Super-Healthy Krunchy Kale Salad

Super-healthy krunchy kale salad is good for the body and easy on the eyes.

This salad is very easy to make and it’s a great introduction to kale for people who are convinced they don’t like greens. It’s also damn good for you, kale being chock full of vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium, folate, iron, dietary fiber, thiamin, and protein. So now you have no excuse for not eating this salad!

To make the salad take a bunch of Tuscan kale (the kind with the very dark green, petal-shaped leaves that are flatter than the standard curly-leaf kale) and pull the leaves off of the stems. The stems can be quite bitter and are too chewy to be pleasant anyway, so discard the stems. Wash the kale thoroughly in cold water and then spin dry in a lettuce spinner (or drain and pat dry very well with a clean towel. With a sharp knife chop the kale into relatively fine shreds. Don’t worry about it being uniform; nobody’s judging you on your kale-kutting. Put the kale into a mixing bowl and squeeze one lemon over it. Add two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, one garlic clove (smashed and finely minced), about a teaspoon of kosher salt, and a bunch of cracked black pepper. Using your hands toss everything very well. Let the salad sit in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

After an hour or so add a half cup of finely sliced red cabbage, a half cup of crushed pita chips (I use Waleed’s brand.), a quarter cup of crumbled aged manchego cheese, about two tablespoons of crushed almonds (slivered is fine), and about a tablespoon of chopped cilantro. Toss it all together and then check your seasoning — adjust salt and pepper to taste. Now eat it! And feel that healthy goodness course through your body.

Today’s Salad: Supercrunch!

It’s getting warm, which means it’s time for Today’s Salad!

Today’s salad is a precocious, super-crunchy combination iceberg lettuce, Upland cress, radicchio, celery, French radishes, Persian cucumbers, Kumato brown tomatoes, chopped up aged Beemster cheese, and crushed crunchy pita chips (from Waleed’s). The dressing is lime juice, white wine vinegar, honey mustard, white honey, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, and white pepper.

It was delicious and texturally fun. And great on a warm day!

Today’s Salad: Poached Egg & Arugula

Honestly, a poached egg improves just about anything!

Today’s salad is a healthy little number. I poached an egg and perched it atop a mound of wild arugula, chopped cooked turkey bacon, shaved red onion, and little croutons made from toasted Ezekial bread (a sprouted-grain loaf). The dressing is a simple combination of a little white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, lemon juice, agave nectar, and extra virgin olive oil. A scattering of chives and bit of bright green basil oil completed the dish. It was light and lovely.

Easy Tasty Vegan Pizza

Spicy veggie (and vegan) pizza is a snap to make.

This isn’t much of a recipe post, but more of a suggestion. I whipped up this lovely vegan pizza the other day and it exceeded expectations. Now I’m not a vegan (I’m OMNIVOROUS, baby!) and my tolerance for fake vegan cheese has its limits, but this pizza, notwithstanding the “cheddar-style” rice-based “cheese product” that melted inconsistently over the top, was just dynamite. I’m not going to measure it all out for you this time, but this what I did, more or less.

I had half an Italian eggplant, which was peeled. I diced the eggplant and salted it with a sprinkle of kosher salt. I let that sit for about 20 minutes and then I rinsed the eggplant and dried it well by squeezing it gently with a paper towel. I then sautéed the eggplant in olive oil until nicely browned. Also, I blanched some Tuscan kale in boiling salted water for two minutes. I dropped that into an ice bath to cool it down and then I drained it. I chopped it up nice and fine. I then chopped a little onion and browned that quickly in a pan. I preheated the pizza stone in my oven for 30 minutes at 550ºF (do it on a sheet pan, totally fine).

I took a nice, very flat whole wheat pita and I drizzled a little bit of olive oil over one side. I then spread over it a little homemade tomato sauce (a good jarred one is fine) and then added sparingly a little of each topping: kalamata olives, cooked eggplant, sautéed onions, blanched kale, fresh tomatoes, and pickled jalapenos. I added a few torn pieces of pre-sliced cheddar-style rice (or soy) cheese. I baked it on the pizza stone for about ten minutes. It was, how you say, AMAZEBALLS!

Yummy and satisfying.

Chopped Veggie Picnic Salad

A bounty of veggies!

I was inspired to make this salad by my father, a man who believes in eating not only in a heathy manner, but in a way that reflects his environmental concerns. To that end he eats small portions, mostly vegetables, and he eschews beef and gluttony. My dad is a vigorous man and will undoubtedly outlive me, due in no small part to his dietary habits. Now I can’t really embrace that particular lifestyle; I’d say my job doesn’t permit me to eat healthfully, but that’s mostly a cop-out. I just like food of all kinds and I like to eat. I’m OMNIVOROUS, after all, and I probably wouldn’t be cooking for a living if I didn’t like to eat just about everything!

