My Discovery of Kale

As an IBS sufferer, I have all sorts of weird things I can't eat. Red meat, fried and spicy food are pretty common across the board but I also don't digest preservatives or seeds very well. Unfortunately, most lettuce that you buy in a store or in a restaurant, no matter how organic, has preservatives on it which means that all traditional salads are on the NO list for me. 

However, I have discovered during the last couple weeks that kale, for whatever reason, doesn't bother my stomach like spinach, arugula, or other leafy salad greens. This is a huge deal for me because I can start adding this dark green to my diet which will increase my iron count and open up so many culinary opportunities!

Here are two recipes I have tried and loved over the last week using fresh kale straight from Houston Farms or the Lomax Incubator Farm. The kale really adds a natural saltiness and heartiness to the dishes and they both only took minutes to put together. The tomatoe in the first recipe was a local one I had frozen at the end of last summer. This is a perfect use for them because their consistency isn't key to the dish. I got the turnips in the second recipe from Houston Farms as well and the gnocchi from the pasta guy at Atherton Market. The dill is also from the market - various vendors have had herbs on and off the last several weeks, most likely green-housed or grown inside.

Penne Pasta with Tomato, Kale and Dill (V)
1/2 pound penne pasta (about half a normal box or bag)
2 large handfuls of kale, stems removed, cut into pieces no larger than 2 inches
1 tomato, cut in 1/2 inch chunks
2-3 tablespoons fresh dill
2-3 tablespoons olive lil
Juice of one lemon (optional)

1. Prepare pasta.
2. In large frying pan, heat olive oil over medium/high heat.
3. Add kale, tomato, dill and lemon juice. Saute until kale has darkened.
4. Add made pasta and saute until pasta is covered with kale and tomato.
5. Serve hot.

Turnips and Kale side dish (V)
2 medium turnips, cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
2-3 good handfuls of kale, stems removed, cut into pieces no larger than 2 inches
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in large frying pan (I used a non - non-stick pan) on high heat.
2. Add turnips and cook on high until nice and brown on both sides.
3. Add handfuls of kale so they are layered over top of but not mixed in with turnips. Reduce heat to medium and let kale soften and darken.
4. Once kale is dark, mix in with turnips. Add salt and pepper.
5. Serve hot.

I served this with gnocchi and basic tomato sauce. Delish!

Root Vegetable Casserole

Spring is just around the corner which means you may want to grab your favorite Fall/Winter favorites while you can. I will miss them because, pound for pound, cold weather produce is cheaper than warm weather produce (think sweet potatoes versus any tomato) and they're just so comforting to eat. To celebrate the end of root vegetables and comfort food in general, I tried my hand at Root Vegetable Casserole this weekend. My friend Corinne makes this for Thanksgiving for our family and it's just delicious. I have backed off the original amount of heavy cream in the below but you could easily dump a little more into the pan! The potatoes are from Houston Farms and the turnips and green onions are from the Lomax Farm.

Root Vegetable Casserole (v)

1-2 turnips

1 medium sweet potato
1/2 leek, sliced

1 medium baking potato

1 green onion, chopped

~1 cup heavy cream

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cups broth

1. Parchment paper (cut into pieces that will fit snuggly inside the dish you are using)
2. Peel all vegetables and slices into 1/8 thick slices. For large pieces like the baking potato, also cut in half.
3. Combine all vegetables in a large mixing bowl and add garlic, broth and all but 1/4 cup of the heavy cream. Mix carefully until veggies are coated well.
4. Put whole mixture in a 8x8 baking dish and cover with Parchment paper.
5. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 40-50 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and remove Parchment paper. Turn oven to Broil, drizzle the rest of the heavy cream over the top, then stick back in the oven for 5 minutes. This will make sure the top is moist.

This makes a small dish but you can size up easily for larger portions.

Charlotte Local Eats Turns 2!

