Farm Fridays: Sauteed Kale with Bacon

My farm share has been looking pretty scanty lately. The crop loss and delayed plantings due to the eight inches of rain we had in June are finally having an impact on my basket. The quality of the produce hasn't suffered, though. I brought home two bunches of beautiful curly kale this week. One of them will be making its way into a casserole in a few days, but I decided that the rest of it ought to be used immediately, while it was still so wonderfully fresh and crisp. I had a single strip of bacon in the freezer, left over from something we made a few weeks ago, so this dish was a no-brainer.

Why is it that the dark greens - kale, spinach, collards - which are so wonderfully healthy and good go so well with bacon, which, despite its deliciousness, is one of the least healthy foods in the universe? And bacon is so efficient: cooking oil, flavor agent and meaty goodness all in one! Even better, I threw this dish together in my cast iron skillet, so that bacony flavor will be infused in future dishes. That one strip of bacon wears many hats (not to mention artery clogger and cholesterol raiser).

I'm not really trying to scare you off the bacon, though. Everything in moderation, right? It's just one strip of bacon, and its ill effects are (maybe) counteracted by the pile of vitamin- and fiber-full greens. We all want to be healthy, but we have to live a little, too. And somewhere in the midst of that compromise, my friends, this dish lies. So enjoy your bacon. And enjoy your kale.

Sauteed Kale with Bacon

1 strip thick-cut smoked bacon
1/2 onion
4 oz kale
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon and saute 3-4 minutes, until the fat has rendered and the edges begin to crisp.

Add the onion and saute another 4-5 minutes, until softened and translucent.

Finally, add the kale (in batches, if necessary - I managed to squeeze it all into this pan at once, but it was a stretch). Cook, stirring occasionally, until wilted but still vibrantly green, about 7-8 minutes.

Mini Shell Pasta with Smoked Bacon and Peas

We've passed the middle of winter and fresh, local food is becoming thin on the ground. (Ok, I did manage to buy onions and turnips and cabbage and sweet potatoes and honey at the farmer's market the other day - I even passed on the apples and kale - so we haven't hit rock bottom just yet.) Still, it's time to start feeding ourselves from our own larder.

If you look back at my October canning round-up, you can see some of the food Jeff and I managed to put up this year. We also have a freezer stocked with asparagus, edamame, frozen greens, pumpkin puree, roasted peppers, oven-dried tomatoes, and other goodies. We're starting to arrange our menus around these items, trying to enjoy the bounty we worked hard to preserve. This recipe used up our frozen peas and a few handfuls of leftover baby spinach. Frozen greens would work really nicely in here, too - I just had some fresh stuff on hand that needed a job.

This is a great dinner for a weeknight because it came together so quickly and effortlessly. I was shocked at how little work went into it - the ingredients were prepped and my kitchen was cleaned up in no time at all. It's not the healthiest dish, but it's hearty and satisfying - and what is life without a creamy bacon sauce once in awhile?

Mini Shell Pasta with a Creamy Smoked Bacon and Pea Sauce
Slightly adapted from Jamie's Food Revolution.

3 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
1 lb mini shell pasta
1 tbsp olive oil (optional)
2 c frozen peas
1 c baby spinach (or 1/2 c frozen greens)
2 tbsp creme fraiche
1/2 lemon
6 oz Parmesan cheese

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions.

Heat a large, high-sided pan over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook until crispy. Add the peas and cook a minute or two, until heated through.

 

 Add the spinach and stir until slightly wilted. Add the creme fraiche, stirring well, then add salt and pepper to taste. 

Drain the pasta, reserving about 1 c of the cooking water. Return the pasta to its pot, then pour the bacon mixture over it, stirring well to coat the pasta in the sauce. If the sauce needs to be thinned out, add some of the pasta water. When the pasta is coated, squeeze the lemon half onto it and sprinkle with Parmesan. Toss well to combine and serve.

Bacon and Butternut Pasta Bake

Are you holed up in your house waiting for the blizzard to start? Maybe it's time for a warm and tasty winter pasta dish!

I'm not going to lie to you - we made this a few weeks ago already, but I think it would be great for a cozy snowy evening. Bacon and Gruyere may not be good for the body, but they're totally good for the soul! And the kale and squash bump up the health factor a bit, don't they?

