Korean Banchan style Kale with soy and sesame oil

I love Korean food, my favorite part is not the meat, but the Banchan - side dishes. One of my favorite has always been the simple spinach or watercress. I ran into some baby Kale at Costco for all places last week and I am getting pretty tired of salad, so here is a great alternative in the winter:

Korean Banchan style Kale with soy and sesame oil

4-5 cups pre-washed baby kale. Rinsed and drained
3-4 clove garlic
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil for frying
2 tbsp shoyu/soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
toasted sesame for garnish
Directions:
Smashed the garlic with the back of the knife

 Finely chopped the garlic

 Preheat a large frying pan or wok with a couple table of oil
Add the garlic, saute over med low heat till fragrant.

 Add kale about a cup at a time, you will have to turn it it and

Let it cook down for each additional

 When the last batch of the kale start to wilt, add shoyu and sesame oil.

 Plate the vegetable and drizzle with a dash of additional sesame oil and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Serve 2 -3 as side

Enjoy
Aloha!

Vegan Greens and Squash Gumbo

A friend was making a roux for gumbo during the week. He had some issue with the first batch. I thought it was be a lot simpler if I could just show him how a cooked roux should look like since, by coincident, I was going to make some gumbo this weekend. I made the roux, took a picture of it. Great thing about roux, you can actually make it ahead of time and pour it into a jar and store in the fridge for a week of so.

The treat to make a good roux is all about patience, slow and steady. Keep stirring on low heat, then the flour is toasted and you will have a popcorn like smell and a runny peanut butter color and texture, it's down.

As with the recipe here, this is a modification of the classic Good Friday Greens gumbo. I added squash since it is in season and it also add a little texture to the stew. When you assemble this, you will notice it is very thick at the beginning. Not to worry, as you cook the greens, the sauce will loosen up since the vegetable will release juices/liquid.

By the way, this is not a low-cal dish since we are using a rich roux.

Vegan Greens and Squash Gumbo

4 large bunches of greens such as collard greens, chard or kale. I am using 2 bunches of collard greens, 1 rainbow chard and 1 green kale. If you are using collard green and kale, remove the rib, roughly chopped the greens.
1 large leek, cleaned and diced
4 stalks of celery, cleaned and diced
1 large green pepper, cleaned, seed and stem removed, diced
1 large onion, diced.
1 large tbsp chopped garlic.
2 large shallot, finely chopped
1 squash, peeled, seed removed and cut into 1" pieces.
1 14.5 oz canned diced tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

File mix:

2 tsp paprika
2 tsp ancho chilli powder
1 tsp celery salt
1 tsp thyme
2 tsp grounded black pepper
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder

Roux:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup flour

Direction:
Bring a large pot of water with a dash of salt to a boil.

Blanch the green in batches to soften.

Bring the green to a quick boil.

Remove the green from the water. For this recipe, you don't need to shock this

Save 3 cup of the liquid, set a side.

In a large dutch oven, add the roux mix reheat till hot.

Add spice mix, let it toast for a min

Stir in the garlic, you will notice the roux with bubble with the moisture from the garlic

Stir in onion, green pepper and celery. The roux will be come very thick. Lower the heat to med and let it cook for a few mins.

Stir in leek and shallot.

Add squash.

Slowing pour in the reserved liquid from the greens. Bring to a boil

Return the greens to the gumbo mix in the dutch oven.

Add in the tomatoes, stir well.

Add bay leaves once everything is mixed well

Bring to a boil, season with salt and pepper. Lower heat to low. Cover and let it slow simmer for about an hour. Stir the gumbo every now and then to make sure the stew is not sticking. (I use a non-stick dutch oven which make cooking quite simple)

Once the greens and the squash are tender. It's ready to serve.
Ladle the gumbo over rice.

How to make a roux

Heat the oil in a small saucepan till hot. Slowly add in the flour. Keep stirring the mixture till the color the roux turn to a peanut butter color, with a consistency of runny peanut butter. You will also get a popcorn-like fragrant. The roux is ready.
You can transfer the roux mix in a glass jar once it's cold and store in the fridge.

Or if you are using it right away, you can cook the roux in the dutch oven.

Make 10-12 serving.

