Kale Omelet!

Kale is packed with nutrition, but with it being such a hearty green, I am still learning new ways to use it. This morning I decided to introduce my omelet to my new found friend kale!

 

 

I cooked down the kale in some olive oil until mostly tender (only took about 5 minutes). I also decided to not add any salt. I need to cut back on that stuff, plus the cheese should have plenty of sodium to balance the dish out anyway.

 

 

I whisked a couple eggs, a tablespoon of milk, a very small dash of salt, and let the eggs cook until almost firm.  Then I added the cheese and cooked kale.

 Flipped the egg over, let it cook another minute, and served it with my favorite breakfast accompaniment, coffee! :)

 Great start to my morning ... and as I write this, Rebekah just dumped a cup of (cool thankfully) coffee over our bedroom carpet! Guess today is carpet cleaning day! =)

Cheers,
Matt

The Eggplant Situation!

So there it is, that eggplant, staring at me. I don't love it, I don't hate it, and that's the problem. I seem to always want to try it, but it has about a 50% consumption rate at my house because half the time I seem to wait too long, and then unfortunately they find themselves in the rubbish bin.

 

 

So I gathered together some things that needed to get used before they found a similar fate. The eggplant of course, a spaghetti squash, bok choy, some extra rosemary, chocolate cherry tomatoes, and a lonely cucumber. However, the cucumber and tomatoes made it off the chopping block today but will lose the battle tomorrow with one of my favorite simple side dishes, and that's a cucumber and tomato salad.

Step one? Get that spaghetti squash cut in half, in a baking dish with about an inch of water, and in the oven! That's my bottleneck ... 375 with the fan on, and let it go ...

On aside, I found it fascinating that I use my chest muscles to do just about everything, including cutting a squash in half! I recently had a rib injury and it was quite the project to cut this thing in half without finding myself in pain! But anyway ...

Now that the squash is in the oven, time to chop up the eggplant and bok choy. I separated the bok choy green leaves from the more hearty stems as they vary in cooking times and I didn't want the greens to get too mushy.

After about 20 minutes the spaghetti squash was, well ... it wasn't hard anymore! So it was time to get moving. So I got some olive oil in the skillet (and for the record I cook in cast iron more than half the time, because, well, it's amazing!), and started to cook down the eggplant and white parts of the bok choy. I added some salt, pepper, the rosemary, and a little chili powder. However I did reach for a few drops of my black truffle oil since I didn't have any mushrooms on hand and I thought it would give it a good earthy taste. Made a nice difference.

I would say I cooked them down a good 10 minutes, and then just when the got tender, I added the bok choy greens, and cooked them just another minute or two more ...

 

Once that mixture was done, off the heat it went and got placed into a bowl on the side. I then pulled the cooked squash out of the oven, cut it up, and plated it with the eggplant and bok choy "filling", and I have to say it was pretty good. I tend to be a bit of a tomato sauce person so I added some on the top (the eggplant parmesan won't let me go) but my wife could have done without that.
 

 

Kids? Well, they ate it, but I didn't hear any cheers from the crowd however. Though my son did comment that the eggplant "wasn't bad" so I guess that's a small victory! Just another typical make-shift dinner over here. The best part is I got to use my bok choy, eggplant, and squash all in one sitting!

 

Happy Cheffing,

Matt

Ka-what? Ka-bob!

So I decided to try something I've always heard of, rosemary kabob skewers!

So I went to the garden and harvested some of my fresh rosemary. Stripped the leaves (to use for the marinade!) and make an angle cut to help it push better through the chicken.

Since I happened to have an acorn squash on hand, I cut it in eights, seasoned it up with some salt and pepper, and threw it in the oven to roast as a side.

I used a pretty basic marinade of olive oil, rosemary, chili powder, honey, and a little soy. The chicken made it on the rosemary stems pretty easily, and I fired up the grill!

Once the squash was close to being done, I threw the kabobs on the grill, and made a little wasabi-mayo for a sauce, and served it wish some tortillas. Easy, quick, and delicious! :)

 

Not really sure if the rosemary skewers made a difference but it make for nice presentation and a great aroma! =)

Happy Eating,
-Matt

Smokin' Hot!

For those of you not familiar, if you ever ate anything that had chipotle in it, it's a smoked hot pepper, specifically jalapeno (although the word chipotle simply means smoked chili pepper). Well this year in my garden my cayenne peppers were finally ready to harvest. I love hot peppers, but I wasn't about to eat about 20 peppers before they all went bad, so I had to think of my options.

I could make and jar some homemade salsa, freeze the peppers for later, or maybe even dehydrate them. However I wanted to do something different this year, and not just dehydrate them. So my decision; smoke 'em! Time for some homemade cayenne chipotle seasoning ...

I decided to halve them rather than smoke them whole. I really wanted to get the flavor into them since I will likely only be using a small amount each time. I just wanted to make sure that the smoky flavor ran deep ...

I then soaked my wood chips (hickory this time) and got out my trusty Little Chief electric smoker!

I've often thought about upgrading to a larger smoker, but there is something about using a small electric smoker that I really love. It's easy, quick, and consistent on temperature with very little maintenance. I plan to build myself a larger smoker one day, but for now, this little jewel will do just fine!

It took a little longer as it was a bit breezy, and I had to drop them to the lower rack after a few hours (total time in the smoker, but not always smoking, was about 6 hours). Once they were done, this is what they looked like. I didn't want them burned, but I certainly wanted them completely dry for grinding ...

(looking back, I think I'll just put them inside the garage to keep them out of the breeze to keep the temp up ...)

*** WARNING *** When grinding, please be cautious of the dust! It's not "hot", it's actually quite uncomfortable (and I would think dangerous). I happened to get a very small whiff of it in when I opened the lid and was almost gasping for air! I kid not! Be careful!

 

After grinding I decided to take it and put it in an old medicine jar (with the little ones around it's safe, and perfect for storage).

Results? Smokin' Hot! The ground peppers are extremely hot, but have a deep smoke flavor, exactly what I was hoping for! A repeat for sure!

Looking forward to getting some fresh salsa and putting in a dash of my own hot chipotle. This is going to be good!

Happy Cooking!
-Matt