365 Days of Kale

Go for the Greens!

2012-01-30T19:56:00.000-05:00

A new food pyramid designed by Oldways for those of African heritage features a food base of greens, featuring kale, the nutrition and taste super-star, and all other green-leafy vegetables!

I eat like this - I do!

I also love having exercise as the true base of the pyramid plus eating with others! along with the inclusion of dancing, music, sleep, sunshine, and community gatherings as essential ingredients in the recipe for a healthy life.

It is my goal (and I do pretty well) to live like this. :)

There are several foods listed that I don't have in a single recipe on my website, this blog, or my dianadyer.com blog, like breadfruit, baobab, tamarind, yucca, dika nuts just for starters, but there are plenty of recipes that feature kale and other greens, sweet potatoes, other Brassica vegetables like jicama, mustard greens, turnips and turnip greens, collard greens, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, radishes, and watercress. Thankfully, garlic is also on the full list!

Where kale and other greens are more than decoration on my plate, and now they are in a food pyramid, too! Go for the Greens! :)

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Garlic Kale

2012-01-30T08:00:00.002-05:00

I add greens like kale to most everything. Here is one recipe that lets kale (or any other healthy green leafy veggie) stand and shine alone!

Ingredients:

1 bunch kale (maybe about 1#)
2 Tbsp.olive oil
2-4 large cloves garlic (mince 10 minutes prior to heating to maximize the activity of the cancer fighting molecules)
splash of balsamic vinegar
black sesame seeds

Directions:

To prepare the kale, remove the leaves from the stems and chop coarsely.
Wash and shake the leaves but leave them slightly damp.
Heat the olive oil in a large sauce pan, saute the garlic (do not let it brown),
add about 1 cup of kale leaves, then keep adding and stirring all the kale leaves until all the leaves are slightly wilted.

Cover and cook on low heat until leaves are tender, (5-10 minutes depending on age of leaves). Stir a few times, make sure the pan does not go dry (add a Tbsp. of water at a time if needed). Can be served warm or at room temperature.

Makes 4 generous servings. Sprinkle with a dash of vinegar and sesame seeds before serving. This is so good that I always eat any left over while I am cleaning up the kitchen.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: I found the missing carrots!

2012-01-29T15:59:00.002-05:00

I am starting the pleasant but mind-intensive job of updating my website www.CancerRD.com and combining it with my 3 blogs, so there will be one landing place for me, my thoughts, plus all my various readers. My brain has been jumping around, back and forth, for years, too long. This was made crystal clear to me last week with the phone call from one of my readers telling me about the missing carrots from one of my kale recipes, and I could not immediately figure out or find the recipe she was calling about!

Silly me, I just assumed the recipe was on my kale blog - not! No, it was on my original website www.CancerRD.com, which has hundreds of recipes (and now a non-functioning search function (arghhhh!). However, the Universe must have smiled on me this afternoon, because I accidentally found the recipe my caller told me about.

Here it is, complete with the carrots in the ingredients AND the directions. It turns out that I modified the original recipe, adding the carrots myself, thus the omission of the carrots from the directions is my own oversight.

Emerald City Soup Recipe
(inspired by the original recipe in the cookbook One Bite at a Time by Rebecca Katz)

Ingredients:
• 16-ounce package frozen broccoli florets (thawed)
• 1 bunch fresh kale, any kind, stemmed and torn into small pieces (3-4 cups worth)
• 6-8 cups of vegetable broth (I always put the little bits of water that remain after I steam vegetables into a quart yogurt container in my freezer, saving this broth for soup recipes such as this one)
• 2 carrots (wash well, cut off the top, and cut into thin slices)
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion
• 2 (or more!) large cloves fresh garlic, peeled and chopped
• 2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt (omit if using store-bought vegetable broth that already has salt added)
• 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup fresh (or from the bottle if needed) lemon juice
• Maple syrup to taste (the original recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon - I was careless and oops, accidentally added about 1 teaspoon into the soup, and it turned out just fine)

Directions:
• Heat olive oil in large soup pot over medium heat
• Add onions and carrots, a pinch of salt, and sauté until golden about 10 minutes.
• Add the garlic and red pepper flakes: continue sautéing until aromatic (will be quick, maybe 30 seconds)
• Add the kale and another pinch of salt.
• Cook only one minute until kale turns bright green.
• Immediately remove the pan from the heat.
• In a blender, add 1/3 of the broth, 1/3 of the thawed broccoli, and 1/3 of the kale mixture.
• Blend until smooth. Watch carefully so to not over-blend. When the mixture turns from light green to bright green, turn off the blender.
• Pour into a clean pan and repeat until all ingredients are blended.
• Pour into a clean pan and repeat until all ingredients are blended.
• With the last batch, add the lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and maple syrup.
• Stir all together, reheat very gently and serve immediately.

If there is any left, this soup is also great the next morning right out of the refrigerator (seriously! I have done this). Rebecca Katz states that this soup will not freeze well because the brilliant color is lost. So, make a batch and eat your greens with a spoon, warm or cold!

Where kale (with added carrots) is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe with Carrot-less Directions

2012-01-26T19:55:00.000-05:00

One of my kale blog readers actually called to tell me that I had forgotten to say in the Directions just where or how to incorporate the carrots listed as an Ingredient into the actual recipe. I am so sorry! I am often writing out a recipe for this blog only after we have tasted a dish I created 'on the fly' and decided it tasted great, but the last thing I usually do before posting a recipe up on my blog is to read down the list of ingredients one by one to make sure I have included it within the directions!

Again, I am so sorry, and I thank you for letting me know. Regrettably, I cannot figure out from your message just which recipe it is where I goofed. I hope you will read this and tell me in the comments. Please! I will check the recipe and correct it right away.

This is as good a time as any to let my readers know that I read do all comments, but I also approve all comments before they are posted on this blog. I will not let spam go through, I will not let obscene language go through, I will not let comments go through that I just find 'odd' or 'iffy' with something that just raises a little red flag in my brain. I cannot explain the last one more than that, but I err on the side of caution. If I am not comfortable for any reason, I hit the reject button.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Here comes the Sun! and Kale!

2012-01-14T23:44:00.002-05:00

Another shout-out for my kale blog in an article written by Carolyn McTigue and published in The Toronto Sun along with newspapers in Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton - wow!! Thank you, Carolyn, for telling your Canadian readers and eaters about this delicious, versatile, and true super-star of a food that promotes health. Pretty soon I'll be seeing everyone wearing kale t-shirts and hats, no matter where I travel. I'll have my camera ready!

Here is a picture of the kale salad recipe posted in the Kansas City Star article last week. I confess, I made about half the printed recipe, and my husband ate about 1/3 of it while I ate the rest. So I probably ate 'more than my share', but it was that good! Since I don't do that everyday, I will still think of that as not going overboard!

Special note: I squeezed one lime wedge over the entire recipe before eating. Oh wow, that was the perfect extra touch! Maybe that extra flavor is why I could not save any for lunch the next day but instead ate the remainder of the salad while I cleaned up the kitchen. :-)

(Photo: Simple supper of tofu and vegetable stir-fry on brown rice with Kale Salad, recipe printed in the Kansas City Star)

Where kale is much more than just decoration on my plate - it's now an international sensation!
Woohoo!
Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale in Kansas City!

2012-01-10T15:24:00.003-05:00

Yes, I think it is now official that the 'kale kraze' is everywhere. The newspaper in Kansas City is promoting the deliciousness of kale (and its multiple nutritional attributes!) and cited my blog. Woohoo! I am honored. Thank you Jill Wendholt Silva for 'stumbling' your way to my blog and giving it a 'shout-out'.

In response to Jill's comment that I do not post up to my blog daily, I must clarify that was never my intention, but instead I hope to encourage eating kale or its many varied and delicious relatives every day of the year, giving you enough information and recipes to get started with that goal.

However, I confess that I do see with some sadness and chagrin that my kale blog's postings have gone way down during the past 2 years as my husband and I have been getting our garlic farm up and running. In contrast, I am surprised to see that postings to my www.dianadyer.com blog have gone up during that same time-frame, which must be due to trying to keep those readers up to date with our adventure of starting a new farm! So I think I must be on the look-out for an eager dietetic intern to work with me in the future in order to help me develop many more kale blog posts to continue to inspire my readers to incorporate these interesting, ultra-healthy, and yes also delicious vegetables into a daily delicious habit.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy experimenting by eating all of them (from arugula to watercress) and eating them all prepared in a variety of different ways, from frozen to raw, and also from center stage like this salad recipe in the Kansas City Star to incorporating a handful into a smoothie.

There is no 'right way' or a 'best way' to eat kale and its relatives. Just eat any or all of these Brassica vegetables in moderate amounts! I can tell that this salad and its dressing just might tempt you to eat the entire bowl, but everything in life, even kale, can become too much of a good thing. (See my past post The Dose is the Poison with a real-life example of the consequence from eating too much of one member of the Brassica vegetable family - not good at all!)

Thanks again, Jill, for including my blog in your upbeat article. Thanks also for liking my tag line!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

I not only eat kale, I wear it, too!

2012-01-08T21:51:00.000-05:00

(Photo: Diana Dyer with her new kale hat!)

Thanks to my daughter-in-law with the sharp eyes who spotted this great hat and bought it for me for Christmas. After unwrapping it, I was so totally focused on admiring the great colors, thinking how observant (or intuitive) she was to know that I loved the colors purple and green, that I had not yet noticed that there was a kale leaf on the side of the hat!

