Greens, Beans, and Flax

last night, sarah elisabeth and I made a 3 part dinner of farmshare goodness. we'll post each dish separately, beginning with the portion on the left: greens, beans, and flax.


this was designed to use up old kale and add some protein to the dinner.

you need:

• some kale
• some cabbage
• an onion
  
• some cannelloni beans
• toasted sesame oil
• a healthy handful of flax seeds
• salt to taste

you do:

I feel a little silly writing directions because this was pretty much a seat-of-the-pants dish. but anyway. chop up the kale and cabbage into bite size pieces. dice yourself an onion. heat up the toasted sesame oil in the sauce pan and saute the onion. add the kale and cabbage and then add more toasted sesame oil. add salt. add the cannelloni beans. add the flax seeds. turn the heat down and just stir and let it cook in its own mess for a bit so that the beans heat up and also the flavors soak in. and then you serve it.

see? not really complicated. but it tasted really good.

cheesy creamy greens on pasta.

oops.

OK, I forgot to take pictures, sorry. But this is good.

I was at a board meeting for the EMA Fund recently, where I am on the board (and where gina marie and sarah emily have both volunteered. If you want to volunteer, or give us money, you should let me know!) At this board meeting the host made us some food. It was *really* good, and I had to have the recipe. So, Erin Kate gave it to me (apparently it originally appeared in an Oregon newspaper in the nineties? sure!), and I made it for an EMA fundraising meeting that was at my house last night. Erin Kate had made it with spinach, I made it with chard and kale, since that what was looking less than stellar from the farmshare. I actually also had a lot of collard greens, but I was too afraid that I would try it and they would be tough. You can't really "wilt" collards.

OK, so here's what I did:

Melted 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter over medium heat in large saute pan; added 6 or 7 cloves of finely chopped garlic and cooked it for 2-3 minutes.

Since I wasn't using spinach, I had to prepare my greens. I stripped the rainbow chard and the curly kale leaves off of their stems (I used a knife for the chard because it was so old and wilty, but the kale I could just sort of pull off.) I had just a little more than one farmshare bunch kale, and probably half a bunch of chard. Sorry I can't be more specific - maybe 12-15 stalks total? possibly more? I don't think it matters. once stripped, I chopped the greens into spinach leaf size pieces, and dropped it into the saute pan with a little salt.

then I covered it, and started working on the salad. I let it go maybe just a little longer than I should have. I stirred once. I think you want to cook it until just before any of the greens start to brown.

Next I added a medium sized container of heavy cream to the greens. I simmered that on medium high for about ten minuted. Then I used my immersion blender to coarsely chop the mixture in the saucepan, and to spray creamy greens all over myself!

Finally I added some more salt, several solid twists of the pepper grinder, and the juice of half a lemon. I also grated some fresh nutmeg (I had never tried this before. it is awesome. this is clearly the secret to yummy cheese sauces) and added an extra-large pinch of that.

When my 1.5 lbs of whole wheat penne finished cooking, I combined it with the sauce and some olive oil in bowl. et voila! came with salad of freshness from stone soup farm, and yummy onion dill bread, also from the farmshare.

I think this would be good on rice too.