What to do with Kale

Red Russian Kale

I'm known among my friends (and it seems anyone Matt talks to) for my love of kale. Sometimes I wonder if it is an irrational love, but I don't think so. I do have an overarching love for leafy green vegetables, but kale receives extra reverence. It may have something to do with my German roots - Germany hosts a yearly kale festival!

What's so great about kale, you ask? For starters, 1 measly little cup of cooked kale has 94 to 180 mg of calcium and is one of the best sources of lutein and zeaxanthin, which may help to prevent macular degeneration. Kale is also off the charts when it comes to beta-carotene, which is the plant form of vitamin A and a potent antioxidant. One cup of cooked kale has well over 100% of the daily requirement for vitamin K, which is vital for bone health. For some reason, it's been drilled into our heads (thanks to the Dairy Council) that dairy products are the only and best sources of calcium, but leafy greens are also great for bone health.

I'm sure I could go on and on about the health benefits of kale, but instead I'll address the most frequently asked question regarding kale....what do I do with kale? Oh so many things...

I throw some chopped kale into my eggs in the morning. Use it to make quiche which is a healthy quick breakfast (or lunch or dinner). I like to cook up a couple of cups of quinoa and add some sausage, roasted carrots, onions, and beets, and some sauteed kale. It's an absolutely delicious fall or winter dish that warms and nourishes to the core. I highly recommend using red Russian kale and lacinato kale (also called Tuscan or dinosaur kale), as these two varieties are the most flavorful and not as fibrous as curly kale.

Here are few of my favorite kale recipes:
Cajun Corn and Kale Salad from Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables
Kale and Bean Bruschetta from Bon Appetit
Kale and Cannellini Soup from Bon Appetit
Pasta with Butternut Squash and Kale from Megan Tempest's blog Tempted
Sweet Apple Walnut Kale from Cynthia Lair's website Cookus Interruptus
Creamed Sesame Greens from Greens Glorious Greens by Johanna Albi and Catherine Walthers

Nutrients in Orange Fruits and Vegetables

Thanksgiving is getting closer and all the orange vegetables are in season right now - winter squash, sweet potatoes and carrots. The vegetables are all rich sources of beneficial nutrients like beta-carotene, vitamin E, and potassium. What to learn more? Read the full article on livestrong.com

Vitamin E Sources and Benefits

I've been writing articles on various nutrition topics for livestrong.com. Here's a recent article I wrote entitled Vitamin E Sources and Benefits. Read to to learn how to make sure you're getting enough of this potent antioxidant.

The Joy of Fresh Herbs

Check out this article I wrote in the November issue of Mindful Metropolis entitled The Joy of Fresh Herbs. I explore the varied uses, flavors, and health benefits that fresh culinary herbs have to offer. Think you should only eat more fruits and vegetables for better health, think again. Many culinary herbs, such as rosemary and parsley are rich sources of minerals and phytochemicals that have healing properties.

Delicious Caesar Salad Dressing

Well, here it is late September, and I haven't written enough during the growing season. In fact, I haven't written in over a month. I like to think it's because I've been so busy making and freezing pesto, canning tomatoes, freezing berries and peaches and kale, and drying peppers. Yeah, let's just go with that.

So I was flipping through the new October issue of Bon Appetit, and I found a Caesar dressing recipe. The recipe is called Caesar Salad with Sourdough Croutons. I absolutely love chicken Caesar salad, but pretty much all Caesar dressings you can buy at the grocery store taste terrible and are full of soybean oil. Soybean oil should be avoided as much as possible, because it's full of omega-6 fatty acids which promote chronic inflammation in the body. Chronic inflammation is associated with heart disease, diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) among other conditions. Salad dressings should be primarily made with olive oil, which is rich in healthy monounsaturated fat. You pretty much have to make your own, because finding a salad dressing at the grocery store made exclusively from olive oil is all but impossible.