I can't believe it was two years ago that I wrote my first post on our local food journey. Since then, I have posted almost 100 items including recipes, guest bloggers, and book reviews on the advantages of eating locally and today is no different...

Recently I visited the Atherton Market and saw the most beautiful squash:

Congratulations to Anna Mallett Stewart for knowing that this is a Pennsylvania Dutch Crooked Neck Squash!

This thing weighed easily seven or eight pounds and was approximately the size of a large purse. I learned quickly that I needed to sharpen my chef's knife to get the squash down to size. But, like its close cousin the butternut squash, as soon as I had 3-4 inch chunks, it baked easily and was soon ready for soup. I used my butternut squash soup recipe but increased the other ingredients by about half because there was so much squash to go around. It ended up making close to a gallon of soup!

Just a friendly reminder that I love getting recipes or hearing about local food experiences so send them along to charlottelocaleats@gmail.com. I can't wait to see what will happen in the next two years of local eating!

Cabbage

To most people, cabbage either evokes images of starving Irish immigrants huddling around a kettle or celebrity weight loss secrets. For me, cabbage is one of the only leafy greens that I can actually eat (see also: bok choi and all its cousins) so I really love cabbage.

So it should surprise you that until last weekend, I was only using the outside half of a head of cabbage (unless I'm making cole slaw). I always thought the inside was too bitter to eat when not covered in mayo or vinegar so I always stuck to the big leaves on the outside of the head. But then, like a knight in green armor, a vendor at the market Saturday said that I could use vegetable broth, olive oil and a little patience to make the whole head of cabbage not only edible but delicious. You can get cabbage all over this time of year, I got the butter from Simply Local and the seasonings from the Savory Spice Shop.

Soft Cabbage (V)
1 head of cabbage, cut in ~1" pieces, heart removed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/4 cup vegetable broth
Seal salt, Pepper, Celery salt to taste (about 1/2 teaspoon of each)

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet. 
2. Add the cabbage and stir for about 5 minutes, covering all cabbage with oil.
3. Add broth and cover. Bring to a boil then turn down to medium/low.
4. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes or until the cabbage is tender without being soupy.
5. Add spices and serve hot.

Cauliflower Pizza

Raise your hand if you thought I was going to recount a recipe where you just put cauliflower on it. Ok, put them down. Now raise your hand if you believe I can make a pizza crust without any flour products that stays together. I'm guessing there were a lot for the first one and none for the second. Well, prepare to be blown away by the most delicious home made, from-scratch pizza you'll ever make.

My boss (who was actually trained as a chef and worked in the catering business for many years) has Celiac's Disease which means she can't digest wheat. Thus, she always has interesting gluten-free recipes to try and share. The one below she found on Pinterest as a great alternative for those trying to avoid conventional carbs. I got the cauliflower from Houston Farms, eggs from Windy Hill and cheddar from Simply Local. I haven't found a local mozzarella but you could easily find the rest (tomato sauce, mushrooms and garlic) from around Charlotte and throughout North Carolina.

A side note: Since the oven already has to get to 400 degrees, I roasted the cauliflower and garlic slices for 5-10 minutes while I was preparing the rest of the ingredients. This gave them a bit of a smoky flavor which was really nice.

Cauliflower Pizza (v)

Crust:

1 head of cauliflower, roasted, chopped very fine or minced in the food processor

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese

1. Combine all and spread on a jelly roll pan (aka a cookie sheet with a rim on all 4 sides).
2. Bake at 400 degrees for 12 minutes.

Toppings:

1/2-3/4 cup tomato sauce of choice

1 cup mozzarella

1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced very thin

2-3 cloves garlic, sliced very thin

1. Apply tomato sauce, then cheese, then garlic, then mushrooms.
2. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cheese has brown just a tiny bit.

This is a half batch from my first attempt.

I served my second pizza with roasted yams and rutabagas and a broccoli salad.

