Another summer week has flown by. Amidst folk festivals, baseball games, community service, swimming and summer camps, here is how we enjoyed our shares this week.
- butter and sugar corn
- corn on (and off) the cob
- squash (Jess got summer squash and zucchini)
- Blanched and frozen for the winter doldrums
- Zucchini Pesto Frittata
- added to stir fry
- Cooked in a little Amish roll butter for lunches
- slicing cucumbers
- enjoyed as-is
- In Ina Garten’s Summer Borscht
- bag of wax beans
- green cabbage
- Nana’s Cabbage Rolls
- Sarah’s is still waiting to be used
- blueberry
- enjoyed as-is (last year’s frozen ones go into the smoothies)
- raspberry
- In Peach Melba
- lettuce
- with goat cheese, cranberries and balsamic glaze
- A small side salad
- Added to a smoothie
- kale (red Russian and lacinato)
- Kale Powder (recipe below)
- Stems and leaves in morning smoothies
- Kale Scramble
- bunch of basil
- in Carrot Top Pesto freezer cubes
- On top of the zucchini pesto frittata
- bunch of beets
- Ina Garten’s Summer Borscht
- Beet Greens in Butter Sauce
- Roasted
- bunch of collards
- bunch of carrots & carrot bombs
- rainbow chard
- Wilted in Butter Sauce
- Stems roasted and leaves in a smoothie
- classic peaches
- Peach Melba
- Peach breakfasts
- Grilled- check in for this tomorrow in the show post!
- sugar plums
- enjoyed as-is
- eggs
We hope you enjoyed this week’s beautiful share as much as we did! Now for a quick word from Jess:
—
I’ve loved reading about the different ways that folks preserve their veggies. It made me want to share about an unconventional way to preserve kale. I’ll add that it’s an unconventional way to preserve kale in a way that may be especially useful for those that have family members that aren’t that into kale.
Kale Powder has been an amazing asset to the Anderson household. I’ve spoken before about “aha” recipes, which is when a (insert veggie here) hater tastes a certain (insert the same veggie here) recipe, then suddenly understands why people like (insert the same veggie here again). I’ve also spoken about the “huh” recipes, when said hated veggie has to play the incognito role to be eaten by said veggie hater. Enter – Kale Powder, the ultimate “huh” recipe option.
Similar to making kale chips, preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Separate the kale from the stems (saving the stems for your smoothies or other treats). Lay the kale leaves in a single layer on one or multiple cookie sheets, depending on how much kale you have (no salt or oil needed such as with the chips). Pop the leaves in the oven and after 10 minutes begin to check the leaves for crispness. You want the leaves to not be brown but dry, crisp and brittle. Remove the ones that are done as you go, returning the rest to the oven and checking every couple of minutes. The trick is to get them all crispy without burning any. It is a bit tricky, not crispy enough can leave your powder with moisture and prone to mold. Too crispy and it alters the flavor to be bitter.
I’m not sure this would work again… I was once interrupted with an emergency while making kale powder. The leaves were in the oven at 250 for maybe 3 minutes before I had to leave the house. I turned off the oven, opened the oven door, left the kale in there and left. About an hour or so later and I came home to perfectly crispy kale. For what that’s worth, I thought I’d mention it.
After you have your crispy leaves, simply smush them into your processor, grinder, blender, or whatever you use to crush stuff up. Turn it on and watch the magic happen!
I store this stuff in my fridge for months and slowly ration it out. One giant bunch of kale turns into only a couple of tablespoons of powder if that (note this jar in the picture is only a sample-sized jar), so it’s a great way to bring bunches down to size.
I find this magical veggie dust to be a fabulous way to get healthy food into the most unsuspecting of diners. I usually start with a little sprinkle in a meat loaf or something, then when it’s gone undetected by the boys, maybe a bigger sprinkle in the next dish. Every once in a while I go too far and get a “why do these scrambled eggs taste funny?” Then I dial it back. Sometimes I get creative, when the boys went through an Octonauts phase, we had “Kelp Cakes” (aka pancakes made with pancake mix and just enough kale powder to turn the mix green).
If you’re likely to toss your kale in the swap box, we hope you’ll try this one! Please let us know your thoughts & variations, and thanks for reading!