WOW - what fun is this! I don't think I typically say much about my family on this blog, but I'll bet at least once I have mentioned on my www.dianadyer.com blog that both of my new daughters-in-law are each amazing women that I just love to pieces. :-)

For those of you out there who want your own knit kale hat, all I can tell you is that it came from somewhere in the Seattle area. Good luck tracking down your own kale hat! I'll keep my eyes open and if I see anyone else wearing one (anywhere!), I'll take your picture and (with your permission) post it on my blog as one more true kale fan.

Where kale is now on my head instead of just my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Pasta with Kale

2011-12-13T12:48:00.000-05:00

I'm all about simple cooking, not really needing 'recipes' per se. Here is an example of what I mean.

When we cook a turkey, we use every bit of it, including the bones to make stock, which always have lots of juicy little 'bits' of meat on them. We freeze that stock with the meat 'bits' in quart containers to pull out later in the year to combine with pasta. To make this a fast supper does require some planning, so at some point during the week, I might pull one of the quarts out of the freezer to thaw in the refrigerator for several days in order to use quickly for some night's dinner when we are pressed for time or just plain tired.

I use locally-made Al Dente pasta (the whole wheat with flaxseed variety) that I purchase in our local grocery store, which requires only 3 minutes to cook. I bring the entire 1# bag to boil in a large pot for 1-1/2 minute, strain it through a colander, do a quick rinse with warm water, and then combine the partially cooked pasta with the quart of turkey broth and meat in the same large pot, and heat to finish cooking with the broth being absorbed. Making a meal of pasta and turkey with a steamed vegetable and salad is quick, easy, and delicious.

I added a large amount (about 4 cups) of coarsely chopped kale or other vegetables during the second cooking session so the vegetables will be cooked but still brightly colored and crisp when the pasta is done cooking.

Yum, yum and easy as can be!

(Photo: Pasta with kale and garlic scape pesto)

I should confess however that my 'secret' ingredient here is garlic scape - kale pesto, which really zips up this dish by just adding a couple of ice cube size chunks from my freezer to the final pasta mixture right in with the turkey broth. Now we're talking extra yum, yum, yum!!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate - it's in my pasta!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

I'm Rooting for Kale!!!

2011-11-28T18:36:00.001-05:00

Chicken? Kale? Chicken? Kale?

I don't get it. Chicken and kale have nothing in common, especially comparing the fast food chicken from Chick-fil-A to any type of kale from anywhere. However, the giant fast food company is asking Bo Muller-Moore, the artist in Vermont who designed and prints the "Eat More Kale" t-shirts and bumper stickers to cease and desist, even asking him to hand over his website www.eatmorekale.com to the company.

I have both a t-shirt and bumper sticker, and I am firmly rooted on the side of kale and small (very small, a one-man ) business.

I don't know how to help Bo except to order more of his products. Chick-fil-A has given him amazing publicity, so I'll probably wait forever for the order to be filled, but that's ok! Yes, "EAT MORE KALE"!! (Addendum: A petition in favor of Bo Muller-Moore can be signed at change.org.)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate, (because I now wear it and eat it in support of Bo Muller-Moore's "EAT MORE KALE"!)

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

All Hail Kale!

2011-11-20T21:31:00.001-05:00

I made a quick trip to a new (to me) local farmers' market this morning to pick up a cheese order from Zingerman's Creamery to take with us to share for Thanksgiving dinner later this week. That trip also brought the pleasure of buying a HUGE 'bouquet' of kale from one of my favorite new young farmers, Megan DeLeeuw who has started Hand Sown Farm in Sharon Township near Manchester, MI.

Here is a photo of the kale bouquet on my kitchen counter.


(Photo: Curly kale from Hand Sown Farm, Sharon Township, Manchester, MI)

Here is what I plan to do with it. First I will make my favorite cranberry chutney to take with us to Thanksgiving dinner and (if there is any left - hope hope!) next I will make Cranberries with Kale as one of my favorite Thanksgiving "left-over" meals.

I am sorry I did not have my camera to take Megan's picture today at the Canton Farmers' Market. Her stand was beautiful and bountiful, filled with gorgeous and delicious vegetables. I have tried to take Megan's picture at markets in the past but her stand is always too crowded with happy buyers (the 'problem' of success!) to get a great shot showcasing her and her lovingly hand-sown food.

So until next spring, I'll just have to be content with the photo of her kale bouquet on my kitchen counter and the anticipation of her sweet, delicious kale tantalizing my taste buds. Megan does promote my kale blog to help people find recipes to use kale, so over the winter, I'm going to work on designing a sign that she can stick into her bushel of kale on her market table to point people to all the tasty recipes on this blog.

What are your favorite recipes? I should look at my blog stats to figure out which are the top recipes people are viewing, but I am more interested in your comments after actually eating my recipes. Feel free to chime in!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my kale (and other Brassica vegetable) fans!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate, on Thanksgiving Day and for those all-important left-overs!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Is kale on that pumpkin?

2011-10-29T20:24:00.000-04:00

I think it might be! I didn't look at the video, just the picture posted up, but kale hair looks like a fun way to dress up a jack-o-lantern. I sure wish I had thought of that!

Where kale is not only on my plate but should be on my pumpkins, too!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Two haikus - Just for fun!

2011-10-28T14:12:00.001-04:00

Morning without web
Time for creative cooking
Kale, of course, and more

Thank goodness we had power, even if we did not have internet access! So I made a variation of my Garlic Sweet Potato Kale Soup recipe, using ingredients by memory (i.e., what's in the refrig and on hand in the pantry), plus including several types of recently made broths combined into one big pot.

I doubled the broth, but not the other ingredients, added about 2 cups of coarsely chopped savoy cabbage and about 1/2 cup of chopped stems from the tops of celeriac with a few of the strong tasting leaves.

One of my broths was deliberately spicy, the other very green (having used a gigantic handful of parsley stems). The soup ended up quite spicy even without any added hot ingredients, so I actually added just 1 teaspoon of our honey at the very end, something I have never done. That was just enough to 'mellow' the bite of the soup.

I let the sweet potato cubes simmer gently for about 10 minutes before adding the cabbage and chopped kale, letting them cook only a few minutes so they still had crunch and color (hmm, the phrase 'crunch and color' has a nice ring to it) in the final soup.

Last night a young friend temporarily living with us looked at our dinner plate with large servings of the Kale-Cabbage Gratin, asking 'What's that?' followed by 'You eat the most interesting food here!'. Yes, I know we eat differently than many (even most) people, so much so that I also know that our food is sometimes 'so interesting' that I am hesitant to make extra of what we eat to take to friends who need meals. However, I know that this soup recipe I made today will be well received and interesting but not 'too interesting', thus two large containers are already set aside to take to two friends currently in need of meals who certainly think I have forgotten them.

Although I came up with a great soup without access to my favorite recipes this morning, this experience did give me a fleeting thought that maybe I do need to follow-up on the urging of several people over the years to do my own cookbook. Even if I had had all my recipes downloaded onto my hard-drive or onto an E-book reader, I would not have needed to rely just on my memory this morning.

Food for thought, in my 'spare time' - hahaha. :-)

This slowing down thing

What is that? I am not sure

A full life is life

Oh dear, that last haiku just popped out, my third one today (I'm posting the first one I wrote today on my www.dianadyer.com blog). Something must have re-wired my brain or found an opening into a place long hidden. I think I'd better quit now. :-)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe Reprise - Kale and Cabbage Gratin

2011-10-25T23:45:00.002-04:00

A reader recently posted a comment that she ate kale for the first time in her life with this Kale and Cabbage Gratin recipe, even though she has been a life-long vegetarian. In fact, she's so smitten with this dish that she says she is going to make it weekly! I think I could eat it weekly also, and she inspired me to run to the Farmers' Market this afternoon to buy some cabbage plus some more kale since I did not think I had enough to make the full recipe.

I made a few changes from the original recipe:
1) I used much more kale this time even though I did not weigh it. I also used Red Russian kale instead of the Lacinato kale and did cut off a good 1-2 inches of thick stems from the bottom of each leaf. Otherwise, I just cut in horizontally into narrow strips.
2) I grated a large carrot into the vegetable mixture - I could have used two carrots!
3) I use a savoy cabbage, which was very sweet and mild
4) I added 1/4 cup of coarsely ground flaxseed to the 1/4 cup of whole wheat bread crumbs to cover the top
5) I did not have any feta cheese but I did have some sharp cheddar that my husband bought last weekend at a farmers' market in Lafayette, IN, that was USDA organic from 100% grass-fed dairy cows and not dyed orange - yum, yum, yum, just the best!!!
6) I already had brown rice cooked and in the refrigerator, knowing it would get used somehow this week.
7) I used a large 9x13 dish, similar to what I would use to make a full recipe of lasagna.
8) I doubled the amount of garlic, especially in view of my recent post about the beneficial increased anti-cancer effects from the garlic-kale food combination. :-)

Using modifications of your own, I think this Kale and Cabbage Gratin could easily be a 'weekly recipe'.

(Photo: Full recipe of Kale-Cabbage Gratin, not cooked yet)

(Photo: Close-up of Kale-Cabbage Gratin before I added the bread crumbs and flaxseeds)

Plenty for supper (with whole grain bread and our homemade wild grape-applesauce) and plenty for lunch left-overs, too.

Where kale (and other Brassicas plus garlic) is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Garlic and Kale - together at last!

