kale and eggs by Shelley Hopkins

I have found Kale to be an interesting and fun food to cook with.  Even though we never cook Kale with salt, the final product has a salty taste, and my husband especially likes that.  As I have mentioned before kale is very healthy with lots of antioxidants and vitamins, such as vitamin A, C, E, K as well as calcium, magnesium, B6, potassium, iron, and those helpful omega 3 fatty acids.  Omega 3’s have excellent anti-inflammatory benefits, and may help with depression.

I tried a few recipes that I didn’t like, but mostly I have enjoyed the foods I have cooked.  The way to know which recipe is my favorite is to simply see which of the recipes I seem to come back to, to cook over and over and more importantly to cook for other people.  My parents came to visit, and my meat grilling dad tasted the recipe that has become my favorite, Braised Kale on Toast.  He like it, so I would say that is a good sign.  This is so easy to cook, and fits in as simple but good food.

Heat 3 Tbs oil in a large pan on medium heat.  Add chopped onion and cook till softened, 3 to 5 minutes.

Add kale, minced garlic and 1/8^th tsp chili flakes.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until kale is wilted, about 5 minutes.  Add 3 cups vegetable stock and bring to a simmer.  Cover and cook until kale is tender, about 20 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and I would taste first.

Make toast out of a thick bread, sourdough is great.  Rub toast with halved garlic clove.  (I just make garlic toast with butter and garlic salt).  Divide toast into 4 wide soup bowls.

Heat remaining 2 Tbs oil to large, non-stick pan.  Gently add eggs and fry to preferred level of doneness.  Or poach eggs in broth for about 3-4 minutes.

Serve by spooning some of the kale and broth over the toast, then top with the egg.

My husband likes to stir fry kale with chopped meat, onions and garlic.  The most important thing to remember with kale is to remove the stalks.  Kale is good to add to soups, stews, stir-frys, salads and casseroles.  We have added it to salads, but this is not our favorite way to eat it, we both like it better cooked.  Kale chips are interesting, slice kale into bites sized pieces, toss with olive oil and salt and bake for 10-15 minutes in the oven and 350.  I tried this, mixing lemon juice and oil.  The kale took forever to become dry, at first I was baking a mushy wet mess.  Once dry though, it tasted good.  Kale chips were good mixed into salads.  After a day they no longer were crisp, but were still full of flavor. 

Maybe it is time to expand your cooking to include kale.  If you have other recipes or ways of using it, please feel free to share here.

Enjoy!

blogging, kale, and big plans by Shelley Hopkins

I am reading a book about an early blog writer, a cook with a foul mouth, a New Yorker who decides to, in her spare time, cook every recipe in Julia Childs book Mastering the Art of French Cooking in her tiny NYC apartment.  I am loving the book, dreaming of finding my own year long crazy adventure and wondering how on earth she had the time and energy.

  I had ideas when I started this blog that I would be trying and recording many new things from local adventures to exotic recipes, but my last post was on, of all things, painting my house.

Where is the adventure, the trying of new things?

In the book Julie cooks while moving, while working a full time job, while enduring frozen pipes, overflowing pipes, discouraging family and friends, live lobsters and her own fear of eggs.

I am fighting a cold that started the day we moved, studying for a real estate exam I take this week, unpacking and trying to settle into our new house. That is all.

Today I unpacked boxes of teaching materials, books that represent a life I gave up by moving here.  I had just started grad school and was enthusiastically teaching Spanish to college freshmen when my out of work husband found a job here, in a new state.  I finished one year, but didn’t want our family apart for more time than that, so now those boxes represent the old life.

I moved to another box, this one full of books I had used while homeschooling my children, another stage in my life that has ended.  Next I opened a box full of travel books.  It was too much, and I took a nap.

Now I am writing while cooking supper.  I wanted a familiar food, a comfort food, so I am boiling manicotti shells to stuff with cheese.  I found an old bag of kale that I had planned on using for lots of exotic recipes, and was now starting to wither.  I boiled some of the better pieces of kale and chopped the leaves into small pieces.  When I mixed the cheeses I added the kale as well.  I stuffed the manicotti shells with the cheese and kale mixture, layered the pasta and spaghetti sauce in a dish, and baked for 30 minutes. 

While baking I started working on the boxes of cookbooks waiting to be put on shelves.  I could not imagine cooking through one of them, and no cookbook I own has as many complicated meals as Julia Child’s book.  I would love to create my own cookbook, as a matter of fact I have started a book with recipes from Costa Rica and full of (hopefully) very interesting memories.  That project is right now hiding somewhere within my computer memory.

While feeling sorry for myself, the lost teaching, the travel and adventure I am missing, the interesting meals I am not creating, I smell my kale manicotti cooking in my new oven, and it smells good! 

