Life of Wry

The Dining Divas theme this time around was Healing Foods, in honor of one of our members who’s dealing with a cancer diagnosis (dealing admirably well, I should add).

My assignment for this quarter’s meal was the vegetable. I googled healthy, healing, powerhouse vegetables and, of course, all roads led to kale. So I made a kale dish…. Gingery Creamed Kale and Cabbage.

Here’s how you do it:

First, wash and de-stem a pound and a half of kale…

Boil it for about six minutes until it’s pretty tender.

When drained, it’ll look like something Popeye used to eat out of a can.

Coarsely chop that and set it aside.

Then coarsely chopped half of a white onion…

… and saute it in about three tablespoons of canola oil until soft, about five minutes.

Then coarsely chop about half a pound of cabbage:

Grate about 3 teaspoons of ginger and add a quarter teaspoon of turmeric to that…

.. then add the ginger, cabbage and turmeric to the sauteed onion, and continue to saute until the cabbage is wilted, about five minutes. Next, add a cup of heavy cream, cover and simmer for about eight minutes, until the cream has thickened.

Finally, add the chopped kale and heat through.

At this point you can set the whole thing aside for later, or you can serve it immediately. In either case, just before serving, add half a cup of buttermilk to the whole mixture (and heat). The buttermilk sort of sours up the heaviness of the cream, and really works to balance the whole dish. I thought it was a great final ingredient.

So… that’s it.. a heathy and tasty dish. It’s not at all low-cal because of the cream, but it’s a nice way to get a lot of super high-octane kale!

Here are a few other of the dishes from our dinner (two nights ago):

The appetizer… cucumber slices with a topping of tomato and feta (lemon, basil and vinegar, too):

A salad of candied pecans, raspberries, blue cheese, peaches, tossed in a light peach-balsamic vinaigrette:

Broiled teriyaki salmon, black Chinese rice and my kale, served with an organic table white. 

Dessert was a fantastic rustic apple tart with an apricot glaze and whipped cream of which I have no pictures. Ate it too fast.