2011-10-22T10:44:00.002-04:00

My husband and I were invited to do a 'garlic tasting' and food pairing at a local coffee shop that enjoys educating its customers about coffee and other foods. We chose 4 very different tasting garlic varieties for tasting raw plus a wide selection of simple foods to taste between each variety, both as palate cleansers but also as a flavor-pairing.

There were two surprise 'hits' for the flavor pairings, the first being toasted unsalted almonds paired with a type of garlic that has a 'sweet finish' (Romanian Red) and the second being kale (we used the lacinato kale from Seeley Farm in Ann Arbor).

Lo and behold, today I found two scientific articles showing increased cancer-fighting activity when molecules found in garlic and kale were paired together. They are cell studies, not even animal studies, but they point to the facts that (1) our foods are filled with molecules that have 'bio-activity' and (2) this wide array of molecules consumed together, even at very low dietary intake levels, is likely to enhance (i.e., increase) the effectiveness of each individual molecule, which is called synergistic action.

So "All hale kale with Dick's 'Pretty Good!' Garlic"! That's too long for a bumper sticker, but you can catch our enthusiasm for kale and garlic, paired together. And you may even find our farm on Facebook now - look for The Dyer Family Organic Farm/Dick's 'Pretty Good!' Garlic. :-)

(Photo: Garlic tasting at The Ugly Mug in Ypsilanti, MI)

Where kale (and garlic!) are more than decoration on our plates,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Just for fun - Kale quotes and t-shirts

2011-10-16T18:51:00.001-04:00

My kale blog photo shows me holding a water bottle with an Eat More Kale sticker on it. Somewhere I know I have at least one photo of me wearing my "Eat More Kale" t-shirt, a Mother's Day gift from one of my sons a few years ago. However, until I find it to post up, here is a great quote from the EMK website:

"There are two types of people;

those who eat kale and those who should."

~~ Bo Muller-Moore

And just to show you what this phrase and t-shirt company has inspired, here is the winner and a few of the favorite rhymes from a contest held recently by the Seattle P-I newspaper:

“Oh the joy of eating the super food kale; massaged, braised or boiled, it never gets stale”

So many great rhymes submitted. A few favs include:

The nature-lover response “it keeps me happy, more dolphin than whale!” from Nadine.

The socialist response from Dana, “I’ve got enough to feed all those folks in jail.”

Ms. Science, Carolyn, completes the rhyme with ”Renewing my mitochondria so I’m not frail”

The straightforward consumer response, “Oh the joy of eating superfood kale, I want a t-shirt in the mail” from Lori.

I confess, I love the one about renewing my mitochondria, :-) and I might have also added 'building bones'!

Where kale is a super food, not decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Food, not pills - again!

2011-10-13T22:54:00.001-04:00

A recent research publication once again has showed that consuming Brassica or cruciferous foods (i.e., in this case broccoli sprouts) is superior to ingesting a dietary supplement (i.e., pills) that contains a precursor to a bio-active molecule found in cruciferous foods but also lacks the necessary molecule that is needed for the enzymatic conversion of the pre-cursor molecule to active molecules.

Food, not pills. Food, not pills.........I've said it before, so I'll say it again.

I still eat 5-7 servings/week of Brassica vegetables, some raw, some very lightly cooked (i.e. still crunchy). This is the season to really enjoy the wide variety of these delicious vegetables.

Let's see what have I eaten during this past week already: arugala, kale (of course), mustard greens, turnips, kohlrabi, broccoli, bok choy, daikon radish, and there are still two days still to go!

The Linus Pauling Institute has a great website that is always up to date with its information about Brassica vegetables.

I love food, not pills, just in case you did not catch my drift! :-)

Where kale is still more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

What to do with turnips!

2011-10-03T22:21:00.000-04:00

Do you have too many turnips, from your garden, from your CSA box, from a 'so-called' friend? Is even one turnip too many?

I don't know if this is a novel idea, but using turnip slices to 'carry' some salsa or guacamole works just fine as a munchy appetizer while waiting for the rest of supper to be made and surprisingly, actually tastes great!

Hmmm, I can hear it now - 'tastes great!', 'less filling!', 'tastes great!', 'less filling!', ad nauseum......sorry about that.........it just fell out! :-)

Seriously, when pulled while still small, and sliced thin when much bigger, turnips are an alternative tasty way to eat other delicious and health-promoting Brassica vegetables just in case you might get tired of eating kale or more likely, not have any kale on hand.

(Photo: turnip slices with salsas, guacamole, and slices of heirloom tomatoes)

Where kale (and a turnip slice) is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

The Best Looking Kale Chip EVER!

2011-09-29T11:13:00.001-04:00

A photograph, not a recipe.

(Michigan's Lower Peninsula - Photo taken by Stephanie Stauffer, founder of Nightshade Army Industries, makers of fabulous salsa, chili paste, and hot sauce, using all locally-grown vegetables and featuring the best organic garlic from The Dyer Family Organic Farm/Dick's 'Pretty Good!' Garlic)

All right Stephanie, the challenge is on. Let's see a kale chip of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, too!

PS - Just to give credit where credit is due, the full story of this chip is the kale was grown by Stephanie Stauffer and Jason Voss, Jason made the kale chips, and Stephanie discovered the Lower Peninsula of Michigan appearing chip and took the photo. :-)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Still cooking! Kale Lasagna recipe again.

2011-09-04T22:15:00.000-04:00

Feeding a crowd this weekend and don't want to use the grill or maybe you are cooking something in addition to the grill-food?

Look no further than cooking up a large pan of lasagna, with the sauce enhanced with the abundance of fresh summer vegetables available from your local organic farmers right now.

I went to my trusted and delicious recipe for Kale Lasagna already on this blog and made a few tweaks based on what I had available to use.
• 32 oz of 'pizza sauce' instead of 24 oz spaghetti sauce
• I omitted all the extra herbs since the sauce was already quite flavorful
• organic mozzarella cheese instead of vegan cheese (I prefer how 'real' cheese melts)
• the mushrooms I had just purchased this morning were already spoiled (I'll ask for my money back on my next trip to this store as the stinky mushrooms needed to get out of the house into the compost pile immediately!) so instead I added 3 sweet red peppers, chopped small in a food processor
• I simply cut the kale into fine strips rather than chopping in the food processor in order to have bigger pieces in the sauce and added them last to the sauce to keep from over-cooking it
• Yes, I followed my own recommendation from when I made it last time and only added 1/2 cup of water to the pan before cooking.

Here is a photo of the sauce with the kale all ready to be stirred in.

All ready to cook. I made it a day ahead, covered it in foil, and will heat it up tomorrow afternoon when our company arrives. It is only supposed to be a high temperature of 60 degrees tomorrow - where did summer go??

I only vaguely know what else is being brought to eat. That is the fun of potlucks.

Happy Labor Day to all my readers and a happy start to the school year for those wonderful dedicated teachers and all their students who are ready to jump into school again for the 2011-2012 season! Hopefully some of them will be growing and eating kale from their school gardens, learning much, much earlier than I did that kale is delicious and more than decoration on a plate - woohoo!

Where kale is always more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Kale-Potato-Fish Soup

2011-08-27T16:24:00.001-04:00

Oh gulp, I knew it had been a long long time (actually, it also seems like in a galaxy far-far away) since I had posted here. I didn't know it had been two months............Sigh............You can read about my non-stop life at my dianadyer.com blog (not much posting there this summer either, but I am 'coming back', i.e. getting caught up, even a little - maybe even again).

Part of my 'coming back' is cooking again, and also cooking before it is dark outside when we feel we can 'justify' calling it quits outside at the farm. However, of course by then, we are too tired to do very much in terms of cooking or even eating. We have been far better this summer than last in terms of healthy eating because we have been trading garlic for fresh vegetables with many of our farmer friends and other vendors (i.e. cheese, bread). However, even when I have cooked, there has been no time or energy left over to blog.

'Time out!!' says the Universe. 'Cooking, eating, and blogging are too important to you to just quit what you love, so give something up, re-prioritize, even be bold and cook, eat, and blog during the daylight hours if you want to, yes if you want to."

Big deep breath, so here I am on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon inside quickly writing this post and even sharing a picture I remembered to take this week. All I did was look in my refrigerator and on my kitchen counter to find bits and pieces of delicious food items just waiting to be combined into something easy and delicious to eat one night last week.

I know I already have a recipe for Kale-Potato Soup on this blog, but I added fish, fish broth, and almost a quart of organic milk to this soup tonight because it was time to get those foods used up before I needed to freeze those left-overs.

So it really is a basic easy soup (no real amounts are needed because of the flexibility of this recipe):
• Chopped onion and garlic, saute quickly in a bit of olive oil in a large soup pot
• Poach fish in ~ 2 cups of water in separate 2 quart saucepan, skin and debone fish if needed, flake and set aside.
• Strain fish broth if needed
• Wash, chop, and cook potatoes in another saucepan until almost soft, drain, rinse starch off
• Add fish broth and potatoes to onions and garlic in large soup pot
• Simmer until potatoes are done through but not mushy
• Add chopped tomatoes
• Add chopped kale (I do take off the stems, save in my freezer to make future soup stock, and only use tender kale leaves)
• Add milk and heat until hot but not boiling
• I added a bit of salt and white pepper to taste


(Photo: Kale-Potato-Fish Soup, still in the soup pot, with slotted spoon showing off the kale, potatoes, and tomatoes)

Add anything else you wish and serve with anything you wish. I had some frozen lasagna that I re-heated and sliced organic peaches (found these at Whole Foods Market, but just this morning at the Ann Arbor Farmers' Market, I saw that Scott and Mandy Decker who own Salem Orchard, my favorite local organic orchard, had a few, too - woohoo - many thanks, my young farmer friends, hmm, that does not sound quite right. What do you call yourselves? Fruit Farmers? Fruit Growers? Orchardists? I'll ask you when I see you next week, so I can set the record straight. In any case, many many thanks for your passion and dedication to bringing your family's old orchard back to life organically and expanding our local organic fruit options, too. You're the best!)