This blog was written last night, and after that wonderful meal, a good nights sleep, and after passing the real estate exam, I have a new outlook.  I have the horrible habit of comparing my life, my plans, my writing, my everything, to other people.  I have my own life, my own projects, and they are good. I may no longer be teaching, but starting a new career is always an adventure, and I feel like working in real estate will be very interesting.  I plan to cook through a cookbook after all, my own cookbook of Costa Rican recipes.  Stay tuned for that adventure, and for a few tasty meals as well.  All of our lives are full of doors that shut and other doors that open.  When a door shuts we turn away from that garden path, but the next door and its path may be even more interesting.  And so, I step out, one foot on the path, looking ahead and not behind, at the distant view of adventure waiting out in the haze.

New paint, old house! Chalkboard paint and how it works by Shelley Hopkins

Buying an older house and all the work it takes to fix it up, painting, cleaning, and minor repairs, takes a lot of time.  I believe it is worthwhile because the older houses have more personality.  They usually have mature yards with older trees, and they are part of neighborhoods that have been around, with their developed yards.  Older neighborhoods usually don’t have the restrictive covenants; they are not full of grass police and tactfully matching front door colors.  Sometimes you get the occasional yard full of trucks and older cars, but more often you see yard ornaments, flowering bushes, old wheelbarrows turned into planters, and friendly welcoming front porches.

We just bought an older house, although I don’t like that term because the house and I entered the world on the same year.  After a week of painting, cleaning, packing and planning we are finally in the house, surrounded by boxes, bags and furniture in all the wrong places.  Over time the boxes will be emptied, the pictures hung and curtains made.  This building will start to feel like home, and memories will be created.  I refuse to be in a hurry, we will be here a while, and I want to enjoy unpacking, not feel like I have to be finished in only a week. 

My daughter wanted to paint her bedroom bold colors, and she became interested in the idea of painting a chalkboard on one wall.  I tried to talk her into only painting a portion of the wall, but she wanted the whole thing.  She had images in her mind of a wall covered by anime drawings by her friends, Bible verses scrolling across the room, and poetry flowing from the floor to the ceiling.  Only a whole wall would do.  We drove to the local home improvement store and spoke with the paint associates.  I was worried an entire wall in chalkboard black would be depressing, but they assured me she could choose from many colors.  One of the ladies working there had created a magnetic chalkboard with paints, and in a crazy moment we ended up buying both magnetic paint and the chalkboard paint in a periwinkle blue.  Three of her walls were orange crush colored, reminding me of a push up popsicle, and the fourth would be the magnet/chalk wall.  She and a friend worked for a couple of days.  First they applied the magnetic paint, putting on three coats of the black thick stuff.  It was hard to work with, hard to spread and basically weird feeling as it spread across the wall.  After drying for an entire day they began to paint on the chalk paint, which was thick and grainy.  Two coats of that and the wall was a beautiful periwinkle blue, making a dramatic contrast with the orange. 

The room was very smart looking, but we were eager to see how the paints worked.  First I put one of my kitchen collectable magnets on her wall, and it stayed on fine.  My daughter then tried to hang pictures up with magnets, but every time the magnet was placed on the wall over paper nothing happened, both fell with a crash.  The magnets would rest on the wall but not through the paper.  We couldn’t test the chalk for another day, but when we came back the next morning with chalk all the magnets that we had left on the wall were now on the floor.  Even my kitchen magnet had fallen off.  When I touched the wall with a magnet it was as if it had not been painted.  I have no idea if this has happened to other people, or why the wall would attract magnets one day and not the next, but this was our experience.  My daughter drew on the wall with her chalk, and was very happy to find that her drawings and writings worked. This chalk wall feels different than a regular chalkboard, but it is possible to write on it.  It doesn’t have the smooth feel of the old school boards, but that could be from the magnetic paint.  She was more interested in the chalk part of the wall anyway.  I am sure Edgar Allen Poe poems will show up soon, surrounded by anime characters. 

We are enjoying the benefits of home ownership again, the good and the bad.  I love painting because the walls are instantly clean, the colors are my choice, and the house smells new and fresh.  I hate unpacking because I am again reminded that we have too much stuff, and that although I dream of being organized the reality is far from me.  It usually takes us about 1 -2 years to actually get the house organized and arranged in the way we like.  I guess we have to live in the house for a while before we are able to see how the cabinets and the furniture flows best for us.  I want instant perfect, like in painting a wall. 

The next post will be about my new lawn mower; in a fit of environmental enthusiasm we bought a mower that needs no gas or electricity.  It is quiet and perfect for small yards.  I have only used it once, but so far I like it.  More on that later after a few passes around the yard to be sure I still am happy with the choice.