Kale with Beans and Squash

This was a big hit at dinner last Saturday- one guest swore she liked it even more than the grilled scallops. (And she had two helpings of the scallops.) I made it with black kale, but you could use any kale.

• Saute a medium onion, diced, in 2T olive oil
• Add a clove of garlic, sliced
• Ad 1lb kale, chopped into large pieces and well washed. It should have enough water to it steam when added to the pan.
• Cover, lower the heat, and cook for 8-10 minutes, or until the kale is limp
• Add a can of pinto beans or white beans, rinsed, and bout 2 cups of cooked, cubed, squash.
• Heat through, salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

You can of course use beans you cook yourself. The Girlfriend likes to make this with sweet potato instead of squash.

Sous-Vide the Easy Way

I was thinking about Sous-Vide again the other day- the currently fashionable technique in which food is vacuum packed, and then immersed in hot, but sub-boiling water, to cook without losing any moisture. I thought, maybe I'll get one of those inexpensive vacuum packing gizmos at Costco when it struck me that a lot of food- like the tuna you see here- already comes vacuum packed. Couldn't I just cook it in the package?

The answer, it turned out, was yes I could. I peeled off the label and immersed this package of tuna in a water-filled slow cooker set on low, which turned out to be around 170-180F. After 30-40 minutes it looked done, so I let it cool down and then tasted the fillets. Perfect. I put them in a small canning jar along with a little salt, a few peppercorns and perhaps a heaping teaspoon of capers, and covered this with olive oil. I tried it a day later- excellent. The tuna was very delicate and moist, just like high-end canned tuna. I'll be serving some at my New Year's Eve party.

This really isn't a very original idea. Food sold in "boiling bags" was a popular convenience food item in the pre-microwave days. But cooking it at a low temperature is a bit novel.

Latke Party!

The Girlfriend fried up a mess of potato latkes this afternoon, including some sweet potato versions. The food processor was acting up, so I finished the potatoes on a four-sided grater. We served them with sour cream and my homemade apple-strawberry sauce.

We thought it would be gfood to serve some other dishes with the latkes, so we also had a bean salad made with three kinds of beans, and some olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and parsley, a salad made of little French lentils, shallots, garlic, and vinaigrette, Israeli salad, tuna sala, some lox, and sliced baguettes.



There are many ways to makes latkes; this recipe produces lacey, crisp latkes, like the ones we had. Measurements are not at all critical. Mix:

• 2 lbs baking potatoes grated on a 4-sided grater, or using a shredding disk on a food processor, pressed in a strainer to eliminate most of the water
• 1 medium onion, grated
• 2 eggs
• 4T matzoh meal
• 1t salt

Fry spoonfuls in hot peanut or canola oil, and serve with applesauce and sour cream.