Kale for Beginners

Kale (r) feat. its pal, Basil (l)

Nothing quite makes one want to hide in a corner with a heaping plateful of healthy greens like seeing an ad for nacho cheese-drowned Cheetos on a gas station window right after yoga class. But maybe that’s just me.

Either way, you’re getting a post jam-packed with leafy goodness.

I’m sure most people have gotten on the kale train by now, but if you’re still intimidated by it, I’m here to hold your hand. Not literally…that would be weird. Instead, I will share/remind you of some recipes I’ve posted in which kale is featured, but isn’t the tough, bitter thing that haunts you in your sleep. But you really don’t have nightmares about it, right?

I might recommend a smoothie to those most freaked out by kale, which may be ironic since green drinks could potentially seem the most repulsive. But you can’t even taste it in this TropiKale Smoothie, I promise! Just pretend it’s green from the kiwi.

Balsamic Strawberry Basil Pizza

I was pretty stoked to find out that a farmer’s market now takes place at my Y every Tuesday morning. Produce and elliptical in one trip! Health made easy! And yeah, Tuesday morning maybe seems like an odd time, but I wasn’t the only person there. I guess there are other people here who keep odd hours and like fresh, local food.

I had been thinking of making a pizza with the swiss chard and zucchini because, heck, there is NO PIZZA on this 1.75 year-old baking blog. But then I started to worry about the strawberries and how ripe they were. I can throw strawberries on dough and call it pizza…right? How about letting them hang out with basil in some balsamic vinegar first? I like where this is going!

Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Dutch Crunch Bread!

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

rice flour-based topping

Sara and Erica told us that they chose this challenge because they live in San Francisco where Dutch crunch bread (or Tijgerbrood/Tiger bread) is a popular item in bakeries and sandwich shops. For those of you like me  who hadn’t heard of this type of bread, it’s basically a soft loaf that is topped with a yeasty rice flour mixture right before going into the oven. While baking, the topping cracks and browns, giving it the tiger-like appearance. I think giraffe-like might be more precise.

Spicy Purple and Sweet Potato Gratin with Coconut Milk

If I could go back in time to just last year, I would thank myself for one thing: coconut. I spent all my life hating it, but after putting myself through a year of trying it repeatedly, it’s quickly high-tailing it to my list of favorite things. I keep reminiscing about a recent coconut margarita, and have you experienced coconut ice cream? If not, change that ASAP.

Always seeking out new things to try, one of the most recent adventures involved the purple potato via a curry. Ever since then, I’ve been wanting to pair it with sweet potatoes. This may mostly be for aesthetic purposes because, come on, you know one of the main reasons you visit food blogs is for the food porn. However, the purple spuds are actually little antioxidant powerhouses which I thought would make an awesome duo with their also nutritious orange cousins.

Daring Cooks’ Challenge: Patties!

The Daring Cooks’ February 2012 challenge was hosted by Audax & Lis and they chose to present Patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness! We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties!

You could maybe say that I’m on an uncommitted search for the best veggie burger. So far the winner is the Garden Bean Burger at La Tuna Grill in San Antonio. They make it with refried black beans and then top it with cheddar, guacamole, roasted salsa, and tomatoes. Sounds kind of like a chalupa on a bun, right?

Naturally this challenge gave me the impetus to try to make my own black bean burgers in hopes that they’d be half as good as the ones at La Tuna. Having never made a veggie burger before (what?!), I looked up recipes and found one that used refried black beans…but by “refried”, they mean “smashed”. Probably most bean burger recipes involve smashing…

Daring Cooks’ Challenge: Tamales!

Maranda of Jolts & Jollies was our January 2012 Daring Cooks hostess with the mostess! Maranda challenged us to make traditional Mexican Tamales as our first challenge of the year!

Having been born and raised in San Antonio, I can assure you that I have eaten a fair share of tamales! Often my family has them on Christmas Eve, which is a very popular tradition down here. Every grocery store has corn husks in the produce section, and some even sell giant tamaleras for steaming huge batches of tamales. You might therefore assume that I’ve made tamales before, but nope…this is why they’re on my list!

Traditional tamales are meat-filled and usually have lard in the masa so I haven’t had so many in the past couple years due to the vegetarian kinds being less common. All the more reason to make my own! Maranda provided a vegan black bean recipe which sounded tasty, but I decided to go an easier route and fill mine with monterrey jack, hatch green chiles, and cumin.

I’ve always heard about how difficult, or maybe rather time-consuming, it is to make homemade tamales, but never really knew why. It’s a tradition for many families to get together and make large quantities for Christmas, so I guess making copious amounts of anything can become tedious. Since the husks need to be soaked a few hours, there is a little planning ahead, but after that, you make the filling, masa dough, and then assemble and steam.

Daring Cooks’ Challenge: Cooking with Tea!

Sarah from Simply Cooked was our November Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique!  We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

Cooking with tea?  Interesting…though I almost didn’t do this challenge.  The vegetarian recipe provided sounded good, but potentially bland.  I did it though, and my instincts were correct, to me at least.

Daring Cooks’ Challenge: Moo Shu!

The October Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood.  They challenged us to bring a taste of the East into our home kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce.

Okay, I’m days late with this challenge, but wanted to complete it because 1) I’ve missed a couple of recent ones, and 2) I can’t pass up Asian recipes.  I’m glad I did it because it is SO good!!!

Traditionally moo shu is made with pork, so being vegetarian, I went with a different stir fry recipe than what was provided for the challenge.  Otherwise, I used the hoisin and pancake recipes from Shelley and Ruth!

This is an easy dinner to make, but the prep can be pretty time-consuming.  If you chop the veggies and make the sauce the day before you want to eat it, I would approve of that (it’s what I did)!  The pancakes are a little high-maintenance as most doughy things can be, but aren’t complicated.  

Butternut Squash Barley Risotto

In grad school, my main source for recipes was AllRecipes.com.  I wouldn’t find out about food blogs until a few years later, and probably would have laughed if someone told me that years later I’d be writing for fun about baking and cooking.  (I might have stopped laughing if you then told me that I would still be freelancing at this point.)

One thing that drove me nuts about All Recipes is that so many of the comments would go something like this:

This dish sucked!  I subbed peanut butter for the broccoli, nixed the flour and doubled the tomato sauce, and it was TERRIBLE! (1 out of 5 stars)

I mean, really?  That’s totally not the recipe, so how can you rate it?

This was back when I would follow every single recipe to a T for fear of messing it up.

Now I’ve really let myself go and mess with most cooking and baking recipes, even if they’re for something I’ve never made.

Like risotto.

Daring Cooks’ Challenge: Potato Salad!

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad.  The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads.  A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

Isn’t this kind of like when they announce something like, I don’t know, potatoes as the secret ingredient for Iron Chef?  That was my reaction, anyway.  At the same time though, it’s kind of fun to be given free reign for these challenges (I’m looking at you, April).