The trouble with kale

November 19, 2016November 19, 2016 / Apple Hill Cottage / 11 Comments

Fall is not my favorite season.

Yes, I know, blogland abounds with people raving about fall and there are Thanksgiving recipes everywhere. The cooler weather, the colors of the leaves, frost on the pumpkins, pumpkin desserts, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin whatevers….

Yes. All that is fine, but the truth is I miss my garden.

I miss eating veggies and grilling out every night on the back porch.

I miss going out in my shorts and t-shirt every day at 3:00 to pick whatever looks good for dinner.

I miss iced mint tea on hot days and, well, you get it. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow…

So in an effort to extend the growing season here I planted a little fall garden when I harvested the garlic. Kale, Arugula, Spinach, Radishes, Green Onions, and Beets. And more beets. Can’t have too many beets…

We’ve been eating lots of Arugula salads with radishes and our last peppers…

But the kale…

I just don’t like it much. I know how nutritious it is. I know it is filled with vitamins, minerals, and all those omega good-for-yous. I know people make green smoothies from it. I just wish it tasted more like spinach. I wish our spinach had grown as well as the kale is growing.

So last week I decided I needed to pick some of that kale and eat the stuff. Kale Chips. Anything with olive oil and salt on it can’t be bad, right?

I watched a video.

From the video I deduced how it went wrong last year: I didn’t dry the leaves enough after washing them, and instead of becoming crispy little chips, they were soggy green leaves with burnt edges.

I washed each leaf thoroughly because the first one I picked up had a ~~little~~ big green cabbage worm on it. I don’t like the thought of eating green cabbage worms. I stopped growing broccoli years ago for that very reason.

So I hand washed and dried every leaf, cut out the stalks, and sliced each leaf into 3-inch pieces. I left them on the counter to go check what the oven temperature should be (anywhere from 275 to 350 depending on whether you watch the video or go by Guy Fieri’s Food Network recipe).

When I returned to my neatly sliced, diced, seriously studied kale leaves, there it was.

And so I checked every leaf on both sides again.

Scrupulously. Somehow I can’t imagine the perky blonde cook on the video finding cabbage worms in her kale. So I’m mentioning it to you because no one else does. If you grow or buy organic kale, you’re going to have cabbage worms. (One way to get rid of them is soak your kale in salted water for 10-15 minutes; but honestly, that seems to me like diluting the minerals that kale is loaded with, so I prefer to get rid of them by hand.) Next year I’m going to try Swiss Chard instead…

I tossed them with olive oil and salt and baked them in a 275 degree oven for 22 minutes. They were ~~okay~~ actually pretty good. And if there were any cabbage worms in there, at least they were dead and crispy.

kale chips

…and for cooking regular greens, I’m using beet greens because cabbage worms don’t bother the beets.

And if you aren’t a greens fan, here is a great tip: Take 5-7 leaves of whatever fall green you like. I mix them usually. Stack the leaves and roll them lengthwise. Slice into quarter inch rolls, and then chop them again so you have little pieces. Throw them into your sautéed onions and garlic and then mix them into whatever you are cooking. It ramps up nutritional value, they cook down and one hardly notices them.

sautéed veggies with chopped greens

Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t forget to count your blessings and eat your greens.

Waiting

October 13, 2016October 13, 2016 / Apple Hill Cottage / 8 Comments

Everywhere i look i see a poem waiting:
Kentucky Wonder Beans
the muddy garden shoes by the door waiting
for my feet
to deliver me to a place of peace and solitude
where peppers bow and dance on heavy laden stalks.
Arugula sings as it grows — Taste me Taste me —
and beans swing through their jungle playing
hide and seek with the leaves;

the two flannel shirts shrugged off in haphazard heaps Okra
on the chair in the mudroom
— his and hers — sleeves entangled, plaids clashing,
waiting for him to say (In the cool of the evening)
Have you seen my flannel shirt?
and she will know exactly where it is;

the okra on the counter, cut into symmetrical flowers,
waiting to be made into thick aromatic okra stew.
A friend brought it —
His wife said Don’t bring me any more okra.
I love okra, he grinned.
Maybe i won’t plant so much next year;

the glossy green peppers piled precariously basket of peppers
in the wicker basket — waiting their turn to be
sliced diced and frozen for winter’s
friday night fiestas;

the dark brown just-plowed garden dirt
drinking up the rain
waiting for the creamy garlic cloves
in their smooth purply skins
to spend the winter buried
in the snow-covered earth;
freshly plowed

the lime green clock on the kitchen wall
bought at Walmart for $3.99
ticking away the seconds minutes hours
ticking away summer into fall
ticking away seasons into years — waiting
for someone to notice minute and hour hands
colliding with dizzying disorienting
speed.
kitchen clock

the rowdy beans

September 18, 2016September 17, 2016 / Apple Hill Cottage / 2 Comments

jungle of beans I pulled up one row of the rowdy jungle of green beans this morning. A few tiny white and yellow blossoms were dangling on the ends of brown leaves but I have a pantry full of beans.

a mess of beans

We can eat beans every day for a month this winter and still have some left

but those unruly beans shaded the pepper plants that are still growing.

And the autumn sun will love those peppers and caress them and grow them;

we don’t have enough peppers to eat every day for a month this winter.

It’s like life that way — choices every day.

I hated to chop those Blue Lake Pole Beans down.

Kentucky Wonder Beans

They have been a wonder this summer.

Not only have they been charming in the garden on our string trellises,

but we ate them as often as we liked;

I’ve canned them, frozen them, pickled them;

I have them drying for shell beans in every spare spot in the kitchen and back porch,

and enough to plant for next year.

And yes, there’s a recipe here…

Dilled Green Beans or Dilly Beans

Fill pint jars with lovely long green beans. Holding the jars on the side, put the beans in one at a time until you have a filled jar. To each pint jar, add some grinds of crushed red pepper, 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed, 1/2 teaspoon dill seed, and a garlic clove (or two). If you have dill flowers, you can add one to the bottom of the jar before you put in the beans, or the top of the jar afterwards. (If using the dill flowers, omit the dill seed.)

Make a brine of equal amounts of vinegar and water. I used 5 cups of each. To 10 cups of vinegar and water, add 1/2 cup pickling or kosher salt. Heat the brine to boiling; then carefully pour the brine over the beans leaving 1/4 inch head space in the jars. Seal with canning lids and process in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes.