Kale recipe for Alan

[kit]

I've never been to Whitey's. Having lived in Nah Hahtfudd for 60 years, I've been a bit sheltered. Native Uticans have mentioned several places around the city that I wish I'd gone to when I was younger.

I found out that when a grocery store posts a sign in their produce dept. that says, "Grown in America" it could be California, Toronto, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Ecuador or anywhere else in one of the Americas. My last corn on the cob ('Grown in America') came from Guatemala and it looked real nice but didn't have much taste. I'll wait for the fresh grown local stuff. Same with tomatoes. It'll be worth it.

A couple nice things about pre-mixing the spices and making sausage in small batches... zip, zip in the KitchenAid and a night in the fridge and it's ready for shaping, and it doesn't take up much room in the freezer. Suits me just fine.

[Clipper]

I am going to try premeasuring the spices and putting them in freezer bags. I keep my fennel seeds and some off Kathy's canning spices in the freezer anyway. I may even try making smaller batches of breakfast sausage and make it more often. Breakfast sausage is much easier and less labor intensive than the Italian sausage. I have to make Italian sausage tomorrow. I was going to do it this evening, but I worked outside all day in the heat and when I got out of the shower I simply didn't have the energy to tackle it tonight.

I am like you in that I prefer the fresh locally grown produce when it comes on the stands. Granger County tomatoes are wonderful. They will be on the stands very soon. I bought the fresh strawberries today and we had shortcake tonight for dessert. Kathy wants me to get 10-12 more quarts tomorrow for her to prepare and freeze. Don't we wish that strawberries could be harvested all summer long? Yum!

[kit]

Fresh local strawberries are good - yes indeedy! Most any produce that's grown locally is good. Speaking of 'good' there's a cantaloupe that I got in Webster NY a few years ago that was to-die-for. It's a variety that the Amish folks in Pennsylvania developed and grow and sell in various places in the northeast. It's so wonderfully fragrant that when you cut into one on one side of a room, you can smell it within 30 seconds on the other side of the room. And taste... HooRah! It's flavor is strong and very sweet. Sadly, the supermarkets in central NY usually import theirs from Costa Rica or someplace and they aren't nearly as good.

[Clipper]

How do you determine the ripeness of a cantelope Kit? It is a skill I have never acquired.

Scott's Farm Strawberries are widely known around here for their size and sweetness. They are huge. Another selling point that I like is that they don't pack the baskets with ripe berries on top and green ones on the bottom. They are sold in clear plastic square one quart containers and you can see the berries in the bottom. When Kathy cleaned the berries yesterday she says she only had to cut a bad spot out of one berry out of the entire two quarts.

We always had a freezer full of Lenahan's Farm berries when we lived up there. Kathy and her cousin would go there and pick at least two, if not three, five gallon pails of berries apiece and freeze them. Nothing tastes more pleasing in the middle of the winter, when fresh local produce is not available than a dish of vanilla ice cream or a breakfast waffle with strawberries spooned on top. She was disappointed when we drove by there on our last trip to NY and found that the farm is no longer in business. Where does a person go to pick their own strawberries now?

[Deleted]

I tried some raw kale with just some Italian dressing and I don't like the raw taste. Rather have it cooked. And Dr. Oz makes it into smoothies.

[Clipper]

That doesn't surprise me Alan. When I first read the recipe I thought that kale would be pretty bitter in a salad, but then again, I find kale bitter to begin with, even cooked.

I can't imagine a kale smoothie. It must look like pond scum when you pour it from the blender, hahaha! Sounds like something that would gag Andrew Zimmern from Bizzare Foods on cable TV.

[kit]

I've heard (although, of course, I don't know first-hand) that kale, like Scotch, is an acquired taste. But I imagine that like spinach, chard or any other dark green leaf, if you steam it and put enough vinegar on it (which, by the way, is very good for you) it's really not bad and is quite healthy.

I'm not a strawberry-type guy Clipper so I don't know where to pick your own fresh ones any more. But you can get an idea of the ripeness of a cantaloupe by first squeezing. It should be slightly soft - not rock hard. Also, the little round end where the stem was attached should have a slight cantaloupe smell. But the real test is when you cut into one and take a bite.

[Deleted]

Jun 5, 2013 7:00:09 GMT -5 kit said:

I've heard (although, of course, I don't know first-hand) that kale, like Scotch, is an acquired taste. But I imagine that like spinach, chard or any other dark green leaf, if you steam it and put enough vinegar on it (which, by the way, is very good for you) it's really not bad and is quite healthy.

I'm not a strawberry-type guy Clipper so I don't know where to pick your own fresh ones any more. But you can get an idea of the ripeness of a cantaloupe by first squeezing. It should be slightly soft - not rock hard. Also, the little round end where the stem was attached should have a slight cantaloupe smell. But the real test is when you cut into one and take a bite.

I used to like scotch a lot. After squeesing the water out of cooked greens I like to fry them in some hot olive oil and garlic and serve them with ketchup.