Ok, maybe not. It's not the healthiest dish, but it is tasty. And you'll probably burn those calories off with all the shoveling you'll have to do tomorrow.

Happy blizzard.

Bacon and Butternut Pasta
From Cooking Light January/February 2012.

5 c butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
12 oz ziti
4 c kale, chopped
2 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
2 c onion, sliced vertically
1 tsp salt, divided
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 c chicken broth, divided
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 c creme fraiche
1/3 c Gruyere, shredded

Preheat oven to 400° F. Put on a pot of boiling salted water for the pasta.

In a large bowl, toss squash with oil. Transfer squash to a foil-lined baking sheet and roast for 30 min, until tender.

Meanwhile, cook pasta about 7 min, until almost al dente (you want it underdone because it will continue to cook in the oven later). When the pasta has 2 minutes to go, add the kale to the water and cook with the pasta.

In a large nonstick skillet, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove from the pan and drain on a paper towel. Add onion to the pan with the bacon drippings and cook for about 6 minutes. Add 1/2 tsp salt and garlic and cook another minute, stirring.

Meanwhile, bring 1 3/4 c broth to a boil in a small saucepan. In a small bowl, whisk remaining 1/4 c broth with flour. Add flour mixture, remaining 1/2 tsp salt and red pepper to the broth. Cook 2 minutes, until slightly thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the creme fraiche.

Combine the squash, pasta, kale, bacon, onion mixture and sauce in a large bowl and toss to combine.

Transfer to a 13 x 9 baking dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the top. Bake for 25 minutes, until bubbly and beginning to brown.

Pasta with Swiss Chard, Bacon and Parmesan

I'm really getting into these quick pasta dishes. We first put this on the menu two weeks ago, and it kept getting bumped back: too many leftovers, going out to eat, no time to cook. Jeff finally made it on a day that I was teaching and getting home late. I walked in the door to a steamy, bacony, earthy smell. When the dish was ready, we absolutely devoured it. I think there should have been leftovers, but all the extra bites we snuck out of the pan took care of those. When I got another bunch of chard from the farm a few days later, I knew there was no other option. And I knew all of you had to hear about it.

This time we only made half the recipe, since it was a small bunch of chard, but I'm giving you the whole thing here. As you can see in the pictures, half the recipe filled my pan pretty well. When we did the whole thing, Jeff needed a separate bowl to toss the pasta and fixings in.

This dish is full of flavors I love: earthy chard (you may remember that my initial reaction to chard was ambivalent, but I've since hopped on the bandwagon), meaty bacon, zingy lemon and salty Parmesan. The original recipe assumes you are using thin, packaged supermarket bacon. We use thick-cut butcher bacon, so we reduced the number of strips. This means that it produces a bit more fat, reducing the need for oil, and doesn't crisp up quite like thinner bacon would. On the other hand, it has a rich, meaty flavor that thin bacon can't match. Combined with the chard, which is almost meaty in its own right, it produces a wonderfully hearty, but not heavy, dish, perfect for a low-meat, vitamin-rich meal!

Pasta with Swiss Chard, Bacon and Parmesan
Adapted from Rachel Ray's 365: No Repeats.

1 lb chunky pasta (I used tricolor rotini, because I had it in the pantry)

2 tsp olive oil (add more if you need to, but if you have nice fatty bacon, this should be plenty)

3 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped

4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1 small onion, roughly chopped (I used red onion for some extra flavor and vitamins - purple vegetables are good for you!)
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 bunch Swiss chard, cleaned, de-ribbed and roughly chopped
1 c vegetable stock (we used homemade stock)
juice of 1 lemon
1 c grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste (the original recipe did not call for salt, but since we used homemade stock which has no salt in it, we needed to add quite a bit)
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt the water, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Reserve one cup of pasta water.

Preheat a large skillet over medium heat. Add oil and bacon and cook about 3 minutes, until the bacon begins to crisp. Add the garlic, onion, and red pepper flakes. Cook about 5 minutes, until the onions are lightly caramelized.

Add chard, toss to coat, and allow to wilt down. Salt and pepper to taste. Turn the heat up to high, add the chicken stock and about one cup of starchy pasta water. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer 6-7 minutes.

Add lemon juice to the chard mixture. Turn off the heat. Drain the pasta well (if you haven't already), then add it and the Parmesan cheese to the greens and toss well (you may need to do this in another bowl). Serve immediately!