(Photo: organic peach slices, a scrumptious and just right dessert)

I really hope it is not another two months before I post again. I have eaten kale or other Brassica vegetables nearly every day in the interim, but what can I say. Life has gotten away from us since we are actually working full-time on our farm. Here is a funny joke. My husband writes the blog 'no time for bland food', which he is now thinking of re-naming the 'no time for blogging' blog. Thanks to all my readers who have hung in here with me!

Where kale continues to be more than decoration on my plate, even if I am not blogging about it!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Here's what we're doing and here's what we're eating!

2011-06-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

Doing? Garlic Scapes 'R' Us! Read more about it on my dianadyer blog here.

Eating? Last year we were so disorganized with starting the farm and getting the house repaired, barn built, etc, etc, that we often 'asked' our market customers what time we should show up for dinner. :-) This year, now that we have moved to the farm and are leading far less hectic lives (still busy, just less frazzled), eating the great food we grow and that of our fellow farmers is our nightly pleasure!

However, sometimes we are eating so late in the day (we try to use every daylight hour outside at the farm) that a 'big meal' is just too big and there is not enough energy left to fix a multi-course meal anyway. So, by making sure we always have just a few simple ingredients on hand (and rice cooked up ahead of time), this easy, simple stir-fry supper is just right for us in addition to being beautiful and delicious.

(Photo: Baby bok choi, a mild and beautiful member of the Brassica family, from Green Things Farm in Ann Arbor plus our garlic scapes)

Cooking and eating does not need to be complicated to be satisfying nor does the table need to be 'groaning' with too much to eat or appreciate. This was 'just right' for us that night!

Where kale plus baby bok choi are more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

A kitchen as green as kale

2011-06-02T15:10:00.000-04:00

I love kale; I love the color green. Apparently the former owner of this house also loved the color green! However, the kitchen at the farm is TOO green! In spite of that green-overload, we love the work space in the kitchen and all the storage space. In our old kitchen, we had one functional drawer and cabinets in various places of the kitchen and mudroom (lots of walking to get stuff) where all of our kitchen things were stored.

So yesterday, after buying my first kale at Ann Arbor's brand-spanking new evening farmers' market, I came right home to fix it up for supper, having everything I needed to use within easy reach.

The kale came from Hand-Sown Farm, a brand new farm in Sharon Township, south-west of Ann Arbor. The land is beautiful out there. The lettuce in the photo came from Sunseed Farm, just outside of Ann Arbor. The beet greens in the strata came from Green Diva Farm in Belleville, MI and the eggs from Bridgewater Barns Farm in Bridgewater Township, MI. The asparagus is Michigan-grown and from our local grocery store.

This is kale in its simplest use, just torn up and tossed in a salad. It was delicious and tender, not tough or slightly bitter like what is often sold in the grocery stores. I did take a few of the larger stems and cut them up to cook with the asparagus, but they were tender enough to eat without doing that.

The salad dressing again was simple, just a toss with a little olive oil and also some of our 2010 chive blossom vinegar.

Run down to your local market to pick up your kale and other greens. Remember that radishes are also Brassicas and their greens can also be eaten!

(Photo: Kale home from the market; purchased from Hand-Sown Farm in Sharon Township, MI. Yes, you are looking at a green counter-top and a green wall. What is gone is the green plaid wall-paper!)

(Photo: Dinner - stir-fried Michigan asparagus with roasted garlic from the Dyer Family Farm, kale and lettuce salad with dried tomatoes, strata made with beet greens - yes the beet greens are in there, even if I just realized they cannot seen, yum, yum, yum!)

(Photo: supper close-up!)

Where kale continues to be more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Article: Food: The Omnivore's (and Vegetarian's) Labyrinth

2011-05-07T10:14:00.001-04:00

I have posted in the past about the question "how much to eat" regarding kale and other Brassicas, without ever really giving an iron-clad and clear answer.

A recent (and very readable) article in the journal Nature reviews the various reasons why it is so difficult to make sense of research (even well-designed and implemented research) that tries to evaluate any one food consumption's effect on cancer development (or even most aspects of health for that matter) and then follow-up with responsible health and dietary guidelines for the public.

Differences of content of various nutrients or "bio-active constituents" (a generic term used for all molecules in food that have a metabolic action in our body, even if they are not traditionally considered a nutrient) in the food itself (due to seed variety, growing conditions, food processing, shipping, etc) PLUS differences in how any one individual processes these molecules (basic DNA differences, epi-genetic differences by factors that influence the DNA expression, to differences in content and action of gut bacteria, etc) all play roles here.

The article uses broccoli sprouts as a food created for and being promoted for cancer prevention (a relative of kale, thus the relevance for sharing this article on my kale blog) as an example of how a food has become a 'functional food', defined by The Institute of Medicine as "those foods that encompass potentially healthful products including any modified food or ingredient that may provide a health benefit beyond the traditional nutrients it contains".

The article is informative by itself, however, the comments always add other perspectives, so I recommend reading them, too.

Thus, it is currently not known 'how much to eat' of kale or any other food as a recommendation to any one person for any one situation or 'health goal', and frankly, I don't expect that information to ever really available or even necessary. While it might seem 'snazzy' in this day of 'apps' available for nearly everything we want to know and know fast, to get to that point would require millions and millions and millions of dollars for technological research within a mind-set and supported by an industry that promotes 'nutrition reductionism'.

My mind-set and bottom-line regarding 'how much to eat' is to go back several steps to the basics just like Michael Pollan's catchy phrase summarizes: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants".

Here is what I would add to Mr. Pollan's mantra:
1) Grow as much food as possible. A basil plant on a windowsill is great! So is growing kale within your landscaping. One of my son's did this at his apartment complex.

2) Cook (prepare at home from food ingredients) as much of your meals as possible.

3) Don't go 'overboard' on any one food, including kale. One serving per day, 5-7 days per week is just great and likely 'enough' within a diet that has a wide variety of foods.

4) Try eating new foods. There are multiple Brassica vegetables in addition to kale, but seek out other new foods or varieties, too. For example, we are growing 42 varieties of garlic this year, all of which have different characteristics, meaning different 'bio-active constituents' that, guess what?, influence taste besides influencing metabolic function in the body.

5) ENJOY food. I cannot emphasize this enough. Please don't only think of food as 'functional medicine'.

I cannot end without adding that I hope you will seek out food raised organically and as much as possible that is raised organically by your local farmers, plus I hope that you will find some niche/passion/action to help provide 'good food for all' in whatever way you can, wherever you live.

Good food, local food, organic food is not elitist but a fundamental right for all people.

Where kale is apparently far more than just decoration on my plate. :-)

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale and other Brassica seed recommendations

2011-04-19T23:11:00.000-04:00

You can see it has been a long time since i posted on my kale blog. Moving is so much harder and time-consuming than I expected it to be! I've made a few posts on my www.dianadyer.com blog to keep people up to date on the chaos in our life as we finally are moving out to the farm, but it is time I added some great kale info here.

Fortunately for me and you, I was so exhausted tonight that I needed to 'veg out', and one way that I do that is catching up on my friends' blogs. Voilá! I hit the jackpot finding a post that shares recommendations for kale seeds along with seeds for many other Brassica vegetables.

Someday I'll be able to do this myself, but for the past two years, we have lived in chaos as we have been starting our garlic farm and repairing everything in the house at the farm.

So when I finally get moved and unpacked (and all the work is done at our other house to get it ready to sell), I'll be looking at Emily's post "Cabbage, Kale, and Broccoli Seed Review" to start making my own extended kale and Brassica garden. Check it out and feel free to add comments! Many thanks, Emily!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

A Green Kale Blog Shout-out!

2011-03-15T20:37:00.000-04:00

All things green are being celebrated in recipes for upcoming St. Patrick's Day, including a "shout-out" for my kale blog in The Washington Post's Lean & Fit Newsletter. You do have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the newsletter, and then read all the way to the right, but there it is under "Tips for the Week - Being Well - Fighting Cancer with Kale", with a link directly to this blog.

How much fun is that?! A lot. :-)

Many thanks to The Washington Post for stumbling onto my blog and giving it "two green thumbs up"!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate, especially on St. Patrick's Day!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Food, not pills

2011-03-13T16:53:00.001-04:00

A study is finally underway that will study a whole diet of just healthy food, with no additional dietary supplements of any kind, on the progression of prostate cancer in those men diagnosed with an early "watchful waiting" stage of prostate cancer.

A new clinical trial at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center will evaluate whether or not a change in diet, reinforced with telephone counseling and exercise, can stop or delay the progression of prostate cancer.

“Ours is the first study to focus on changing the entire lifestyle rather than just giving the participants a supplement pill,” said J. Kellogg Parsons, MD, MHS, urologic oncologist at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. “We focus on more vegetables, less meat, and comprehensive counseling which encourages a more active lifestyle.”

