The winter farmers’ market here in Portland is in full swing, and I found a couple of new veggies and some old favorites on the day that it opened.
Kale
Kale is my favorite vegetable. Maybe just for right now, maybe for all time, I’m not sure. But it’s so good, and so easy. I’m learning that it’s also a great winter green, and I’m seeing it everywhere right now.
Here’s a really basic way to make kale. It’s quick, and will likely only include things you already have in your kitchen.
Easy Sautéed Kale
You’ll need:
- 1 bunch kale, cut or torn into smaller pieces
- sea salt
- olive oil
- lemon wedge
Optional: crumbled (cooked) bacon, 1 garlic clove (minced), grated Parmesan cheese
Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a skillet on the stove. If you’re using crumbled bacon or minced garlic, add this to the oil and let it heat just briefly. Add the kale and using tongs, turn the kale frequently, making sure that all pieces are coated and that it cooks evenly. It will cook down and wilt a bit. Throughout this process, sprinkle sea salt and squeeze lemon juice onto the kale as it cooks.
Finish with any/all of the following: sea salt, a squeeze of lemon, and shredded Parmesan cheese. Chris and I have had the kale with baked chicken and roasted cauliflower puree, and my girlfriends and I have just eaten it out of a bowl with our bare fingers. So, you know. Whatever your thing is.
I promise, this is the easiest way to make kale (that I know of) and it’s so flavorful!
Purple Haze Carrots
Moving on, I also found these Purple Haze Carrots while strolling through the market. I’d never, ever seen carrots this color before and I was intrigued, so I grabbed just enough for Chris and I to taste them. My plans were to roast them, but I ended up shredding the carrots into turkey meatballs that I made last week. These definitely need a second appearance in my kitchen, but they did work nicely with the ground turkey.
Sunchokes
One of my favorite Portland restaurants is Veritable Quandary (VQ). VQ blows my mind every time I’m there with their creative, seasonal dishes and emphasis on local foods. Last time I was there, I ordered a cup of the Sunchoke soup, not really being sure what sunchokes actually are (and then remembered a guest blogger’s post here on the Jerusalem artichoke and that I learned sunchokes were the same thing!).
I set out to recreate the soup, and found some sunchokes at the winter market. They look like fat ginger roots, don’t they?
Winter produce shopping is fun, right? What’s in your market these days?
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Isn’t kale just the best? Lately I’ve taken to adding it to my morning smoothie, gotta get my superfood as soon as I wake up! Swiss chard is second on the list. I miss Portland market.
I’ve added spinach to smoothies, but never kale! I’ll have to try that. I also do love Swiss chard, and if I could send you fresh veggies from the Portland market, I would! Oh! I got your postcard recently
I’ll be in touch soon!
I’m sitting here in Moldova and sighing with envy looking at your kale and reading the recipe. Kale should be growing here like a weed, but it isn’t. There’s white and red cabbage and savoy cabbage and bokchoy, but no kale.
I’m Dutch and a favorite traditional winter food is “boerenkoolstamppot met worst” which translates to farmers cabbage mash pot with sausage (farmers cabbage being curly kale).
You boil cabbage, boil potatoes, mash them together with salt pepper, butter, milk. Fry some cut up slab bacon and pour over the top, fat and all, and then you need a smoked sausage to go with it. Farmers food indeed!
But I can’t find curly kale here, so what now
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