Genius Kale Salad

Do we really need another kale salad recipe? Yes. This may just be the last kale salad recipe I will ever need. It came on my radar last week via Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks ~ she got it from the new cookbook by Food 52~ Genius Recipes: 100 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook.

I'm going through another one of those phases where I really need to get off the carb train and make more produce driven meals.

The kale that we get at the market is so beautiful but I lack the inspiration to buy it and make something. The thing is, I love a good kale salad and every time I make one it disappears immediately. Yet, I rarely make them. I saw this on my news feed this week I was all over it. If Food 52 and Heidi make a big deal out of it then there's gotta be something to it.

The genius in this salad is the addition of not one, but two very different cheeses and it's not very often I see the words "good aged cheddar" as a salad ingredient (the other is Pecorino).

I got a little wedge of Mrs. Quicke's Traditional Cheddar from the market. It's an English clothbound aged cheddar just bursting with rich complex flavors. It's important to note that the cheddar should be chopped or crumbled rather than grated. The little nubs of savory, nutty, tangy, caramelly flavors that really good cheddars create within each bite is what makes this salad standout from any other kale salad recipe I've come across.

I couldn't pull this together fast enough. This salad includes roasted asparagus (or roasted winter squash) and almonds, finishing with shaved pecorino. I also added chopped dried cranberries.

I had a little bit of Pecorino Toscano left from my sheep milk cheese tasting last week. It's moister and less salty than Pecorino Romano (a dry grating cheese that's a common substitute for Parmigiano Reggiano) and has a surprisingly zippy flavor. It's a lovely table cheese especially served with sliced pears or peaches.

A little curd-nerdery: Pecorino just refers to an aged, Italian sheep's milk cheese (Pecora is the Italian word for sheep), so there are different types out there, depending on the region where they are made, but the Romano is more widely available. 

Genius Kale Salad                    

Food 52’s Genius Recipes via 101 Cookbooks

1/2 cup chopped asparagus

Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 bunch Lacinato kale, ribs removed, leaves finely sliced, about 2 1/2 cups

1/4 cup almonds cut roughly in half
1/4 cup crumbled or finely chopped good, aged cheddar

1/4 cup chopped dried cranberries (optional)

Fresh lemon juice
Pecorino or any other hard cheese, for shaving

Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Toss the asparagus in just enough oil to coat and season with salt and pepper. Spread on the sheet pan, leaving space between each piece. Roast in the oven until tender and caramelized, 20-30 minutes (I used small spears of asparagus which were done in 20 minutes) tossing with a spatula after 10 minutes. Toast the almonds on a baking sheet in the same oven until they start to smell nutty, tossing once, about 10 minutes. Let cool.

In a large mixing bowl, toss the kale with the almonds, cheddar, asparagus and cranberries if using. Season to taste with lemon juice and olive oil (using about 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 2 tablespoons oil). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Divide onto two plates and finish with shaved pecorino.

Polenta with Pan Roasted Asparagus

polenta with pan roasted asparagus, originally uploaded by michele wynne.

Yaaayyy asparagus! Love it. Almost as much as I love polenta. Add a flowing stream of warm runny egg yolk and my meal in a bowl is a gorgeous feast.

Asparagus came into the market a few weeks ago and I've been jonesing to make this ever since, but I sort of got side tracked by my current obsession with cauliflower soup and roasting cauliflower and tossing it around in gratins and grain bowls.

I like to buy polenta in bulk when I can, the coarse ground, not the quick cooking type. I'll cook a fairly large batch because I love the leftovers. My basic recipe goes something like this:

4 1/2 cups water

4 teaspoons Better Than Bouillion low-sodium chicken broth base (optional)

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 1/2 cups polenta

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Bring the water to a boil in a large pot (that has a lid to fit). Whisk in the broth base if you're using it. Add the salt. Whisk in the polenta. Using a flat edged wooden paddle, continue to stir the polenta until it starts to thicken a little. Turn the heat down to medium and cover the pot. Stir it every ten minutes for a total cooking time of 30 minutes. It may seem like it's done earlier, but it'll be less grainy and sweeter if it continues to cook the full 30 minutes.

Stir in the butter and cheese. If you prefer it creamier add some milk or more water/broth.