I used mixed greens from the farmer's market and cooked up sliced chicken breast in olive oil and garlic. I then tossed the greens and chicken with homemade croutons made from Ezekiel bread (since it's whole grain), diced tomatoes from my garden, and this delicious Caesar dressing. To make homemade croutons, I followed Bon Appetit's recipe, but also sprinkled them with dried rosemary before putting them in the oven, but you could use dried oregano or thyme as well. Enjoy!

My Response to Rachel Laudan's Article In Praise of Fast Food

Rachel Laudan, in her essay entitled In Praise of Fast Food, seems to imply that we, the advocates of slow and natural foods, think any sort of processing of food is inherently bad, which couldn't be further from the truth. As a nutritionist, I do believe that minimally processed foods, generally speaking, are preferable to highly processed foods. That being said, using the word processed to identify whether a food is healthy or unhealthy will only confuse and mislead. In the nutrition world, processed food is thought of as unhealthy and minimally processed as healthy. This processing generally refers to refined sugars, white flours, and store-bought foods that contain 20+ ingredients, such as partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, potassium sorbate, BHT, and the list goes on. When people refer to processed food this is what they mean. They aren't talking about canning tomatoes or making yogurt or cheese. I think I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who actually thinks this type of processing is a problem.

The Many Challenges of Growing Tomatoes

The garden has been growing like crazy, with some things growing faster than we can eat it. (Kale, you know who you are.) The kale has grown with very little attention since planting. The tomatoes, on the other hand, have demanded more than their share of coddling.

I have seven tomato plants of the following varieties:
Fargo yellow pear (2)
Garden peach (1)
Oregon spring (1)
Mr. Stripey (1)
Nepal (1)
Mystery (1): I seem to have misplaced the tag

Blossom end rot
For awhile I was fighting Blossom End Rot (BER) which is brown spots at the blossom-end of the tomato. The amount of BER can vary from a small spot to the majority of the tomato. BER is due to a deficiency of soluble calcium and can be often caused by insufficient water. If the soil isn't wet enough, calcium in the soil isn't soluble and thus cannot be absorbed through the roots leading to BER. I do believe insufficient watering was the problem. We've had a dry spell here in Chicago, up until last night that is, when we had thunderstorms with major downpours. In June, I was watering once daily and coming home from work to wilted tomatoes. The water evaporates quite readily since we've been having frequent hot days in the 90s. Because I'm growing my tomatoes in pots, they dry out much more quickly than if I had grown them in the ground. (Next year, I think I'll have the soil tested for contaminants and if it's ok, I'll plant directly in the ground.) The BER seems to have mostly affected the earliest tomatoes, and I have been able to cut off the bad part and salvage the rest of many of them. Yesterday, I picked the first large red tomatoes with no BER, and Matt made a batch of pico de gallo. (See picture above.) The yellow pear tomatoes have been unaffected by BER, but cherry tomatoes are less susceptible.


Cracking
My tomatoes have also been afflicted with cracking of the skins, which I learned is from inconsistent watering. The yellow pears have been most affected. I have been watering morning and evening now, so hopefully this will reduce some of the cracking. The cracked tomatoes, just don't look as nice, but they are perfectly edible.

Falling pots
Because my tomato plants are so tall now and in 5-gallon buckets, windy Chicago keeps knocking over the pots of the largest plants. This has resulted in large quantity of green tomatoes falling off. Yesterday I tied the tomato cages of five of the seven plants to the fence in our yard, which is working great. None of them fell over in the storms last night.

Despite the problems, the tomatoes we have had so far have been amazing. I'll give the full report on the which varieties we like best by the end of the season. So far, while I love the yellow pears, they aren't quite as good as some of the larger varieties much to my surprise. The skins seem to be quite thick on the yellow pears, which may be due to the sweltering days we've been having lately. So far, Mr. Stripey is my top pick.

Time to take the pesto pizza with homegrown tomatoes out of the oven!