Beet Greens (and Other Greens Too)

One reason I wanted to join a CSA this summer (besides the joy of having fresh, local, organic vegetables every week) was to expand my palate. Since I hate to waste anything, it forces me to try things that I would never pick up at the store. One of those things was beet greens.

Now, I am not a fan of beets, but I'm trying to be a sport and find some preparation I can eat, if not enjoy. Last week's beet home fries were an epic fail - neither Jeff or I would eat the final product. We fared better with the beet greens, though, combining them with collards in this delicious recipe. Braised with bacon, onions and cider vinegar, these greens were delicious. We ate the whole batch in one sitting.

So this week, when beets once again appeared at the CSA, I gladly took some, envisioning more delicious greens. I thought I might also throw in my tiny head of radicchio, since I couldn't find another good recipe for it (every one I found assumed I had a denser, more cabbage-like head of radicchio). I had high hopes of delicious results.

Unfortunately, the radicchio was a bad move. I know I don't like the stuff raw, so I wasn't about to throw it in a salad. I assumed that cooking it in this way would mellow the flavor. Boy was I wrong! It added a horrible bitter note to my otherwise lovely greens. I was really sad. Rather than scarfing the whole batch down, the leftovers are now sitting in the fridge. Jeff and I are in a standoff about who has to finish them off.

So try this recipe. Try some beet greens - they're good for you! Even throw in some collards or kale. But please, find some other way to dispose of your radicchio.

Beet Greens

Adapted from Simply Recipes.

1 lb beet greens (collards or kale will work, too!)

1 strip thick-cut bacon, chopped

1/4 c onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

3/4 c water

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1/6 c cider vinegar

Wash the greens well, then dry them (I recently bought a salad spinner for this - now there's no more grit in my greens, and they don't come out soggy!). Cut off stems. Cut the leaves into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon until browned. Add the onions and cook in the bacon fat for 5-7 minutes, until they soften and start to brown. Stir in garlic. Add the water to deglaze the pan. Stir in sugar and red pepper. Bring to a boil.

Add your beet greens and toss gently. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer gently until tender, about 5-15 minutes (if you're using kale or collards, you may need another 20-25 minutes of cooking to get them tender enough). Stir in vinegar and serve!

Twice-Baked Potatoes

I need to take better pictures. Yes, I am limited by the capability of my camera, lack of counter space to display the food and the abysmal lighting in my kitchen. But I also haven't been trying hard lately. I do enjoy taking pictures of the food I cook. It's just that lately I've been busy and I haven't taken the time to get really nice shots. I promise I'll try harder in the future.

This dinner decision was born out of the desire to get rid of the pile of potatoes sitting in my basement. They needed to be cooked before they turned into a basement potato garden. Fortunately, necessity was the mother of deliciousness. I was able to take Jeff with me to Whole Foods last weekend and he convinced me to get bacon from the butcher counter, rather than the refrigerated case. Excellent decision. The bacon is local - from Simply Grazin', an organic farm in Skillman. This is hands down the best bacon I've ever had. I'm not just saying that because I haven't had bacon since early March - it was amazing. The slices were very thick and the flavor is intense. I think it was a bit lost on this dish, since the bacon is mixed into the filling - you can easily eat it without tasting it. I think if we'd put the bacon on top instead it would have helped us get its full flavor.

One of the things that makes this dish is the salt - the potatoes are rubbed with olive oil and kosher salt before baking. I don't think regular salt would be quite the same. The kosher salt manages to pack a punch with every bite - since it's all over the outside, you can't miss it. It brings me back to my high school days, when I used to go to a restaurant and order potato skins as my meal. Hopefully this is slightly less fattening (since it's not fried) while still incorporating everything that made those potato skins so great.

Twice-Baked Potatoes
From justJENN recipes.

6 russet potatoes
4 slices bacon (2, if you're using the thick kind like we did)
1/2 c shredded cheddar + extra (for sprinkling on top)
1/2 c sour cream
1/4 c milk
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp kosher salt + extra (for rubbing potatoes)
1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Place a wire rack on a baking sheet. Wash the potatoes and dry well, then rub with olive oil and kosher salt. Place on the rack and bake for 1 hour. Let cool about 10 minutes before continuing. Meanwhile, fry the bacon and crumble.

When the potatoes are cool, slice each one in half lengthwise and scoop out the inside, leaving a little of the flesh around the edges (I used a melon baller for this part).