Participants in the Men’s Eating and Living (MEAL) Study will eat at least seven servings of colorful, strong-flavored produce per day, with an emphasis on cruciferous vegetables and tomato products, as well as whole grains, beans or other legumes, and fruit. “Evidence in previous studies suggests that a diet high in vegetable intake and low in meat and fat intake may decrease the risk of prostate cancer progressing or even beginning,” said Parsons.

Eligible participants are males up to 80 years old, who have been diagnosed with non-aggressive prostate cancer within the last two years, are in the early stages, and have not yet received treatment of any kind.

For more information on the MEAL study, please call 858-822-2895.

Thankfully, these study participants are not simply being told by their oncologist to "eat right and exercise", whatever that might mean, as I was back in 1995, when there was much less awareness and information, let alone research, about how diet may optimize the odds for long-term cancer survivorship.Thankfully, research dollars are finally being used to do the studies needed to help the 12 million (and growing) cancer survivors in the US alone have helpful information to live longer, healthier, and productive lives after their cancer treatments are completed.

If you are not in the San Diego area and/or (hopefully) aren't even eligible for this study, why wait to "sign up" for a healthy diet that includes more healthy whole foods like kale and the full list of other Brassica vegetables that are delicious and also provide health-promoting compounds?

General good advice is still 5 or more servings of fruit and vegetables per day.
Serving sizes are the following amounts:
raw = ~1 cup,
cooked = ~1/2 cup,
juice = ~1/2 cup,
dried = ~1/4 cup

In addition, while this blog focuses on and encourages consumption of kale and other Brassica vegetables, variety, variety, variety is important in order to consume as many as possible of the thousands of health-promoting molecules in plant foods on a daily basis. I do not encourage eating a "gigantic bowl" of raw kale every day as a staple of your diet or counting that unusually large amount as 5 servings (or whatever) of your total daily fruit and vegetable intake.

Science understands only the tip of the iceberg in regards to how all of these thousands of plant molecules interact together (i.e. synergistically, meaning 1+1=3) in our body to promote good health. Don't cut yourself short by only focusing on a few of the great ones. In addition, they all add interest and flavor to our diet, which should be the main reason we eat, to enjoy our delicious food, not only to think of our food as "medicine".

Three cheers for kale and all its relatives. I'll bet all the men in this study are going to want a recipe for kale chips, a food that is interesting, flavorful, delicious, and also healthy. Who could ask for anything more? To be honest, I'll bet all these men are signing up with hopes of full arrest, even reversal, of their early stage prostate cancer, too. I could not agree more and hope for the same right along with them. In the meantime, I hope they enjoy expanding their food boundaries to include more Brassica vegetables on a regular basis. They can rely on this blog for delicious recipes!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

"Thickets of cruciferous vegetables"

2011-03-05T21:33:00.002-05:00

........ is such a lovely image and my favorite line from the following article The Billionaire who is Planning his 125th Birthday in The New York Times Magazine this weekend. I believe a description of what is planted in his greenhouse for personal consumption, which includes that great cruciferous thicket image, is on page 4 of the on-line edition.

It is always enlightening to read comments written by readers of articles in the New York Times. There is no perfectly written article (I saw something about vitamin D that I would have worded differently), and people always have widely varying opinions (and quibble) about foods, diets, aging, and rich people, all expressed in the comments I took the time to skim through. However, this most unusual man is choosing to spend a good deal of his money for research that will lead the future understanding of how foods (better studies would be evaluating whole diets, not just individual foods or molecules) affect the aging process and health promotion.

In a very small way dollar-wise, the endowment I have established at The American Institute for Cancer Research is doing the same thing by using proceeds I have donated from the sale of my book A Dietitian's Cancer Story to fund research focused on nutritional strategies that improve the odds for long-term cancer survivorship and/or increased quality of life for cancer survivors. I don't have the lofty goals of hoping that I or other cancer survivors reach the page of 125 through research funded by my endowment, but I do confess that I have humbly asked the universe to kindly consider giving me 40 more years since my husband and I have at least 40 years of projects we want to do on our new farm.

To tell you more, the first time I made this request (last year after purchasing our farm and getting a better handle of how much work was needed to turn this sadly neglected land (and home) into the productive organic farm we could envision), I asked the universe for 30 years, feeling that I was being too greedy to ask for 40 more years, and of course, by all conventional thinking, even asking for an additional 30 years of health good enough to keep working our farm would likely be considered a pretty outrageous request. After all, my husband and I had just turned 60 and you can do the math, 60 + 30 = 90 (outrageous) versus 60 + 40 = 100 (more outrageous!).

However, last summer I read where one of the vendors at Michigan's only all organic farmers' market had just turned 100. You can read about Jeannette Keiser here! Aha! I knew I was being too timid asking for only 30 years instead of the 40 years I really hoped for. And here was my inspiration to update my humble request to 40 years instead of only 30.Thanks, Jeannette. I hope to meet you someday.

I am very disappointed that the writer of this article did not probe to ask the billionaire's thoughts about the importance of organically raised foods to his overall plan of living to be 125. I have some speculation, but no info, so I won't make any comment.

However, our family plan is to continue to enjoy eating (please note that word 'enjoy'!) meals made with foods that are locally grown and organically grown (both as much as possible) while we wind our way along the pathway of our "encore careers" as organic farmers. I cannot begin to say we'll be given even one year, let alone 40 or more! However, we are committed to doing our little part in our local community for as long as we're able to connect the dots for everyone between healthy soil and healthy communities. Thus our 'tag line' for The Dyer Family Organic Farm is the following: "Shaping our future from the ground up", with the word "our" being very large to encompass all aspects of our community, not just our personal health or economic futures.

I'd like to end with a section of a poem by Wendell Berry that I recently read and copied. I think it is appropriate expression (and better than my own words) of what my husband and I are doing as we rebuild this land into our organic farm.

In Leavings: Poems by Wendell Berry 2010
from 2007, II, page 84

……….. With the land
again make common cause.
In loving it, be free.
Diminished as it is,
grant it your grief and care,
whole in heart, in mind
free, though you die or live.
So late, begin again.

Wendell Berry received the National Humanities Medal this week at The White House from President Obama, being given this high honor as a poet, novelist, Kentucky farmer, activist, conservationist, and author of more than 40 books, always exploring our relationship with the land and community.

So yes, my husband and I are late starting our farm, but no matter, I am taking heart from the final line of this poem by Berry "So late, begin again." Nothing makes me happier, more 'whole in heart', no matter when I do die. :-)

"Where kale is more than decoration on my plate. It may even be in a thicket!"

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

PS - These thoughts were very difficult to "tag" on my kale blog. Thus I will cross-post these thoughts on my dianadyer blog too, where I found myself tagging every other category. So, apologies to those of you who regularly read both blogs.

Kale and Paczki??

2011-02-25T21:27:00.000-05:00

For at least one writer, this unlikely food pairing is a sure sign of spring. I encourage you to read the AnnArbor.com article Signs of Spring: Paczki and Kale by my good friend Kim Bayer (who also writes TheFarmersMarketer blog and has been a major inspiration for writing my own blogs).

Be sure to read the comments and look for the one that made me laugh!

Do I dare confess that I have lived in Michigan for 23+ years now and still not had a paczki? :-)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate (but probably not a filling for my first paczki)!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

"Kale starts to sweeten up in March"

2011-02-21T16:02:00.000-05:00

.........but don't we all?" This is the best line from this simple stir-fry kale demonstration on YouTube by Jacqueline ODonnell, a chef at The Sisters Restaurant in Glasgow, Scotland!

A quick video encouraging kale consumption ("this is not your granny's brown cabbage" - another great line!). Worth a peek just to hear the chef's wonderful accent and the background music. (So sorry you have to endure the short advertisement before the kale demo.)

I stumbled on to this clip while browsing the web looking for a savory pie recipe using kale and garlic in the filling.

Now back to sorting through years and years of our 'stuff' and packing for the move (finally!) out to the farm, which should get done in March. I can't wait to be moved and able to get back to really cooking again!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Slow-baked beans with kale (my version)

2011-02-07T12:20:00.000-05:00

My last post pointed you to the recipe printed in the New York Times for Slow-baked Beans with Kale. I made it yesterday, tweaked it a little for what I had in the house, and the dish was delicious. Even my husband, who grew up with canned baked beans each Friday night (and also grew up to hate baked beans), enjoyed this recipe. It was a risk for me to make baked beans, but I felt confident that this dish would not be the same as what he knew and still intensely dislikes (which is really rather amazing as my husband LOVES food!).

Here is my recipe and some photos:

Ingredients:

1 bunch kale, stemmed and washed in two changes of water
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
1/2 yellow sweet pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 # white beans, picked over and soaked for at least four hours and drained (I soak over-night and then do a quick boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes with a piece of Kombu before draining to help reduce the gas forming propensity of beans)
1 6-ounce can tomato paste, dissolved in 1 cup water
4 cups additional water
1-2 Tbsp. honey or maple syrup (I used grade D maple syrup from a local source)
Salt (scant or to taste) and a generous amount of freshly ground pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the kale. Blanch for two minutes, then transfer to a bowl of ice water. Drain, squeeze out water and cut into ribbons. Set aside. (See my photos of this process below - I will try skipping this step next time.)
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat in a large ovenproof casserole. Add the onion, carrots pepper, and celery. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is tender, about five minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute. Add the dissolved tomato paste, and bring to a simmer.
3. Add the drained beans, the remaining water, maple syrup, salt and pepper.. Stir in the kale, bring to a simmer, cover and place in the oven. Bake 3-5 hours until the beans are tender and creamy. Taste and adjust salt and/or sweetner.

