, for whatever kind of taste you fancy.  You’ll find Mexican, Thai, Jamaican, chocolate (yes!), and more traditional-sounding vinegar-dill, sour cream and onion, and barbecue flavor ideas.  The ones I’ve tried have all been good.

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NEW YEAR, NEW RECIPES: marinated mushrooms, marinated dehydrated mushrooms, cheezy dehydrated broccoli bites, cheezy kale chips,

POST #875
I had big plans for today (editing a book I want to put on Kindle), but, when I finally fell out of bed at 7 a.m. (2 hours later than my usual wake-up time), I went to the kitchen, looked around, thought about what was in the refrigerator that should get used, thought some more about the mushrooms I marinated yesterday, and thought about what I could do with the portobellas and baby portabellas I bought yesterday. On a trip past the dehydrator shelf in the hall, I saw that, in addition to the 2 lbs of cashews I picked up yesterday, I have at least 3 C-worth of cashews on the rack over the dehydrator. Got lemons, jalapenos, bell peppers, onions, garlic, sea salt, and olive oil. So much for the day tied to the computer. I tied on my apron, and started digging around in my recipes.

MARINATED MUSHROOMS: Let’s start with those mushrooms I marinated yesterday. After I had already started pouring oil on them, I realized that I had accidentally picked up flax oil instead of sesame oil. Oh, well, I do like flax oil on salads. We’ll just hope. I added some garlic to try to make a more flavorful mix. Gave mushrooms to the room-mate guinea pig – she liked them even with flax oil. Still, this morning, I wanted that sesame flavor, and so I drizzled about 1 teaspoon of sesame oil (all I had left) over the mushrooms and tossed them well, to distribute the oil. Then, I decided that, since the carrots in my refrigerator were not getting any younger, I should shave some off a carrot and put that in the mushroom mix as well. Did that with the vegetable peeler – really thin, sheer, see-through carrot shavings, and I chopped them into smaller pieces to mix nicely with the mushrooms. Fed that to the room-mate guinea pig, and she liked it even better, and was excited that it looked like the marinated mushrooms that she can buy in her Japanese supermarket.

After I’d done that, I decided I should do something about all of the other “baby bella” mushrooms I had sitting there. I glanced at a couple of recipes I had picked up from other people, and changed a couple of things here and there, and got to work.

First, I removed that stems and set them aside (I use them for “pulled” barbecue), then I sliced the mushrooms about 1/4 inch thick and put them in a large bowl. I ground a small jalapeno in Magic Bullet, then added some extra virgin olive oil, garlic, a little tamari, and some lemon juice, whizzed it again in the Magic Bullet, then poured it over the mushrooms in the bowl, and massaged it in. After that, I put the mushrooms in the dehydrator.

MARINATED DEHYDRATED MUSHROOMS
20 baby bella mushrooms, sliced 1/2 inch thick
3 T extra virgin olive oil
1 small jalapeno, finely minced
1 T garlic powder
1 t tamari (all of the recipes I saw called for much more, but I don’t much care for salt)
2 T lemon juice

Place mushroom slices in a large bowl.
Blend remaining ingredients, then pour over mushrooms in bowl.
With your hands, toss the mushrooms around with the oil mix until all pieces are well coated.
Spread mushroom slices one layer thick on teflex covered dehydrator tray (you could put them directly on the plastic screen, but the teflex is a lot easier to clean up)
Dehydrate for 4-6 hours

I was planning to dehydrated these mushrooms to a jerky consistency, but, after about 4 hours, I tasted them, and turned around and gobbled up about half of them. I decided I should put them in a container in the refrigerator at that point. (Later, when I called Mom to wish her Happy New Year, and I told her about all of the mushrooms, she asked if they tasted like sautéed mushrooms – it has been so long since I have eaten cooked things, I had to think hard – yes, these dehydrated mushrooms taste like well-sauteed mushrooms!) I liked them so much that I sliced up 2 portobellas, cut them into 1-1/2 inch pieces, marinated them, put them right into the dehydrator, so I can have more of these delicious mushrooms.

CHEEZY DEHYDRATED BROCCOLI: I dug some still-okay broccoli out of the refrigerator, and, remembering a recipe from Nouveau Raw I had seen a while back, decided that I could chop it up into about 2 C of florets , toss it with my cheddar cheese, and dehydrate it, so that was the next project. Man! It is really hard to cover broccoli florets completely with sauce. I got it done anyway. They are in the dehydrator as we speak.

