What Do You Do When Kale and Other Greens Take Over Your Fridge?

After reading about how our household successfully worked through our own weekly deliveries of kale and other greens, a friend sent me a request for some recipes since she has also received a bounty of greens from her CSA.  Before I start in on the recipes, I'll apologize for the lack of photos.  We made most of these recipes before I officially started this blog.

Kale/Chard with Pickled Onions

This recipe is adapted from Amanda Hesser's Essential New York Times Cookbook, a book Jordan bought me last winter, and which has quickly proven that it is "essential" in our kitchen.  Jordan actually picked out this recipe early in the CSA season, having been sold by the author's description of it as her "pint of cookie dough ice cream."

You'll want to start with the onions.  The original recipe calls for 2 large onions to be pickled to serve with 4 pounds of greens.  We made the onions per the recipe and had a lot more than we ever could have used in one sitting.  We simply kept the onions in their pickling liquid in the fridge and brought them out each time we made greens.  (They also taste great on top of veggie burgers and mock-chicken sandwiches). While pickling sounds intimidating, it takes about 15 minutes and the taste only gets better with time.

1.  Slice 2 large red onions into thick rings and separate them.  Place in a colander.

2.  Bring a kettle of water to boil and pour the boiling water over the onions.

3.  In a large non-reactive bowl (I used a pyrex mixing bowl), combine 1 1/2 cups white vinegar, 2 bay leaves, 2 tsp thyme or 4 sprigs, 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper, 1 tbs sugar, 2 tsp bruised peppercorns.  Stir to dissolve the sugar.

4.  Add the onions to the pickling liquid.  You'll want to submerge the onions entirely in the liquid.  You can squish the onions down using a plate.  I found I needed a lot more liquid to cover my onions, even after I pressed them down using the plate.  Add equal parts vinegar and hot water until you get enough liquid in the bowl.

5.  The onions will be done in 15 minutes, when they turn bright pink.  (I really wish I had a photo of how pretty they looked).

6.  To save the pickled onions.  Keep them in their pickling liquid.  If you take them out, they won't last nearly as long. 

The treatment of the kale or chard is pretty simple.  We made this recipe using both.  I prefer it with chard, but it works well with both.

1.  Weigh the greens.  You'll want to know about how much you have to determine how much seasoning you'll need.

2.  Clean and trim the greens.  I cut the stem out of each leaf, up to the point where the stem is the same thickness as the veins in the rest of the leaf.  I roll up a bunch of leaves and slice them into strips about 1/2 inch or so thick.  The stems I separately cut and slice.

3.  Bring a pot of salted water to boil.  Add the sliced stems first.  Cook for about 3 minutes.  Then add the sliced leaves.  Cook another 3 minutes or so, until the leaves are tender.  Drain or remove with a spider.  I prefer using the spider when I don't have too many greens in the pot.  It's easy to add the greens to the pan for the next step.

4.  In a large frying pan or wok, heat 1tbs olive oil for each pound of greens.  Add 1/2 clove crushed garlic for each pound of greens and saute for 30 seconds, until the garlic is fragrant.  Add the drained chard (leaves and stems) to the pan.  Coat evenly with oil and season with salt and pepper.  Transfer to a serving dish.  Serve topped with pickled onions.

Baked Kale

This dish is similar in its texture to creamed spinach.  I adapted this recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.  I purchased this book and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (let me note that there's a lot of overlap between the two books) just before the holidays last year as part of a slew of new cookbooks.  With a week off, I knew I would have time to read and cook.  I've had mixed results from this book.  Like most of my recipes, I adapted it to be dairy-free so that Jordan could eat it.  You can use regular milk and Gruyere cheese if you like.  The night I made it, I only had vanilla soy milk available.  Believe it or not, the sweetness did not kill the dish, in large part because of the bitterness of the greens.  The original recipe suggests using chard when you have mostly stems.  I think kale worked really well for this, even though it wasn't mostly stems, because it's a bit tougher than chard.

1.  Preheat the oven to 375.  Spray a 9 x 9 pan with cooking spray.

2.  Cook 2 slices of bacon.  Drain on paper towels.

3.  Clean and trim the greens.  I believe I used about 1 pound, but I had so much kale that I cooked that night, I'm not completely sure.  You want enough to layer in the greased pan.  If you have less, just adjust the amount of sauce that you make.

4.  Bring a pot of salted water to boil.   Cook the sliced stems for about 3 minutes.  Add the sliced leaves.  Cook for another 3 minutes or so, until tender.