Note: Make sure that the beans come to a simmer on top of the stove before placing them in the oven. Do not use old beans, which will not soften no matter how long you simmer them. If the beans do not soften in the oven after a couple of hours, raise the heat to 300 degrees. If you live at a high altitude, raise the oven temperature and let the the beans bake for longer.

Yield: Serves 10-12.

(Photo: Vegetables and traditional bean pot)

(Photo: Blanching the kale - first I removed the large tough stems and chopped the kale leaves - then blanched the chopped kale in boiling water inside a colander in the smaller pan in front on the left, transferring to the colander in the stockpot on the right containing ice water, then draining the cooled kale and transferring to the large stock pot in the back on the left. Repeat, repeat. This back and forth was way too cumbersome, so next time I will blanch whole leaves first in a big pot, transfer to a sink filled with ice water, and then chop (like the original directions said to do). However, I may even skip this step entirely next time to see if it makes any difference in final taste and texture of the kale.)

(Photo: Kale, beans, etc in the large stock pot heating up before transferring to an oven-proof baking container.)

(Photo: Beans etc transferred to the bean pot. This whole recipe needed a second dish, too. Cutting the recipe in half would fill this bean pot just perfectly.)

(Both pots almost ready to go into the oven.)

(Photo: Both pots in the oven, complete with their lids. Although I intuitively thought I should cover these pots, I had to read the original recipe 3 times to see where it said to cover them!)

These are great hot, warm, room temperature, and also cold! I have already sampled them at each stage, including right out of the refrigerator for breakfast this morning. :-)

Another great way to use a bunch of kale! Enjoy. :-)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate, including Super Bowl Sunday!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale for the Super Bowl

2011-02-03T13:46:00.000-05:00

This past week, I've had several other food bloggers post comments on my kale blog, so I think the enthusiasm for kale is continuing to perk right along without slowing down. If I had had any doubts about that, today I saw that a recipe for Slow-Baked Beans with Kale is in the #2 spot for "most emailed articles" on the New York Times.

This easy, hearty (for these cold, snowy, icy days so many of us have right now!), and delicious sounding recipe sounds like a perfect dish for a Super Bowl Sunday gathering. I'm just back from a vacation in Seattle (where 49 degrees felt like summer, even on the moist days), so it's time to stock up on fresh vegetables again like "4-season kale" from our local Farmers' Market on Saturday morning.

I'm not sure what else we'll make/serve/eat or even what we are doing on that day, but I'm going to check my pantry shelves and then get any missing ingredients to start making these beans.

The #1 emailed article right now is Mark Bittmann's Food Manifesto for the Future. I would guess that most people seeking out more info about kale (and thus have landed at my kale blog) will find themselves nodding in agreement with the ideas he is presenting in this article. For those who have been actively reading and changing their diets over the past several years to contain more local and sustainably grown foods (and food that is recognizable as food instead of processed food-like substances), there is not much if anything that is new. However, the article is a very good summary of many points of concern and call to action for our government, industries, and individuals. Bittmann does not specially call out for organically grown foods nor does he specifically urge people to start growing their own foods, two additional points I would have made, but his overall messages clearly point the way to an agriculture and food system that is sustainable. I do urge you to take a minute to read the article and think about what may be new for you and what may be the next step you can take to "vote with your fork" for the world you want to see.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate, even on Super Bowl Sunday!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Another Kale Blog Shout-out

2011-01-07T10:09:00.000-05:00

A recent article "365 days of everything: daily creative projects" published in the on-line newspaper AnnArbor.com highlighted blogs that are focusing on doing something every day of the year, i.e. all 365 days. I appreciated having this blog included! Even though I don't post everyday (far from it), the goal of my blog is to provide information and inspiration for myself and my readers to eat some kale or any of its many delicious Brassica relatives every day of the year.

Never fear. There is no need to eat that full grocery-bag of kale that you just picked up at your local farmers' market in one sitting, although it is surprising how that much kale could easily be reduced to a large bowl of kale chips and also how quickly those chips could be consumed. Choose a variety of my recipes to try over the next week or so, even including freezing some of the kale if you really are the lucky recipient of a windfall per se!

One reader recently asked for my favorite kale recipe. Oh dear, that would be like choosing a favorite among your children! Simply impossible. :-) However, here are 5 that I make over and over again, in no particular order.

My husband and I have been traveling for the past week, and I found that I really missed eating kale and other Brassica vegetables on a daily basis. The first thing I did after getting home last night was to make a big salad from local hoop-house spinach and radishes along with some cabbage and a bit of salad greens. No kale, but both cabbage and radishes are Brassicas and so are an acceptable stand-in for kale. Wow, did that taste good. After politely asking my husband if he wanted a second helping, I eagerly finished it up.

I send best wishes for a happy and healthy 2011, filled with kale and other delicious Brassica vegetables and whatever you enjoy doing each of the 365 days of the coming year!

Where kale continues to be more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale Blog Shout-out

2010-12-14T08:00:00.022-05:00

Michigan has many women food bloggers, and when some of us first actually met face to face instead of just via the internet, we created a common name for ourselves, The MIchigan Lady Food Bloggers (MLFB for short). We also slightly changed Michigan's state motto "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you" to create our group's own motto "If you seek a pleasant recipe, look about you..."

We do have a group blog, but primarily we each post on our individual blogs. Currently I believe there are 106 members from all over Michigan. I have met many of them (not all) and have many of their blogs (again, not all) listed with links on the left side of my blog at www.dianadyer.com. I enjoy reading what many of my Michigan blogging friends are cooking up and writing about (it is just amazing how completely different we all are!), and I'll just bet that the group blog has the links to each of our members listed for you to explore. Someday, I'll have to dedicate an afternoon to finally visiting each and every one of our MLFB group's blogs.

In the meantime however, I am honored to have this blog given a "shout-out" in an article written for the Washtenaw Community College faculty, staff, and students entitled "Swapping Sugar". I don't use a lot of sugar in recipes on my kale blog, but I sure like the title and agree with the concept.

I learn a lot from these new friends through-out Michigan, and yes, I really did use my connections in this way to help my new daughter-in-law's family find a caterer in their part of Michigan who was both enthusiastic and experienced with a wide array of outstanding vegan options for my son's wedding reception this past August. Currently, I am using this same network of friends to help with the planning of the cake and food for my older son's wedding in 2011, too.

I'll just bet that you will be able to find food bloggers (men and women) who live in your state, too, many of whom are highlighting locally-grown foods and recipes that are traditional for your locality. If you cannot, then maybe you'll be the first to start one and you can pick your own food and topic(s), a narrow focus like this kale blog or a very wide variety of interests like my www.dianadyer.com blog!

Happy reading, cooking, and eating to all my readers, and maybe happy writing, too. Please let me know if you have a blog! And if you are a lady food blogger from Michigan but not yet on our list, the group's main blog has instructions for joining.

Thanks for including my blog in your article, Brian!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Micro-kale to Macro-kale

2010-12-13T19:01:00.000-05:00

Shopping at the Ann Arbor Farmers' Market last Saturday (brrrrrr), we stopped by the table for the farm called Garden Works where we are long-time purchasers of their delicious sunflower shoots, which we first ate when we lived in Madison, WI way back in the mid-70's. Earlier this year, we tried their pea shoots and were just 'wowed' with how delicious they are and how much these shoots really taste like fresh young spring peas! The link will show you a large sample of the many beautiful and delicious vegetables they sell throughout the seasons.

Last Saturday, something new caught my eye, a plastic container with a tiny hand-written tag on top of it that said "micro-kale". In essence this is the kale-sprout equivalent of broccoli or alfalfa sprouts that you might see for sale in the grocery store.

(Photo: Micro-kale purchased from Garden Works, Ann Arbor, MI)

They are the Red Russian variety, as you can just see a hint of their red stems. They are delicious, tender, and sweet with just a touch of the kale taste. I have added them to a salad and used them as a green layer in a tofu (marinated and then baked with Ann Arbor's own Clancy's Fancy hot sauce) sandwich.


(Photo: Micro-kale sprouts, close-up. You can easily see their red stems. Most just have their first round leaves, but a few have tiny little lobed leaves that you would expect to see in the Red Russian variety of kale.)

Now, contrasting the term "micro-kale" with the term "macro-kale", which admittedly a group of friends just made up as we sat around a table talking and laughing about a wide variety of big issues in life at a birthday celebration last Saturday night. So every time I do a post in the future that is of an "extraneous nature" but somehow connected to kale, I'll think of the term "macro-kale"! The term gives me a new perspective and lots to think about and mull over, one of my favorite things to do, besides growing, cooking, and eating kale. :-)

Where kale (both micro- and macro-) are much more fun than just being decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Sweet Potato-Kale Patties - version 2

2010-12-12T19:56:00.001-05:00

I see that I already have one example of sweet potato-kale patties on this blog, using lentils as a base. Those are so scrumptious that I actually entered the recipe in a sweet potato contest! (No, it didn't win or even get mentioned with the finalists.) However, because I so seldom actually "follow recipes" and love simply using what ingredients I have available, here is another similar recipe that is a delicious variation using what was on my pantry shelf and refrigerator and counter-top.