Combine the potato filling with the bacon (you could set a little aside to sprinkle on top - we neglected that), cheese, sour cream, milk, butter, salt and pepper. Mash until combined.

Fill the potato halves with the filling, then sprinkle with extra cheese and bacon. Return to the oven for 15 minutes.

Apple-Turnip Mashed Potatoes

Yum. This has been a good few days for food. Sundays are football days at our house, and since the Giants were playing at 4, we wanted to keep our dinner menu simple - you know, something that could be put together at halftime. Pizza is always a good, quick option for times like these. We'd gone up to Trader Joe's on Saturday specifically for some pizza dough (and maple creme cookies - they're unbelievably good). For this pizza, I went for the garlic and herb dough. And since Jeff's birthday is tomorrow, I decided to make it a fancy one in his honor. Behold my awesome vegetable arrangement:

Even with the cheese in the way, you can see what a lovely job I did. It's one of the best-looking pizzas I've ever made. My new stove has two ovens, and the smaller top oven ensured that the pizza was close to the heat all around, resulting in a remarkably crispy crust and golden-brown top. I used to have to turn on the broiler to get that effect!

Then there was dessert. Jeff got to request whatever he wanted for his birthday, so, of course, it was peanut butter. A peanut butter pie. I certainly give it props for prettiness, but it's not my favorite recipe ever. The peanut butter cream is great, but the chocolate kisses on top did nothing for me (since they're hard and need to be chewed and the peanut butter is soft and creamy, it's impossible to get both flavors in your mouth at once). And the crust, which is crushed vanilla wafers and roasted peanuts, was overkill. I think it needs a nice layer of some chocolate ganache. When I find the time to attempt that experiment, you'll be sure to get a recipe.

Now, about today's concoction . . . this recipe, though it looks a tad bland sitting there at the top of this post, takes mashed potatoes to a whole new level. The nutritional value of turnips, the tang of buttermilk, the flavor and crunch of bacon, and the sweetness of sauteed apple, all wrapped up in a smooth, creamy side dish. Potatoes have vitamins, too, but something like 90% of those are in the skin (I think I got that tidbit from Alton Brown). When you peel them and mash them up, especially if you add things like butter and cream, you no longer have any semblance of a healthy side dish. I'm hoping the turnips, apples and low-fat buttermilk helped mitigate that in this recipe, because this is something I need to do again. Soon. Perhaps Friday?

Apple-Turnip Mashed Potatoes

From the Southern Living Farmers Market Cookbook, which I wholeheartedly recommend checking out.

2 garlic bulbs

1 tbsp olive oil

1/8 tsp salt

1 lb turnips, peeled and cut into 1" pieces

1 lb Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" pieces

3 bacon slices, cut into 1/4" pieces

2 medium-sized Golden Delicious apples, peeled and chopped

1 tsp chopped fresh thyme

3/4 c buttermilk

2 tbsp butter

 salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425°. Cut off the top of each garlic bulb, so that the all the cloves are showing. Place bulbs on a piece of aluminum foil, on a baking sheet. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt, and fold the foil to seal. Bake for 30-35 minutes until soft. Let cool for about 15 minutes. Squeeze the pulp from the garlic cloves into a small bowl.

Meanwhile, put the turnips, potatoes and enough salted water to cover in a pot and bring to a boil. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until tender. Drain.

While that is going on, cook the bacon in a medium skillet over medium-high heat 5-6 minutes until crisp. (While there seems to be a lot going on at this point, the only active thing you should be worrying about is the bacon - the garlic, turnips and potatoes can tend to themselves. Just make sure to watch the time.) When the bacon is finished, remove it from the skillet, reserving about 2 tbsp of drippings. Saute the apples in the bacon drippings until tender and lightly browned, about 6 minutes.

Once all the pieces are ready to assemble, combine the apples, turnips, potatoes, roasted garlic and thyme in a large bowl (I like to use the still-hot pot that the potatoes cooked in). Toss in the butter and mash with a potato masher until well blended (the heat from the vegetables should melt the butter fairly quickly). Once the mixture has reached the desired consistency (it's fine if it's still a bit chunky), stir in the buttermilk and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with the crisp bacon just before serving.

The cookbook claims this is about 8 servings. This, of course, depends on how reasonable your idea of a serving is!