Tag: kale

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pasta with creme fraiche, kale and mushrooms

Each year, we have what we’ve come to call the “pasta of the year”.  The pasta of the year is a pasta dish that we turn to for a reliably tasty and soul-satisfying dinner every other week or so. It quickly becomes part of our regular weeknight dinner repertoire, dominates for nearly a year, and then mysteriously fades away, only to be rediscovered occasionally by browsing our own blog archives. It’s a strange phenomenon, but we’ve come to accept it’s benevolent presence in our lives.

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The pasta that started it all was a marinated tomato and ricotta pasta. You’d let some peak of summer tomatoes hang around with fresh herbs, olive oil and lemon juice for 20 minutes or so. Then toss your pasta with an excess of ricotta cheese and top that with the marinated tomatoes. Heaven from June through September.

There was the pasta carbonara kick, which featured an incredibly poetic post from Jordan about his love for the dish. And then there was orzo topped with burrata cheese. My spicy soba noodle salad was certainly a contender in 2014.

And now, though the soba noodle salad is making an honorable attempt to defend the title in 2015, we have our new favorite pasta equation. Pasta + creme fraiche + sautéed shallot + wilted green, and it’s sister pasta, pasta + creme fraiche + shallot + al dente veg. Creme fraiche is a genius way to arrive at a solidly sauced pasta with nearly no effort, and we’ve already established that shallots are good on everything. Toss in whatever green or quick-cooking veggie (mushrooms, asparagus, green beans, favas, peas) you have around and you’ve got yourself a supremely delicious, decently well-balanced meal. If you happen to live at our house in the winter/spring of 2015, you have this pasta every 10 days.

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Pasta with Creme Fraiche, Kale and Mushrooms
1 lb pasta
1 shallot, diced
2 cups (8 oz) cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 cups kale, sliced
2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1/2 cup creme fraiche
salt and pepper

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Dice your shallot and slice your kale and mushrooms. Throw your pasta into the pot of boiling water to cook.

Meanwhile, in a sauté pan over medium heat, melt the butter, and sauté the mushrooms. When the mushrooms are nearly done, add the shallot and sauté just a few minutes more. Taste your mushrooms and season them with salt. Then add the kale. Turn the heat off and just let the kale wilt a bit.

Drain your pasta and add it back into the pot. Throw the mushroom mixture into the pasta pot, along with a generous dollop of creme fraiche. Stir to distribute the creme fraiche. Season with bit more salt and pepper, and serve. Feel free to embellish with parmesan cheese and herbs, though it isn’t necessary.

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-Emily

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garlic confit, the key to sautéed greens

This right here is how to make any leafy green more palatable. Before garlic confit, I was a very reluctant eater of cooked leafy greens. I’d pretty much avoided them since childhood—terrifying brick of spinach microwaved directly from the freezer, anyone?—and only occasionally ate them as an adult because I know they’re good for me. But since our discovery of garlic confit, I’ll happily eat them alongside any main course.

Garlic confit has all the delicious flavor of garlic without the harsh bite. It’s ridiculously easy to make and delicious in pretty much anything – vegetables, pasta, mashed potatoes, spread on bread.  Do yourself a favor, make a big batch, keep it in your fridge and bust it out anytime you’ve got a bunch of kale, spinach, chard, or mustard greens languishing. Because of our CSA, we usually have several bunches of greens on hand and make this once or twice a week.

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Garlic Confit, from Ad Hoc at Home
2 heads of garlic, peeled
1 cup flavorless oil, like grapeseed or safflower

Peel the cloves of garlic and put them in a small saucepan. Cover completely with oil, about 1 cup. Turn the heat on to very low and let the garlic simmer for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size of the cloves. When the cloves are soft, it’s done. Pour garlic and garlic oil into a glass jar and store in the fridge.

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Sauteed Greens with Garlic Confit
4 cups leafy greens and stems (this will cook down significantly)
several cloves of garlic confit and its oil
salt and pepper
1/2 lemon, juiced

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Put several cloves of garlic and some of the oil in a large saute pan. Turn the heat to medium. Add your greens and let the begin to wilt, about 2 minutes. Once they’ve released some of their water and shrunken some, use tongs to stir them around. Cook another 2 minutes and turn the heat off. Season well with salt and pepper, finish with a squeeze of lemon.

-Emily

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Recipes

pasta with kale, parmesan, and portobello

I used to have a phobia of cooked greens. I thought they were gross, mushy and sea-gunky and so I religiously avoided them for years. And then I moved in with Jordan, who happens to like cooked greens. And then we joined a CSA. And now I have winter greens up to my eyebrows!

Guess what dear friends … I’ve embraced cooked greens. I actually like them now. Yep! Amazing! My fear has dissipated because I have learned the secret to cooking greens so that they are edible (delightful even) and the exact opposite of the greens I once feared.

The secret: Blanche them quickly in boiling, salted water. They cook, yet they retain their texture and don’t become a gloppy indistinguishable mess.

Pasta with kale, parmesan, and portobello

Put a pot of water to boil. Once boiling, add a hefty handful of salt and your kale. Boil the kale for 3 minutes. Pull it out with a slotted spoon and set aside (it will continue to cook a bit while it sits). Add your pasta. Cook according to package directions. Meanwhile, sauté a little garlic in olive oil. Crack an egg in the serving bowl, set aside. Grate a little parmesan or pecorino, lemon zest and chop any herbs you have lying around.

Turn on the broiler. Broil your portobello, 7 minutes per side. Slice.

After the pasta is al dente, add to your sauteed garlic. Toss. Pour this into your serving bowl and toss with egg, cheese, zest, herbs and kale. The egg and cheese combine with a little of the residual pasta water to make this awesome, super easy sauce. Top with portobello and more cheese and serve.

Note: You can easily omit the portobello or replace it with another protein. We didn’t really think it’s flavor melded with the other ingredients. But, don’t forget that kale! Turning icky greens into a delicious dinner is the whole point!

-Emily