CHEEZY KALE CHIPS: I got the idea for the broccoli since I had a lot of kale which needed to be used. (I figured that I could make one batch of the cheddar cheese and use it on the broccoli as well as the kale – it worked, btw). This kale was labeled “young kale.” I’ll say this about “young kale” – it does last longer in the refrigerator, but, if you are going to make kale chips, it is hard to get bite-sized pieces from those small, tightly curled leaves… I got a lot of “crumbs” along the way. Never mind… two trays of chips are in the dehydrator.

TRADITIONAL NEW YEAR’S GOOD LUCK FOOD, raw take

POST #874
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

MY TRADITIONAL NEW YEAR’S GOOD LUCK FOOD
I am from the South, and Southerners eat black-eyed peas, greens (collards or kale), and pork (usually a ham hock or a hog jowl cooked together with the black-eyed peas and the greens, for flavor. (In other parts of the country, they might eat the same thing – I don’t want to exclude anyone – I just can only speak for what we do in the South).

The foods Southerners traditionally eat on New Year’s Day have meaning:
BLACK-EYED PEAS SYMBOLIZE PLENTY AND PROSPERITY).   When you cook black-eyed peas, they almost double in size. I’ve heard a number of different stories about black-eyed peas – most of them stem from an event in the War Between the States, in the 1800s. I’ve heard that a city was burned down (some say Charleston, some Atlanta, some Savannah – that doesn’t matter – the Union army made a point of burning down Confederate cities ) The story I have heard most often was that the starving people, homeless because of the burning, found a warehouse with barrels of black-eyed peas, and, so, they were able to eat (and, possibly—now this is me thinking – plant a new crop). This morning, I learned that some people say that, in Vicksburg, VA, the Union army burned all of the crops, save the black-eyed peas, which they mistakenly believed to be only food for animals.

GREENS (COLLARDS OR KALE) SYMBOLIZE PROSPERITY: Green has long been the color of American money.

HAM/PORK SYMBOLIZES PROGRESS: The pig is the only animal that moves forward while it is eating.

MY RAW NEW YEAR’S GOOD LUCK FOOD

BLACK-EYED PEAS: I ate 5-day black-eyed pea sprouts with chopped red bell pepper, onion, garlic, and an olive oil and apple cider vinegar dressing.

GREENS: Most years, I eat marinated massaged collards or kale, but, this year, I had a batch of cheezy kale chips, so munched on those while I was doing things around the kitchen.

So, WHAT ABOUT THE HAM? Early on, I decided to resolve this issue by “intention”. I have a little pig figurine made of gold. I place it on the table when I am eating my New Year’s good luck food, and I think about it. I think about how the pig eats while it is moving forward, and I think about how the pig I have is made of gold, and how valuable my little pig is. Even when I have desperately needed money, I have never thought of selling my little gold pig. He urges me to find other ways to get money. That’s progress.

BACK HOME & BACK IN THE KITCHEN

POST #846
I’m home at last! The hurricane was coming in, my family valiantly worked to get me out of the Outer Banks, into Virginia Beach, onto a bus to Newport News, VA, and then I had a 10 hr. train odyssey back to New York City (Luckily, I had an arsenal of books and magazines, and…the train had electrical outlets and wi-fi, so I didn’t get a wink of sleep on the all-day train!)

After a long night’s recuperative sleep, I woke up bright and early this morning, did some work around the house, ran around the neighborhood scoring batteries and flashlights and some kale (I figure 2 lbs of kale will make enough kale chips that I can live through any power outage). Everyone’s hurricane-crazed here (insane lines with people in stores talking to total strangers (me) while standing in interminable lines that kept seeming to get longer or else not moving at all, or else both.

This evening, I opened the last jar of kohlrabi/garlic/jalapeno pickles and the last jar of cabbage/jalapeno sauerkraut.

I’d been unhappy about the first jar of kohlrabi, but, after a week, the second jar turned out fine (we ate them up at the beach last week!), and I had left the third jar to see what would happen if they went 3 or 4 weeks. Opening the jar today, I was faced with some busy fizzing, and, when I tried the pickles, I was glad to know that longer works very well. These pickles are even better.

The sauerkraut was a very happy experience! The first jar did nothing for me, but this jar (at 3-4 weeks) turned out very tasty. Yumm!