Ingredients:
• 1 cup of dry whole-wheat cous-cous - add 2 cups boiling water to cous-cous and let sit ~15 minutes to absorb all liquid while preparing other ingredients, drain if necessary before adding to final mixture
• 1 small bunch fresh lacinato kale - remove stiff stems and then finely chop leaves (may use food processor - I ended up with a rounded cup of chopped leaves, but the amount is flexible)
• 2 medium size sweet potatoes - cooked and peeled and mashed with a fork
• 1/4 onion, finely chopped
• 1/4 sweet red pepper, finely chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped (may chop onion, garlic, and pepper together in food processor)
• 2-3 eggs (I used 3 medium size eggs)
• olive oil - smallest amount needed for pan frying

Directions:
1) Mix all ingredients except olive oil and mix thoroughly
2) This amount of mixture made 20 patties for me, using a large heaping tablespoon of mixture for each patty. They could be made using teaspoons, too, for many more appetizer-size patties.
3) Heat in skillet over medium high for a few minutes, until brown on one side, then flip to cook on the other side, flattening slightly with spatula.
4) Brown on the other side, then set aside in low temperature oven until all are cooked.
5) Can be frozen and then reheated best in a toaster oven so they don't get soggy.

These are delicious and all the vegetables could definitely be both seen and tasted. If you wish to add any seasonings, just experiment with small amounts of your favorites such as curry, hot pepper flakes, chopped fennel seed, etc etc. I actually prefer to complement these patties with a bit of applesauce, mustard, chutney, or even unflavored yogurt if additional flavoring is desired.

Serve with any main dish, soup, or even as a sandwich filling. They taste great heated on a toasted whole grain bun or in pita bread with a bit of lettuce or sprouts!

I used locally-grown kale, sweet potatoes, onion, garlic, and eggs!

(Photo: Sweet Potato-Kale Patties - version 2)

(Photo: Sweet Potato-Kale Patties - closeup - can you see the sweet potato chunks, the diced red pepper and red onions in addition to the kale?)

Yum - wow these are good - cooking them makes the house smell wonderful! Enjoy this treat yourself from mostly locally grown vegetables still available at many late fall farmers' markets. Yes, in spite of our recent frigid cold and snow, it is still Fall! Please go and support your local farmers who are still coming (and shivering) at your local market!

Where kale continues to be more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

What's New? The 2011 Cancer Victory Garden™ Calendar

2010-11-14T21:35:00.000-05:00

I am member of the The Oncology Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of The American Dietetic Association, which has created a gorgeous 2011 calendar inspired by my blog at www.cancervictorygardens.com called the Cancer Victory Garden calendar. These calendars will make delightful holiday gifts for almost everyone you know, including cancer survivors, gardeners, friends, family members, teachers, day care providers, and professional colleagues.

Each month features a beautiful picture of a different cancer fighting vegetable or fruit, along with text that discusses its health benefits and strategies for growing the produce in a home garden.

One or more calendars can be shipped to your home or work address.

Each calendar costs $10.00, plus a flat rate shipping charge of $5.00 (for 1 or more calendars).

To order calendars, make your check out to: ON DPG #20
(Check total = no. of calendars x $10/each + $5.00 shipping)

Mail the check to:
Maureen Leser
56 Boston Drive
Berlin, MD, 21811

Calendars will be mailed to the address on your check, or to another address as requested.

Funds from the sale of these calendars will be used to defray member costs of educational programs. In addition, ON DPG is making a donation to the Diana Dyer Cancer Survivors’ Nutrition Research Endowment at the American Institute of Cancer Research, which has provided research funds from proceeds of the sale of my book A Dietitian's Cancer Story (also a great gift!) since 2001 for AICR funded research projects that focus on defining nutritional strategies for cancer survivors to optimize the odds of long-term survival and increased quality of life.

If you have questions about the calendars, please contact my friend Maureen Leser, MS, RD, CSO, LD, at mgoreleser@gmail.com or call her at 240-994-0533.

If you are a member of the ON DPG you can preview the calendar at the ON DPG website: http://www.oncologynutrition.org/

If you are not a member of the ON DPG but are interested in previewing the calendar, please contact Maureen at mgoreleser@gmail.com. She will email a pdf that previews the calendar.

I have already seen these calendars, was given several complimentary copies, and also purchased several additional copies to give away. I hope you consider purchasing one or more - you will love them!

I'll end with how the calendar begins!

"Life begins the day you plant a garden"

~~ Chinese Proverb

Truer words could not be spoken!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Eating raw broccoli helps bladder cancer survivors

2010-11-01T18:18:00.001-04:00

Just across my desk (i.e. computer) is research (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2010 Jul;19(7):1806-11) showing a significant increase in survival after bladder cancer diagnosis when consuming a modest amount of raw broccoli.

In a study examining dietary intakes of people when first diagnosed with bladder cancer at a major cancer center in New York, researchers found that the patients who ate 1 or more servings/month of raw broccoli versus less than one serving/month had a 43% reduction in death from all causes and a remarkable 57% reduction in death from bladder cancer when looking at data after 8 years of follow-up. Intakes of total vegetables, total fruits, and other cruciferous vegetables did not show any benefits on either overall survival or bladder cancer survival.

Prior animal and in vitro (cell studies) data have shown potent antiproliferative effects of dietary isothiocyanates from cruciferous vegetables on bladder cancer cells. This study was unique because it looked at both raw and cooked food consumption since cooking (especially cooking greens for hours!) can substantially reduce or destroy isothiocyanates contained in cruciferous or Brassica vegetables.

Further follow-up studies with human subjects are clearly warranted but in the meantime, eat your broccoli and other Brassica vegetables, some of them raw, and the rest only very lightly steamed or stir-fried, and save any steaming liquid to use for future soup stock. Of note, although intake of kale and collard greens was evaluated and found to offer no survival benefit in this study, my comment above about the usual cooking technique (i.e., boiling for hours on end) for these vegetables may have rendered their intake inconsequential in this type of study.

Cruciferous vegetables do have a wide variety of glucosinolates, which are metabolized to a wide variety of isothiocyanates that could have different levels of protection against different types of cancers. Eat them all, enjoy them all, in a variety of different ways! And I'm just taking a wild guess, but I'll bet that most regular readers of this blog eat kale, broccoli, and other Brassica vegetables, raw or cooked, more than once a month. :-)

Photo: Garlic Scape-Kale Pesto - this is not raw broccoli, but a delicious way to eat another raw cruciferous vegetable. Believe it or not (actually I'm embarrassed to admit this), I still have some garlic scapes in my refrigerator (the tops are dried out but the stems are in great shape!), so I'm going to try making this pesto using raw broccoli florets instead of kale. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Where kale (and broccoli) is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Eating Brassica vegetables can lead to lower breast cancer risk

2010-10-28T21:40:00.000-04:00

A recent 12-year prospective longitudinal study of 59,000 African American women has shown that those who consumed more vegetables per day and per week are less likely to develop estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer than women with low vegetable intake. The incidence of ER-negative/PR-negative breast cancer was 43 percent lower among those women who were consuming at least two (of any kind) vegetables per day compared with women who ate fewer than four vegetables per week. These results are important because African American women are more likely than white women to be diagnosed with estrogen receptor-negative tumors, which have a poorer prognosis than estrogen receptor-positive tumors.

However, what caught my eye was the following information. While looking for some more detailed information within the food frequency data, researchers also found that higher intake of cruciferous vegetables (Brassicas) in particular showed a reduced risk of breast cancer overall in this group of women (all types of breast cancer - some good news!). Cruciferous vegetables, which include kale, mustard, and collard greens, broccoli, along with cabbage, cauliflower and the rest of the vegetables on the list found on the right side of this blog, are sources of the group of phytochemicals called glucosinolates, which may play a role in preventing the development of breast cancer through their effects on both estrogen metabolism and detoxification enzymes.

Very simply, estrogen (estradiol) is converted to two metabolites: 16-alpha-hydroxyestrone, which acts as a breast tumor promoter or the alternative product of estrogen metabolism, 2-hydroxyestrone, which does not exhibit estrogenic properties in breast tissue. Very simply you can use the analogy of these two estrogen metabolite levels in your blood as 16-alpha-hydroxyestrone = LDL or bad cholesterol and 2-hydroxyestrone = HDL or good cholesterol.

Again, very simply, our body has two sets of liver enzymes involved in detoxification. Brassica vegetables have been shown to decrease some Phase 1 enzymes, which can actually create a carcinogen, and have also been shown to increase Phase ll enzymes, which work to convert toxic or carcinogenic molecules into less potent molecules that can be less toxic and also excreted quickly into urine.

These are just two ways that eating Brassica vegetables can potentially decrease the risk of developing breast cancer. The amount to eat of these vegetables to consume on a daily or weekly basis is not clearly defined, but clearly this study shows that consuming even modest amounts of vegetables of any kind (two servings per day) can significantly reduce risk of a type of breast cancer that has a poor prognosis when diagnosed in African American women, and other researchers have shown that 3-5 servings per week of Brassica vegetables can reduce cancer risk.

We're lucky that locally-grown Brassica vegetables are available nearly year round, especially since many farmers in northern areas are erecting hoop houses (passive green houses) in which greens like kale can be grown even when it is cold and snowy outside. In addition, kale and many other Brassica vegetables survive and even love that first frost, turning just a tad bit sweeter. Head down to your local farmers' markets to purchase kale and Brussels sprouts as just two examples of breast-cancer fighting Brassicas!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate (a minimum of 3-5 days per week)!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Research Shows that Bacteria Boost a Brassica's Benefits!

2010-10-25T12:22:00.000-04:00

BBBB - That is a mouthful!!

In a nutshell, highly regarded scientists at The University of Illinois have shown for the first time (in rats) that sulforaphane, a potent cancer-fighting molecule in broccoli, can be released from within the food matrix by bacteria in the lower gut and then absorbed into the body in quantities large enough to have anti-cancer benefits.