Enjoy
Aloha

German meets Hawaiian style Portuguese sausage and Kale Soup

Mr Wonderful loves "boiled dinner". It is basically boiling vegetable (potatoes, cabbage and carrot) will smoked sausage today. It is actually quite foreign to me. In the last year, he upgraded his recipe with Mrs Dash and onion!! That's a big step

At times I do feel bad that I made him eat all these vegetarian food. I do make meat for him and he appreciates that. One great thing about him is that he would try anything, however when it really boils down to it, he is a meat and potato guy with a strong Germany root.

Mr Wonderful has been fishing up North, I hope he will be coming back with some fish this afternoon. I woke up to a cold rainy day. It's perfect for some soup. It would be great to have something hearty to get the chill off, especially being out in the elements. I brought back a couple Hawaiian Portuguese sausage and I  still have 1 last sausage in the freezer. I decide to make some soup. My version of Portuguese Kale soup. It's boiled, it's potato, he should like this. You will notice I am keeping the pieces of vegetable and sausage pretty big. He like soup hearty. The sausage, potato and kale will "shrink" during cooking.

Hawaiian Portuguese sausage, kale and potato soup
1 large(12 oz) Hawaiian  Portuguese sausage, cut into 1/2" quarter pieces, or any smoked sausage with spice will make a great substitute.

1 large onion, skinned, cleaned and cubed
4 red skin potatoes, cleaned and cubed, I am leaving the skin on, if prefer, you can use peeled potatoes instead

3 gloves garlic, cleaned and chopped
1 bunch of kale, washed, stem removed and tear into small pieces
4 cup low sodium chicken stock
Pepper to taste
Directions
In a large dutch oven of pot, brown the sausage piece for 5-8 mins over med heat.

The sausage is quite oily, I didn't have to add anything at all. Remove some of the oil if you like. Leave about 2 tbsp in the pot.

Add garlic and onion, sauté with the sausage till caramelize and translucent

Add potato and cook for 4-5 min and lightly browned

Add kale in by the handful and fold into the meat mixture.

The kale will soften with heat. 

Once everything is combined. Pour in 4 cups of chicken stock

Bring to a boil,  then lower heat to a simmer, cover and let the soup cook for about 35-40 mins till the kale and potatoes are soft and tender. 

Taste and season with pepper. The sausage is quite salty and highly spiced, I didn't have to add any salt at all. 

Ladle the soup in to a bowl, top with fried shallot and serve.

Enjoy
Aloha

Time for some winter soup with Kale and squash

We are having an unseasonably warm winter. Although I feel bad for the businesses that depend on snow and ice for winter sports, I treasure every warm day that we have so far.  January is usually a depressing month for me. There are limited choices of fruit and vegetable, and sometime they do not taste right.  We had a rare treat this week, my co-op Wedge had some beautiful carrot.  I had to get some. l then remember I stored the a last of the squash and potatoes from the CSA. It's time for hearty winter soup.  

The squash I store now has a hard almost shell like skin. I decide to roast it and make it easier to remove the skin and it also add more flavor to the soup. I am using washed and chopped kale in a bag and ready made steamed French lentil from Trader Joe's. Both are great time saver products. I especially love the lentil. I keep a box on hand at all time.

Winter Kale and lentil with roasted squash and carrot soup
2 small dumpling squash or 1 med size acorn squash. Cut in half, remove pulp and roast in 375 degrees oven till tender.  Remove skin and cut in to small cubes

1 bunch of carrots. Cleaned, peeled, cut into small cubes and dry roast in 375 degrees oven till tender
1 onion. Peeled, cleaned and cut into small pieces
3 stalks of celery. Cleaned and cut into small pieces
1 large tablespoon of Herb de Provence
1 bag of washed washed chopped Kale

2 tsp crushed garlic from a jar
1 carton  32oz vegetable stock
1 cup water
1 cup steamed French lentil

Olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
In a dutch oven, heat a couple of tablespoon olive oil over medium high heat till hot, add crushed garlic

Stir in onion and celery, cook till tender and onion starts to caramelized.

Add Herb de Provence, salt and pepper. Let it cook till it's frangrance.

Mix in roasted carrot and squash.

Slowly add chopped kale in 2 batches.

Mix well and cook kale till soften

Add stock and water.

Bring to a boil and lower heat to medium low.

Cover and simmer till kale is tender about 20 mins.  Add 1 cup of cooked lentil

Simmer for additional 5 mins to blend the flavor.
Ready to serve.

Serve 6 as a main course.

Enjoy

Aloha