Right now, I have a jar of lentil sprouts working, and jar of sunflower seed sprouts. Tomorrow morning, after I make up the kale chips and stow them in the dehydrator, I think I will make some sunflower seed crackers from a recipe in Rose Calabro’s book, Living in the Raw … haven’t had those for a while (hopefully, we won’t lose power, and I’ll be able to get them dehydrated for 12 hrs).

BRINGING FOOD TO MOM FOR A CHANGE

POST #845
I made it down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with almost everything I had left with (I ended up sleeping through almost the entire trip and only ate a few of the crackers I had with me). Even the kale chips made it.
So, yesterday afternoon, after we had gotten settled and were recouping from the long drive, just sitting around talking over a glass of wine, I dragged out the fermented kohlrabi, the fermented carrot sticks, and the kale chips. At first, my parents were wary, yet my Mom, being a good Mom, was willing to try the kohlrabi and carrots. Then she wanted more. Then she wanted my Dad to try them. Then he wanted more. Then I showed her the kale chips, she tried them, and she wanted more. I always take “voluntary wanting more” as a good sign. My little pride sign lit up (it’s always nice when your Mom thinks you have done something well). Today, when my Dad and I got back from church, I found that Mom had made salads and chopped liberal amounts of the kohlrabi and carrots into the salad. Ding!Ding!Ding! Mom always makes a good salad, but, with the fermented vegetables, and a dose of the fermented salsa as a dressing.. the salad was a super-hit, even with me (remember me? the raw vegan who doesn’t like salads?)

TRAIN FODDER: What I am taking on the train

POST #843
This is going to be a big adventure. I will be on the train for 10 hours with no personal refrigerator.  Since the first few of the hours will be night-time (I get on at 2am), I will probably sleep.  Still, knowing me, I will want food since my refrigerator is not handy (Have you ever experienced that? If your refrigerator is just in the other room, you don’t get hungry, but if there is no food that you can control, you are starving?  I used to feel that way on transpacific flights, so I always traveled with a big food bag. Now you can’t do that on planes, but you can still do it on trains!)

I have made kale chips and sunflower/flax seed crackers, along with some cheddar cheeze to dip the crackers into.  I am also going to bag about 4 days worth of Garden of Life Raw Meal powder (This is not the world’s best tasting stuff — sort of a cross between dirt and grass, but it is filling …. I’m assuming that water will be available, but I’m still going to carry a couple of bottles with me).  In addition, I am carrying some of my latest vegetable ferments (pickles) for my parents to try — if I get really desperate, I can dig into those.  If I were at home, all of this would be enough for at least 4 days. … I guess I will make it to my destination without starving to death.

KALE CHIPS AGAIN!

POST #841
I made kale chips last night for my trip.  Gosh! They came out good!  Only problem was I ate almost one whole tray (of the three I put in the dehydrator).

I am going to try to score some more cashews tonight so I can make some more for the trip.  That would be good. 

VACATION TIME! I’m going down South to the Outer Banks of North Carolina!

POST #837
I’m going on vacation at the end of next week — yea!!!!!

I will be taking a 10-hr train trip down South, to meet up with my parents in Virginia Beach and then continue on to the Outer Banks in North Carolina (where I’ll be is just down the road from the road from where the Wright brothers made their historic first airplane flight — there’s a cool museum there.  It is also down the road from the largest sand dune in America.  Then, too, it is a few miles away from that wonderful house that starred in the Richard Gere movie, Nights in Rodanthe
which was based on the lovely book, Nights in Rodanthe,
by Nicholas Sparks.

I am planning to to pack a food bag with some fresh sauerkraut, and some of the other fermented vegetables I have in the fridge from last week’s bout (I hope I have some left when I get there, so I can show them off to my mom).  I want to make some kale chips because they are so good — again, I hope some will last so I can show them to my mom.  I’m ready – I have the red bell pepper, the cashews, the garlic, the chili powder, and, I think I have the onion powder (hope hope) — I do need to fetch some lemons.

Traveling raw requires a bit more pre-thinking than just packing.  I’m also thinking of making some crackers (haven’t done that in a really long time). Almond/corn/flax crackers are always my favorite, but I might make some sunflower seed crackers as well, from my first cracker recipe (gosh! I haven’t made up that recipe in years, but now it calls to me)    

Sounds like I’m going to be a bit busy this weekend.

