Category Archives: recipes

Purple Kale Chips

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So, I was introduced to the idea of kale chips by my friend Lori, and she easily converted our friend Cyndy into a true believer…but somehow I’d never gotten around to kale chips. Then, the one time I tried them recently (with CSA kale), I managed to flub it. I was so excited about making the kale chips and jumping on this bandwagon that I didn’t really question whether I was putting too much on the tray. Turns out, I had put too much on. I didn’t realize at the time that kale chips need to be in a single layer to crisp effectively. When you have kale piled on top of kale (even just one extra layer), you can have limp kale instead of crackling, crunchy kale. It’s a critical difference.

Shot #2 at kale chips came when the week 5 CSA delivered into my hot little hands a bunch of purple kale. Ooh baby. Purple is one of my favorite colors, and when you put that together with a leafy green (leafy purple?), I just think that’s magic. As dh noted, “Purple IS a color found in nature!” So it is. I used the same amount of kale, but this time I divided it between two pans. That certainly made all of the difference, both in texture and in acceptance (everyone in the family eagerly dug in).

Thus, we have Cyndy’s recipe for kale chips with a slight set of mods. As I’d noted previously, I put Penzeys 4S seasoning on the regular kale chips (and the ones that came out crunchy were very tasty). Today, I did two pans – one with the 4S and one with a light sprinkling of salt and a very light dusting of ground white pepper. YES. This worked. Where the white pepper took hold, the kale had not only the green flavor of the kale but also the nice bite from the pepper that gave it a little kick.

 

Purple Kale Chips

So nice, I made 'em twice!

 

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 10-13 mins

Serves: 1-6 (depending upon how good people are about SHARING)

 

Ingredients

1 bunch purple kale, stems removed

olive oil (no more than 1 Tb per baking sheet)

seasoning: your favorite seasoned salt, Penzeys 4S, or (for a spicier kick) salt and ground white pepper

 

Make it Happen

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Wash and dry the kale, then tear the leaves into small pieces.

3. Place the kale on baking sheets in a single layer. This is VERY important. If you have enough kale that you have to stack it in anything more than one layer, employ an additional sheet. The pieces can be touching (horizontally), but they should not be stacked.

4. Drizzle olive oil lightly over the kale, then toss with tongs to coat the kale with the oil.

5. Lightly sprinkle your seasoning of choice over top of the kale, then place the baking sheets in the oven. Cook for 10-13 mins.

6. You can tell the kale is done when you lightly touch the tops of some pieces and they make a light crunching sound. If there’s softness or give, then you need to leave it in longer.

Crock Pot Harvest Ham with Butternut Squash

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I’ll admit it: I’d never cooked a butternut squash before. Prior to the CSA, the closest I’d come to having a butternut squash in my kitchen was when we used to buy them to shred in a Salad Shooter for dh’s iguana. (No, really, you can’t make stuff like this up.) So, I didn’t have a ton of ideas of what to do – but I knew that the crock pot really needed to figure in it somehow. What follows below is one of those rare things where I’ll recommend that you not let it go much longer than the recommended cook time (6-7 hrs). The squash came out wonderfully, to the point where it just melted on the tongue, but I have the feeling that letting it go for our standard weekday cook time (~11 hrs) would have turned the squash to mush. As it is, this is DEFINITELY getting made again. I’m not a huge fan of the time it takes to peel the squash (OMG are we there yet?!), but the result is a light, sweet dish that combines two great fall tastes.

Note that you can make this with ham steaks or a quarter ham – just make sure that you cube the ham and the squash to about the same size chunks. We needed a light meal after a day at the Topsfield Fair, so we ate it all on its own; on a typical night, this would probably go nicely with either some brown rice or a nice loaf of crusty bread.

Crock Pot Harvest Ham

Ham + Squash = YUM

Prep Time: 50-60 mins (3/4 of which is peeling/cubing the squash)

Cooking Time: 6-7 hrs on LOW

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

3 Tb olive oil

1 medium yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

3 Tb water

2 Tb soy sauce

1 butternut squash

1/3 cup Grade B maple syrup

2/3 cup apple juice

1/2 tsp powdered ginger

1-1/2 lb ham (steaks or quarter ham)

3 Tb brown sugar

Make it Happen

1. Peel and thinly slice the onion and garlic. Peel, seed and cube the butternut squash. Cube the ham to roughly the same size as the cubes of butternut squash.