My father is partial to chopped salads and a few months ago during his last visit he made an especially tasty salad of all kinds of things including cauliflower and tofu and cabbage and carrots and tomatoes and about thirty other veggies. This recipe is a bit like that — it’s complicated but easy to make, it’s got all kinds of things going on but works in a balanced way, it’s refreshing but filling, and it’s very open to interpretation. Don’t like cabbage? Substitute with fennel. Don’t like bell peppers? Throw in a summer squash. Don’t like carrots? Throw in fresh corn. Don’t like zucchini…you get the picture. Be creative, use what you have in the fridge, use as many vegetables as you can get your hands on.

Anyway, if you make this recipe don’t feel you have to stick to these quantities. Use what you’ve got and don’t be a stickler. Just keep the general idea of the salad and dress it accordingly. I made the salad vegan, but if you want to use regular mayonnaise in the dressing, have at it!

By the way, it’s called a Picnic Salad because you can dress it in advance and serve it casually. Dress the salad early and then stir in the nuts and corn chips right before serving. One note: the salt in the dressing might pull some moisture out of the veggies and it may be a trifle wet after sitting for a couple of hours; just drain off a little of the excess liquid if you notice that occurring.

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups vegenaise or regular mayo
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons toasted white sesame seeds
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh basil
• 3 cups chopped purple cauliflower
• 3 cups chopped raw white mushrooms
• 2 cups coarsely chopped watercress
• 2 cups coarsely chopped iceberg lettuce
• 1 1/2 cups of chopped pressed (and/or smoked) tofu
• 1 1/2 cups coarsely shredded carrots
• 1 cup chopped purple cabbage
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 hothouse cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• 3 scallions, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 1 cup crushed cashews
• 1 cup crushed blue corn tortilla chips

Now do this:

Whisk together vegenaise, vinegar, olive oil, mustard, sesame seeds, salt, honey, pepper, and basil. Refrigerate until your salad is assembled.

Toss to combine all of the remaining ingredients above except the nuts and corn chips. Toss with the dressing until nicely coated. Allow the salad to sit, refrigerated, for at least an hour. Drain off any extra liquid and toss in the cashews and blue corn chip. Serve and eat!

Tapas Partay!

A little blurry, but oh, what a spread!

Last week Regina and I had a couple of great friends over for an early dinner. Well, all dinners are early when you have an infant, but luckily our friends are obliging and understanding. Of course when I put out a spread like this of course they are obliging! Mitch supplied the wine and Stef made a excellent blueberry pie to finish the meal with.

Starting from the bottom left and travelling a meandering path up the table in a vaguely clockwise direction the dishes are as follows: garlic aioli with a touch of saffron, garlicky sautéed mushrooms, paprika-dusted fried chicken wings, roasted purple cauliflower with shallots and a hit of sherry vinegar, marcona almonds, pickled peppadew peppers (say that five times fast!), lightly sweetened olive oil crackers (in the wax paper), assorted olives, patatas bravas (crispy fried potatoes), grilled lamb riblets, grilled ribeye with roasted garlic, lobster with saffron sofrito, grilled bread for pan con tomate, membrillo (Spanish quince paste), assorted cheese platter including cabrales, idiazabal, some kind of hard Basque cheese that I’ve forgotten the name of, and some nice Spanish chorizo (not to be confused with the Mexican stuff), clams with garlic and white wine and diced chorizo, and finally at the bottom right a plate of hand-shaved slices of one of the world’s great cured meats — Jamon Iberico “pata negra” – a dry-cured ham made from these cute little black pigs that feast on acorns.

Eating like this — with a wide assortment of small plates with complementing and contrasting flavors and textures and colors — is so enjoyable and delicious and fun and communal that I wish we could feast like this every night! I’d be 300 pounds, but I’d be happy as a clam cooked with white wine and chorizo.

Grilled Tempeh & Portobellos

Very vegan and very delicious.

In the course of my work I’m frequently called upon to make vegan dishes for guests and my coworker Ian (nicknamed Vegan Boy). Here’s one I knocked out the other day, on a whim, and it came out pretty spectacularly, if I may say so myself.

I bought a slab of tempeh, a staple vegetarian food stuff originally from Indonesia, which is a cake of pressed fermented soy beans. Because of its dense, hearty character tempeh makes for a decent meat substitute and can be quite tasty marinated in something flavorful and then grilled.

