Spring treat - frizzled garden greens

We planted a fair number of quick-growing greens when we got back from New Zealand in April. We were eager to get something out of the garden, and some greens take only 30 or so days.

And then the 30 days went by (rather quickly) and now we have lots of greens, some of them bolting already despite our very cool June. They include several kinds of mustard, turnip greens, radish greens, kale (old and new), chard (old, just starting to go into its second-year biennial seed-producing phase) - a total of 8 kinds.

If I'd left them in the garden, they would have become tough and bitter. I have other options: leave them in the fridge till I need them (but there are more every day); sauté them and pack for the freezer against a day next winter when they'll be great in a soup; or….

Frizzle them!

I have done this before with kale but not as a regular habit and not with other varieties of greens. Here's what I'm doing now:

I'm looking over the greens when I first gather them from the garden. I don't want to wash them if I don't have to. Mostly they are fine, since I have harvested them by cutting them off several inches above ground level with scissors.

Then I'm laying them out on foil on a cookie sheet. The foil has been used several times, and already has a thin coating of olive oil, which adds a perfect flavor for greens. Once there, I wipe them around a pit in the oil, and if they seem dry, I'm adding a few more sprinkles of olive oil.

Then into the oven they go. The oven has been preheated to 400 degrees. Or else it is hot from baking something else, and that's the temperature I use. They go on the bottom rack.

Then I do my best to keep an eye on them. I don't want them getting black. They could use moving around at about the 3 minute mark. In 5 minutes, they are ready to take out, usually.

Once they're out, I let them cool off. Or I sprinkle them with parmesan. Or I sprinkle them with salt.

I serve them with supper. They're great on soup, or just to eat by hand with almost anything. (So far, with everything.) They're reminiscent of nori.

I'm thinking of crumbling them into leftover rice tonight, after it's reheated. Though they really are best when they are crisp, and it takes almost no moisture to soften them up and the rice may wreck them.

Last night supper got delayed by Father's Day calls from the kids, so I didn't go out harvesting. Instead I just grabbed a handful of mixed greens from the produce-keeper bag in the fridge to frizzle. So if you don't have a garden but want to have these very tasty (irresistible) healthy crisps around, you can certainly use greens from the farmers' market or store.

Let me know how you're using them.

Super soup, real creamy cream of chicken

This recipe is from +Jenny McGruther, modified a bit. Here's my version (but check hers out).

1. Buy a plump chicken, the best quality you can afford.
2. Place the chicken in a large crockpot, cover it completely with cold water, and turn the pot on low.
3. Lay various veggies on top: carrots including tops, whole stalks of celery including leaves (but cut in half if they won't fit), onions, leeks, kale or chard stems, or whatever is available. Don't chop them or mix them in.
4. Cover the pot and ignore it for 24 or more hours.
5. Remove the veggies and discard the inedible parts.
6. Remove the chicken and debone, carefully retaining as much of the broth as possible.
7. Turn the broth, still in the crockpot, on high.
8. Saving half the chicken for another recipe, place the boned chicken and salvaged cooked veggies into a food processor and whirr till it is almost smooth. (I had to do this in batches).
9. Add the resulting paste to the broth and stir it in thoroughly.
10. Heat till steamy.
11. Stir in a cup of heavy cream. I preheated the cream in the microwave because my crockpot is slow to heat up.
12. Mix 3-4 egg yolks (depending on size - I used duck eggs, and with their large yolks I found I needed only 2 yolks). Use a wire whisk. Add some of the hot stock mixture to temper the yolks, then stir them into the soup.
13. Heat the soup to close to a full boil.
14. Serve. I added an extra tablespoon of cream in a swirl. We ate the soup with roasted veggies (potatoes, rutabagas, and parsnips sprinkled with olive oil and good salt and cooked and browned in a 400 degree oven).

This is a smooth, rich, satisfying soup full of flavor and real food. The two of us will get two meals each out of it. The flavor is so full that more cream or even water could be added to stretch it. Thanks, Jenny!

Recipe: Savory creamed kale

This recipe is super-simple, though it does take about 20 minutes to cook if you use curly kale. I really don't understand the incredibly intense and deliciously satisfying taste of this recipe. It's nearly addictive, and it's not just because of the cream:

You will need:

1 cup homemade veggie broth
2 large heads kale
1 T good butter
3/4 cup whipping cream
salt

What you do:

Trim the kale, chopping the stems into tiny pieces and shredding the largest pieces of leaf
Heat the broth and add the kale, including stems. Cover for 5 minutes or until the kale is beginning to wilt, then leave the cover off the pot and cook on medium until most of the liquid is absorbed. Add the butter, stir, and continue cooking until the liquid is gone.
Lower the heat, add the cream, and heat through, just until the cream is about to simmer. Salt to taste.
Serve in bowls.