2. Coat the bottom of a 5qt crock pot with the olive oil. Layer the onion slices and the garlic in the crock pot.

3. Mix the water and soy sauce and pour over the onions and garlic.

4. Add the squash to the crock pot. Layer the ham on top of the squash.

5. In a bowl (or measuring cup), combine the maple syrup, apple juice and powdered ginger. Pour over the ham and squash.

6. Sprinkle the brown sugar on top of the ham; distribute as evenly as possible. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-7 hrs.

Crock Pot Semi-Drunk Flank Steak

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When the CSA week 3 box contained radishes, I was stumped. Too many to put in a salad, too dicey to trust that a supposedly “delectable” dip from one of my vegetarian cookbooks would really get eaten…but the crock pot DID seem like the right place to put them.

My hope was that the crock pot would neutralize the bitterness of the radishes, and the answer is…well, not so much. So, I’d only recommend adding the radishes to this meal IF you love radishes. If you don’t love radishes, by all means – skip ’em. They don’t add any flavor to the dish, in my opinion, and they lose all their color, which is just a little strange when you’re only ever used to radishes being this really pretty pinkish-red color. I also used a white onion in the original version of this recipe, but a yellow onion would be far superior, so the recipe below lists a yellow onion instead.

Now, why is this flank steak semi-drunk? First off, I didn’t really want to make flank steak. This was our Rosh Hashanah dinner this year, so I really wanted brisket. When my grocery store only had 6 lb briskets, and I just didn’t feel like butchering a $30+ slab o’meat into smaller portions, I was ready to give up…until I saw the perfect little flank steak beckoning to me. As to the drunk part, I wanted the meal to be simple yet tasty. And, like my early fall beef crock pots, I wanted something that wasn’t overly heavy. So, I went for the beef broth in the fridge (left over from my Crock Pot Beef with Beets) and then reached for a bottle of Madeira. There’s nothing like some wine to really make a dish vibrate on a higher frequency. A little water, and there was plenty of liquid to keep the meat nice and moist throughout cooking. The Madeira gave the meat a nice sweetness that really just worked for me.

You can let this one go for up to 12 hrs if you want the meat to fall apart on you, and you can turn the liquid into a gravy easily enough (instructions below). OK, enough yakking…on to the recipe.

 

Crock Pot Semi-Drunk Flank Steak

Radishes may lose their color, but they're still plenty bitter!

 

Prep Time: 5-10 mins

Cook Time: 8-10 hrs on LOW

Serves: 4-6

 

Ingredients

1-1/2 to 2 lb flank steak

1 medium or large yellow onion

1/2 cup low sodium beef broth

1/2 cup Madeira (or other flavorful red wine)

1/2 cup water

1 bunch radishes, greens removed, washed & stems/roots removed (optional)

1-1/2 Tb cornstarch + water to dissolve it, for thickening a gravy (optional)

 

Make it Happen

1. Peel the onion and slice it thinly, no more than 1/3″ wide. Layer the bottom of the crock pot with the onion slices to make a bed for the flank steak.

2. Place the flank steak on top of the onion slices. (If adding the radishes, put them on top of the flank steak.)

3. In a measuring cup, pour in the three liquids so they can mix a little, then pour the combined liquid over top of the flank steak. Cover and cook on LOW for 8-10 hrs.

4. When cooking is done, remove the flank steak and place on a cutting board; remove the onions and radishes and place them in a serving bowl (or put them on a platter to serve with the flank steak). Slice the flank steak against the grain. Note: if you put the flank steak in for a longer cook time, cutting might be difficult because it may just fall apart on you. There are worse problems to have.

5. If you want to make a gravy with the liquid in the crock pot, pour the liquid into a skillet and heat to a boil over medium-high heat. Let the liquid boil for about 5 minutes, then reduce the temperature to medium. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch and enough water to dissolve the cornstarch completely. Add this mixture to the skillet and whisk briskly until the cornstarch/water mixture has blended completely into the liquid from the crock pot. Pour into a gravy boat and serve with the flank steak, onions and radishes.