This is my favorite way to prepare asparagus:

Snap off the tough ends of the asparagus spears. Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat, when the oil starts to shimmer, add the asparagus spears to the pan so they line up side by side. Add few pinches of large grain sea salt and crushed red pepper flakes. Move the pan back and forth so the oil coats the spears and to allow the seasonings to distribute. Cover and cook for 5-7 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until the asparagus starts to brown and is cooked through.

Within my polenta I like to stir in any or all of my favorite flavor enhancers like roasted red peppers, slow-roasted grape tomatoes or caramelized onions. This batch includes all three. Over-kill? Perhaps, but that's just how I roll. Oh yeah...and I crumbled on the last bit of my Pt. Reyes Original Blue Cheese. Oh yeah.

Spring Vegetable Pot Stickers

Spring Vegetable Pot Stickers, originally uploaded by riptideredsf.

Pot Stickers Round Two:
I spent the morning attempting to embrace the journey rather than speed to the destination. This can be difficult for me at times but now,  100 potstickers later it's still a time sucking endeavor but, I think I got this. This video helped...so at least my tucking and pleating has made some strides.

This recipe for Spring Vegetable Potstickers comes from Smitten Kitchen (big surprise there)...another timely post celebrating fresh Spring vegetables when I'm oh so obessessed with them now, both in the little kitchen and in my new job. We got fiddlehead ferns and chiogga beets in yesterday-stay tuned.

Anyhoo, smitten put this recipe on my radar just as I was uptomyelbows in my first attempt at the potsticka. Her recipe intrigued and challenged me on a couple of levels. Her ingredients include fava beans and tofu in addition to my beloved asparagus. I was soooo jazzed up to make these that I pedaled over to Bi-Rite on my day off to purchase my employee discounted bountiful basket of asparagus, fava beans and TOFU! Two firsts for the little kitchen: tofu and fava beans.
I adore hate adore fava beans! As you peel away the layers from the large bumpy shell revealing a cushiony pod interior that looks like cotton batting, to the wiggly yellow umbilical cord that caps the leathery sac that covers the buttery soft bean...you almost expect something alien to emerge. Gorgeous, but seriously- a pain in the ass to shell. On the other hand, it's a given that the pot sticker process is gonna be a long one so what's it gonna hurt to add another 20 minutes to the process when , who am I kidding, I've got nothing better to do on a day off.

On to tofu...if anyone can get me to embrace tofu, it's gonna be smitten kitchen. In this recipe it's sort of disguised to look like crumbled cheese, now if I could only get it to soak up some flavor. That was my only teeensy problem with this recipe. I loved the look and texture of the finished dumpling but I wasn't getting any definitive flavor from it. I realized that I was way too hesitant with the scallions and chives.
I broke my number one rule:        first time recipe-follow exactly.
I didn't have quite enough scallions and I thought 1/2 cup of chives seemed excessive. I should have known better. Trust in the smitten-she's never let me down yet.

shaved asparagus pizza

shaved asparagus pizza, originally uploaded by riptideredsf.

This is the pizza that changed my life. Much has happened in the little kitchen since I first discovered this gorgeous pizza at my favorite food blog Smitten Kitchen. I can't pass by a bundle of asparagus without the image of this pizza distracting me from what ever the task-at-hand may be. I can make it in my sleep. I really do. When I have trouble sleeping, envisioning my way through a cooking task is my version of counting sheep. I did that last night, except I started getting hungry. I got up and did two things: nuked a bowl of polenta* and shaped pizza dough balls.

Backing up a bit, I'm experimenting with a new tactic and recipe. I've been carrying around the March issue of Bon Appetit for a month now, inspired by the gorgeous pizza on the cover and its promise to reveal How to Make Pizza Like a Pro. YES! I want to go to there. I've read it over and over, just dreaming of some kitchen time, and making list after list of all the pizza topping I want to try. The pro is Jim Lahey (from NYC's Sullivan Street Bakery) and the recipe is for his No Knead Pizza Dough. Yesterday morning I mixed up the dough which took mere minutes and left it to rise and ferment all day and half the night. So when I started thinking about pizza, I realized the requisite 18 hours had passed since I'd set the dough to rise. I shaped it into 6 balls, wrapped each in plastic and put them in the fridge. In the meantime I stumbled across this post over at Love and Olive Oil. Frozen pizza! Brilliant! The secret is to partially pre-bake the crust.

I am sooooo doing this tonight.

*I stirred in some crumbled bacon I'd already pre-cooked for tonights pizza into the polenta, along with some more parmesan and butter and dang! it was good.