First I sliced the tempeh into slices about a half-inch thick. I whisked up a marinade composed of about a quarter cup of ponzu sauce, a quarter cup of olive oil, some minced garlic, a little minced marjoram, a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar syrup (a reduction of simple balsamic vinegar from Modena with some sugar added to it), and some salt and pepper. I coated the tempeh slices with the marinade and let it sit for about an hour.

I cut a portobello mushroom into thick slices and marinated those as well. Meanwhile I roasted some broccoli florets in a skillet until a little charred. I also warmed a little homemade tomato sauce in a small pot.

I grilled the tempeh and mushrooms until hot and lightly charred. I put three slices of the tempeh on a sheet pan, topped the tempeh with grilled mushrooms, and then topped the ‘shrooms with a slice of “pepper-jack flavored” soy cheese. I popped the sheet pan into a hot oven (think 400ºF) for about five minutes until the “cheese” melted. I pulled out my vegan creation and pulled out a nice plate.

In the center of the plate I put a little pool of that homemade tomato sauce (a decent store-bought version like Rao’s or Giorgio Baldi’s might work). And then with a spatula I placed my little cheesy tempeh-mushroom creation in the center of the pool. I topped the cheese with some of that roasted broccoli and drizzled a little more balsamic syrup around the vegan grub.

It was damn tasty. At least that’s what Vegan Boy said.

Ad-hoc Asian Salad

Today’s salad is a simple (yet miraculous) combination of leftover cold ramen noodles (the fresh kind, not the fry-dried variety), cold grilled skirt steak cut into thin strips, napa cabbage, iceberg lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, carrots, watercress, scallions, crispy garlic, crispy wontons, and a simple sesame-miso dressing (canola oil, shiro miso paste, sesame oil, rice vinegar, Chinese mustard, salt and pepper). It was yummy!

Get Your Greens!

Gailan (Chinese Broccoli) is tender, tasty, and highly nutritious.

My body tells me when I need veggies. And I listen to my body. Certainly for my work I try to have an understanding of basic nutrition; ya know, the simple stuff like what vitamins and minerals are present in common vegetables and grains and meats. For the people I cater to I need to have a modicum of nutritional understanding to help create balanced diets and meals and not sound like a fool while I do. But in my own life I try to have a sensible and more intuitive approach to eating.

I really try to pay attention to my body’s needs, at least when it comes to the basics. Sometimes I crave fish and I think maybe that implies low levels of fatty acids and good cholesterol. Likewise when I get a hankering for oysters maybe I need a dose of magnesium. Sometimes I feel an urge for hot chicken broth or broccoli or salad or artichokes or spinach and I try to identify the need. I’m not sure what specifically my body requires when I crave gailan (Chinese broccoli) but it’s rich in all kinds of things vital to life — iron, dietary fiber, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin B6, vitamin A, folic acid, zinc, magnesium, and calcium. Not only that but it tastes great — like broccoli but more so: richer, deeper, slightly more bitter, and sweeter. It’s an all-around winner for taste and nutrients.

To cook it I first wash it well and dry it. I cut off the leafy top halves and I shave off some of the exterior of the dense, thicker bottom halves with a veggie peeler. I like to stir-fry it with garlic and ginger and finish it with Chinese oyster sauce (sub with hoisin sauce or black bean sauce to make it vegan). Of course this is my favorite method, but you can do lots of things with it; just treat it as you would regular broccoli.

For the gailan in this pic I used about a half pound, which I cleaned as described above. I sliced two large cloves of garlic and minced fresh ginger until I had about one big rounded tablespoon. I heated up some veggie oil in a very hot wok (over high heat) until it was just barely smoking. I threw in the garlic and ginger and stirred it around. I tossed in the gailan and added some cracked black pepper and a large pinch of kosher salt. I stir-fried the veggie for about 2 minutes, moving it around frequently. I added two tablespoons of xao xing (Chinese cooking wine, although cheap sherry or white wine will do) and let that steam the veggie. When the liquid was nearly evaporated I added a big dollop (maybe one and a half tablespoons) of Lee Kum Kee brand Oyster Sauce. I killed the heat and stirred to make sure the gailan was fully coated with the sauce. I checked for seasoning and added a bit more pepper. It was perfect!

I served it with some steamed broken jasmine rice and some hoisin-glazed roasted salmon. After dinner my body felt rejuvenated, like I’d given it a big boost of nutrients. And it was delicious. And way better than a multi-vitamin.

Chef Baby Chow

Chef babies eat very well! For an early lunch Vivian had a lovely soup I knocked together from a variety of tasty leftovers.

Leftover pho broth, steamed broken jasmine rice, Savoy cabbage, gailan (Chinese broccoli), baby arugula, cilantro, scallions, and Japanese flowering fern. She loved it!

For dessert the Viv had fresh strawberries and some very sweet red grapes.