5.  Drain the chard and put it in the greased pan.   Set aside while you make the sauce.

6.  Melt 2 tbs butter in a small saucepan over low-medium heat.  Add 2 tbs all purpose flour to the butter.  Use a whisk and stir constantly, until the mixture turns tan.  This takes about 3 minutes.

7.  Add 1 cup soy milk, about a tablespoon at a time, while constantly whisking.  Whisk until the mixture is thick.  Add 1/2 cup soy cheese (I used mozzarella) and whisk until incorporated.  If the mixture is too thick to pour, add more soy milk, one tablespoon or so at a time, until it reaches the right consistency.  Crumble the bacon and stir it into the sauce.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add 1/4 tsp cayenne (or more if you like spice) and a pinch of nutmeg.

8.  Pour the sauce over the greens.  Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs, about 1/2 cup.

9.  Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until the bread crumbs brown and the sauce is bubbling.  Serve right out of the oven. 

Pickled Kale Salad

The night we made this, I was in a cooking frenzy.  We had received our last batch of greens from our CSA and they practically filled our entire bin with kale.  I washed a ton of it and filled a colander.  I blanched two containers of it to freeze and made the baked kale above.  I still had a ton left.  I jokingly said to Jordan that I wondered if there was a pickled kale recipe out there.  One quick Google search later and he found one.  We had just enough raw kale, so we went ahead with it without too much thought.  We were really pleased with how this came out, which is a darn good thing, since it makes a huge amount.  It's a little sweet and I find the texture to be similar to tabbouleh, but without bulgur.  We still have a ton in our fridge.  As with many pickled foods, it just gets better with time.

1.  Clean and trim the kale.  Peel and trim a couple of carrots, about 8 ounces.  Finely dice 1/2 cup red onion.  Seed and thinly slice 1 red bell pepper and 1 yellow bell pepper.

2.  Using a food processor, shred the kale and carrots.  Transfer to a large non-reactive bowl and mix in the onion and the pepper.

3.  Make the dressing in a small saucepan.  Combine 1 cup white vinegar, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp tumeric, 1 tsp celery salt (or 1/2 tsp celery seeds and 1/2 tsp salt), and 1 tsp dry mustard.  Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute.

4.  Pour the hot dressing over the vegetables and mix thoroughly.  Leave salad stand on the counter for a couple of hours.  Stir it again and then transfer to the fridge.


Quiche

I honestly don't remember the recipe I adapted this from originally, but I do know I used asparagus, leek, and Gruyere (Jordan wasn't there).  I've made quiche so many times now and with so many different vegetables that this recipe is truly my own.  Again, my version is dairy free for Jordan's sake.  I make 2 quiches at a time and freeze one.  I use 2 pre-made deep dish crusts, since I don't usually have time to make my own.

Quiche with beet greens, green pepper, spring onion, and dill

1.  Preheat oven to 350 with rack in lowest position.  

2.  Trim greens and any other veggies you want to use.  With greens, I've used scape, spring onion, and regular onion, depending on what I have on hand.  You'll want about 1 1/2 to 2 cups cups of cooked filling for each quiche.  

3.   Bring a pot of salted water to boil.   Cook the sliced stems for about 3 minutes.  Add the sliced leaves.  Cook for another 3 minutes or so, until tender.  Drain. 

4.  In a large skillet, melt 2 tbs butter over medium heat.  Add onion to butter and cook until the onion is translucent.  Add the drained greens.  Season with salt and pepper and cook about a minute or so longer.  Take pan off heat.

5.  In a large bowl, whisk together 6 eggs, 4tbs melted butter + soy milk to make 2 cups (or 2 cups half and half), ½ tsp salt, ¼ tsp pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.   

6.  Place 2 deep dish pie crusts on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle bottom of the crusts with soy cheese (or Gruyere), using about 1 cup total.  Next add the vegetable mixture, splitting evenly between the two crusts.  After adding the cheese and vegetables, the crust should be about full.  Pour egg mixture on top of everything, again splitting it evenly between the two quiches.

7.  Bake for 30 minutes and rotate pan.  Bake another 20-30 minutes until the center is set and a knife comes out clean.  Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

To reheat the quiche.  Put frozen quiche on cookie sheet, covered in aluminum foil, in 350 degree oven.  Bake for an hour to an hour and a half, until hot. I usually take the foil off for the last 20 minutes or so, so that the crust doesn't get soggy.

These recipes will cook up a lot of greens.  I still have those two containers of frozen kale in my freezer.  If I can talk Jordan into it,  I want to try Kale Pancakes, an adaptation of a Chard Pancake Recipe in Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table.