Will I have space to pack clothes?

It’s all good! I’ll be on an island 25 miles out to sea. (It looks like there are no hurricanes to interrupt my idyllic vacation).  If it’s warm enough, Mom and I will spend some time on the beach.  If it isn’t, I’ll just spend some time on the beach by myself, looking for shells and stones and sea glass to make jewelry.  I’ll get up early in the morning to watch the sun rise over the ocean  from the veranda (yes, we have a veranda!) That is my favorite part of this vacation that I take every year with my parents.  At some point, Mom and I will probably go shopping at the outlet mall.  We might also work on a project for Mom’s church’s pre-Christmas bazaar (past projects have included making and decorating creche scenes and making sea glass jewelry with sea glass that my mother collected in Cuba).  

10/11/12 CSA SHARE: What we actually got

POST #836
Sometimes you hit the jackpot, and sometimes the jackpot just laughs at you.  I got there at 4:00 and, still, someone had gotten there before me. Oh well. Next week I’ll go at 3:30.

Butternut Squash – 1 or 2…… got 1
Green Cabbage – 1 hd…………. broccoli
Cilantro – 1 bun
Baby Arugula – 1 bag……………traded for cilantro
Toscano Kale – 1 bun
Red Russian Kale- 1 bun

I looked so longingly at the share box, hoping that something would appear there that I wanted, that someone noticed me mooning over it and asked me what I was looking for, and what I was willing to trade: I traded the broccoli for her kale.

Since I really did want to get the cabbage for sauerkraut, I stopped off at the supermarket on the way home and picked up two medium-sized heads, and I got some of the Scotch Bonnet “aji” peppers that I met in Venezuela (here they call them Jamaican peppers)– they pack fire, which is what I want in my sauerkraut (I don’t know why the jalapenos have been so lack-luster lately — I’ve been putting two or three large ones in each of my ferments, but the spicy hasn’t been coming through.  I actually ate a piece of jalapeno from the carrot ferment, and there was absolutely no fire)

6/28/12 CSA SHARE DISTRIBUTION #5

 POST #758

Here is what we got and what I came home with:

Zucchini – 4 pcs
Cipollini Onions – 1 bun
Fennel -OR- Kohlrabi – 1 bun…We got broccoli instead, I traded for more kale
Baby Spinach – 1 bag
Radicchio – 1 hd
Swiss Chard – 1 bun………………I traded for more kale
Toscano Kale – 1 bun
Red Boston Lettuce – 1 hd…..…We got a HUGE bunch of escarole instead

I traded the broccoli because it was mostly yellow, and I don’t care for broccoli that much anyway.

I kept the radicchio because I have never eaten radicchio, and I can’t know if I don’t like it until I try it.  Wish me luck.

I was going to trade the onions for something, but they are so nice and big – I have some store-bought onions, which will last for a while, but these nice fat onions will be good in salads for the next week, I think.

I just made it through last week’s escarole (gasp!), and now I’m saddled with more.  Oh well. Wraps worked last week, I can deal with a salad or two, and then, of course, there are (yuck) green smoothies.  (I was just checking my skin today to see if I have turned green from all the green smoothies occasioned by the farms insidious desire for me to consume green leaves.)

I will be up by Fairway market tomorrow afternoon, so I will stop in there and pick up some cabbage (I’m out of sauerkraut), tomatoes, mushrooms (I want to make a cashew/jalapeno/mushroom cheeze filling for kohlrabi ravioli with the kohlrabi I still have left), and some more lentils to sprout (I really do love lentil sprouts)

BTW, last week, I bought this bag of sprouting grass for the cats from the supermarket, and it turned out to be wheat mixed with vermiculite.  I opened the bag wrong, so I ended up putting a paper towel in my old Kitchen Garden sprouter.  I have never seen wheat sprout that fast!  It grew to be short grass (standing up and everything) in 2 days.  I watered it twice a day for about 5 days, then set it out for the cats, who would have nothing to do with it – oh well, I guess they are not into healthy food.  Meanwhile, I saw it was so easy, I am thinking about growing wheat grass for me (mind you, I am still in the thinking stage. I could probably put a window box inside the kitchen window – our only window that gets sun).

It’s really hot here, but, I’m happy to say that my last living fan (2 died over the winter) is cooling my room off nicely.  Yea!