Recipes: Random Winter Produce

So far, this has been a very interesting winter in North Carolina. It got very cold very late and then this week it's been in the 60's and the weatherman says tomorrow it will be 75 degrees. I can only imagine what this is doing to the latent winter crops! Luckily, farmers markets still have some great hearty offerings right now including winter squashes, greens and root vegetables.

This week, Lomax Incubator Farm had a product I had never tried before: the mighty rutabaga!

At first, I mistook this beautiful vegetable for a turnip because it also has purple shoulders and luscious greens. The difference is that rutabagas are often much larger and somewhat sweeter than your average turnip. They can, luckily, be used in much the same ways. I consulted Fresh from the Farmers' Market and found that the best way to prepare these is alongside complimentary root veggies like sweet potatoes and carrots because of their slight sweetness. Below is how I prepared just one large rutabaga which went a lot further than you'd think. The sweet potatoes can be gotten from pretty much anywhere right now but I usually buy mine from Houston Farms.

Rutabaga Bake (V)
1 medium/large rutabaga
1 medium/large sweet potato
~1/4 cup olive oil
Sea salt and pepper to taste

1. Peel both the rutabaga and potato and slice in 1/4 in pieces.
2. Drizzle a little olive oil in a brownie-size baking dish.
3. Layer rutabaga and potato slices, adding a little oil here and there.
4. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until at desired tenderness.
5. Salt and pepper to taste.

A couple vendors in Charlotte are still selling bok choi or bok choi-like greens. I keep meaning to ask if these are greenhouse-grown or have been stored from warmer months but regardless, I buy it whenever I see it. Because of my IBS, I can't eat most lettuce or very dark greens so these are a great replacement for the vitamins I'm missing from those. I threw the following together last night which has bok choi from Houston Farms, Simply Local's medium sharp cheddar and Windy Hill's amazing eggs. It had a great salty flavor without the addition of actual salt so I'm calling this a healthy recipe.

Bok Choi Omelet (makes 2) (v)
About 1/2 head of bok choi, diced
1/4 onion, minced
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
4 eggs

1. Whisk eggs. Pour into medium-high heated frying pan.
2. When cooked mostly on the outsides, add cheese. 
3. Once cheese is melted part way, add the onions and bok choi and flip one side over the other.
4. Cook until brown on the outsides.

Fun with Radishes

Do you ever stand in the check out line at Target and suddenly have to buy a People magazine or some fancy new brand of Tic-Tacs? An impulse buy, right? Well this Saturday Joe from the Lomax Incubator Farm at Atherton had these beautiful red radishes. They had long heads and were just gorgeous amidst all of the greens and peppers the farm is producing right now so of course I had to buy them.

But what does someone who can't eat lettuce, and thus doesn't make salads, do with two giant radishes? The answer is a lot. Radishes are a somewhat neutral flavor but they have a great crispness that is a great addition to dishes that might otherwise be a little dull. Here are two ways that I used these hearty fall veggies. The mushrooms I got from Cotton Barn mushrooms at Atherton Market, the eggplant you can get from several but it's almost done for the year now that the weather is really cooling off.

Radish Stir Fry (V)
1 large radish, sliced in half long ways then in 1/4 slices
4-5 large mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup cubed egg plant
1/2 cup onion, sliced
1/4 cup soy sauce
2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add onions and saute 1-2 minutes alone
2. Add mushrooms, egg plant and radishes. 
3. Heat on high until you see a little color on the veggies which means they're done.
4. Serve with your favorite starch or carb!

I served the stir fry with quinoa - delish!

Radish Salad (V)
1 large radish, sliced in half long ways then in 1/4 slices
 1/2 red onion, sliced thinly
1-2 carrots, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
1/4 cup cucumber, sliced thinly
Mushrooms to taste, sliced thinly
(Dressing: 3 parts olive oil, 1 part  balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste)

1. Toss all ingredients together.
2. Chill for 1 hour before serving.