That is great news, to actually demonstrate what had been hoped for but not perfectly clear in the past. We have millions, billions, maybe trillions of good bacteria in our large intestine (colon) that are doing a myriad of jobs as they munch away on remnants and components of our food that have not been absorbed by the small intestine. I have heard a scientist stand up from the audience at a National Cancer Institute-sponsored conference to say that without starting to study the actions of these bacteria in the colon, all other research involving food and nutrients' potential role in cancer prevention/survivorship is vastly incomplete and essentially uninterpretable.

How to increase the number of good bacteria in your gut? Please don't wait for (or pay for) the dietary supplement industry to develop a pill that combines a single molecule like sulphoraphane and some friendly bacteria (probiotics) or some "bioactive food constituent" to feed these friendly bacteria (prebiotics). Eat more foods that contain live and active probiotics (examples being cultured dairy foods, miso, tempeh, sauerkraut, kimchee) or prebiotics (foods containing digestive-resistant fiber, inulin, some examples being onions, leeks, apples, oats, barley). This is easy and delicious to do with foods without adding expensive dietary supplements.

The other important point from this research was the comment by the scientist that eating broccoli (or other brassica vegetables like kale) at a frequency of 3-5 times per week is enough to achieve a level of sulphoraphane in the body that has anti-cancer effects. However, remember that these vegetables have many other molecules that are helping to optimize health and wellness, including an anti-inflammation effect which is important at reducing risk of many of the debilitating chronic diseases. So again, the message is food food food - find different foods to eat, different ways to prepare them, and enjoy cooking and eating them!

The study is the cover story of the November 2010 issue of the new journal Food & Function (Vol. 1, pp. 162-167) and is available online pre-publication at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Journals/JournalIssues/FO . The research was funded by the USDA.

(Photo: Pasta with dried cherry tomatoes and broccolini)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

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Another good laugh - a song this time!

2010-10-18T14:27:00.000-04:00

I am not sure when or how kale became a "hot item", but I sure am glad it has. Greg Klyma, a singer-songwriter from Buffalo, NY, sent me a video of one of his recent songs "The Kale Store".

I say head down to your farmers' market (or the store) to get some great kale. If you live in an area that has already had its first frost, then definitely sprint to your farmers' market for the best-tasting kale you can imagine as the frost helps to give it a hint of sweetness.

Yum, yum, yum - watching this short video will have you also wearing a t-shirt that says "Eat More Kale" and singing along with Greg about "The Kale Store"!!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate - it's fun and a song, too!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

A new use for kale and a good laugh!

2010-09-15T22:09:00.000-04:00

At yesterday's Ypsilanti-Downtown Farmers' Market, a young girl and her mother walked by our garlic table, with the girl proudly carrying a bag of beautiful kale. I asked if she needed some garlic to cook with her kale when she got home. She looked a bit confused, then looked up at her mother, at which point her mom responded that they did not actually eat kale themselves, but the kale was to feed her daughter's lizard! Well, my boys had all kinds of pets while growing up, but somehow I don't remember that we ever had lizards, so that was a new one for me! I laughed and laughed and asked if I could share this story on my kale blog while my husband handed the daughter a small (baby size) head of garlic just in case her lizard wanted to try some great tasting kale with garlic like we eat. He added the caveat that the lizard should not be eating better than they were, so they should try kale with garlic, too! This time the mom laughed and laughed, the daughter looked pleased instead of confused, and I think they went home with a new appreciation for kale and maybe garlic, too. :-)

Where kale is much more than decoration (or lizard-food) on our plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale and Garlic - Garlic and Kale

2010-09-10T23:22:00.000-04:00

I'm so sorry that farming and selling our multiple varieties of organically-grown garlic at 3 local farmers' markets has reduced my kale blogging time to zero! Of course I have had a few other good things taking up my time, too, like my younger son's wedding in early August and all the continuous work of repairing and remodeling the house at our farm so we can eventually move in.

So it was such GREAT pleasure to hear one of our customers who has purchased garlic from us at Ann Arbor's Westside Farmers' Market tell me that she could eat stir-fried kale with garlic (or was that garlic with kale?) every night of the year and never (never!) get tired of it. Oh, such music to my ears.........I couldn't agree more! :-)

In addition, Amy Heath, farmer at Living Stones Community Farm in Ann Arbor now recommends my kale blog to all her customers who purchase her beautiful kale at the Ypsi-Downtown Farmers' Market and the Dearborn, MI Farmers' Market and then ask her for recipe ideas. Again, music to my ears. I always look forward to taking home a large bunch of LSC's kale each Tuesday night after the market closes. Our Tuesday night supper usually consists of, guess what, garlic and kale! So easy and so delicious. Add some whole grain bread, some cheese or eggs (cook on top of the kale), some other steamed or fresh vegetables, and fruit from your local market and supper is simple and done!

Then it's off to bed for us so we can get up before dawn (seriously!) in order to set up at the Wednesday Ann Arbor Farmers' Market that starts at 7 am.

Thanks to all the kale lovers out there who are enjoying the recipes already on my blog and not badgering me to get posting again. Don't worry. I miss blogging. I never stop thinking about cooking and will be back at it (both cooking and blogging) as soon as possible. I promise!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate and hopefully yours, too!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale Blog Publicity - and another great pesto recipe

2010-07-07T10:30:00.000-04:00

What a nice article about Ann Arbor's Westside Farmers' Market that includes a mention of us selling our garlic scapes plus my 365DaysofKale blog!

Be sure to read the article, which includes a wonderful recipe for pesto that includes garlic scapes with fresh peas. I'm just sure you could also throw one kale leaf in the food processor to make a different and still delicious variation. I can say that I have included fresh peas with avocado when making guacamole and found the mixture both delicious and beautiful, with the bonus of left-overs (rare to have any!) staying bright green for several days in the refrigerator.

Thanks, Mary, for including a mention of my kale (and all things brassica) blog!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Garlic Scape - Kale Pesto

2010-07-03T18:17:00.004-04:00

Here is it - finally - the recipe and photos for my Garlic Scape-Kale Pesto recipe. We are still using what this recipe made earlier in the week; tonight I added a teaspoon to each serving of my stand-by red lentil soup along with serving more pasta tossed with the garlic scape-kale pesto (hard to get enough of that!) and some chopped red peppers from the freezer.

Garlic Scape - Kale Pesto

Ingredients: 

1 cup garlic scapes (about 8 or 9 scapes) cut into ¼-inch slices 
3-5 leaves lacinato (dinosaur) kale, tough stems removed and then slice into sideways strips
1/3 cup walnuts, pecans, or pine nuts (toasting these adds a nice twist)
3/4 cup olive oil 
approx. 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese  
1/2 teaspoon salt  (I omitted since there is enough salt from the cheese for me)
black pepper to taste (I did not add any)

Directions:

Place scapes, kale, and nuts in the bowl of a food processor and grind until well combined and somewhat smooth but not purely pureed. Slowly drizzle in oil and process until integrated but there is still some "chunkiness". Transfer mix to a mixing bowl. Add parmesan, salt and pepper to taste. Makes about 1-1/2 cups of pesto. Keeps for up to one week in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Or transfer to an ice-cube tray and freeze to be defrosted and used one cube at a time at your leisure. The latter approach makes scape pesto available even in mid-winter, when it’s use can make a scrumptious dish.

This pesto is bright green in contrast to the beautiful light green pesto made just from the garlic scapes.

(Photo: Variety of garlic scapes and lacinato kale leaves, with stems removed)

(Photo: Garlic Scape - Kale Pesto on a toasted bagel, showing it is still a bit "chunky" rather than blended smooth)

Enjoy, enjoy - there is no shortage of ways to use any pesto, let alone a pesto made with kale and garlic scapes, two of my favorite vegetables.

Where kale continues to be more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Garlic - not kale this time!

2010-06-14T10:32:00.001-04:00

I could not resist cross-posting from my dianadyer.com blog, just in case there are some of my kale readers who do not follow my other blogs. The non-stop activities to get our garlic farm up and running (let alone the house remodeled in order to someday, hopefully this summer, actually move there!) is why I don't have time to post on my kale blog as often as I would like. Here is what we are up to these days. Someday we will also have kale to sell but right now it is garlic, garlic, garlic!

My husband and I grinning like little kids on Christmas morning on our debut day as vendors selling our garlic scapes (7 varieties this week - 15 varieties will be ready for week #2) at the Ypsilanti Downtown Farmers' Market June 8, 2010 - photo taken by Cara Rosaen, Marketing Director for the brand new website RealTimeFarms.com.

Please check out the RealTimeFarms.com website - it is designed to connect people to fresh, local sources of food by providing "real time" information (including beautiful photographs) about the location of farmers' markets around the country along with what is available to purchase today, right now, , i.e. "real time". It is an interactive site that you (yes, you!) can also use to load up information about what you see available at farmers' markets where you live.

Help promote locally grown food by your local farmers! Your local farmers (like us!) thank you from the bottom of their hearts. :-)

Unlike grinning kids who have the pleasure of having gifts just appear on Christmas morning, my husband and I fully appreciate every aspect of both the years of hard work leading up to this moment and our extreme good fortune to have arrived at this moment. I just turned down a cancer survivorship speaking invitation because I am too busy farming, but that does not mean I have forgotten "where I have come from" to get here. I am a very grateful cancer survivor every single day, hoping that I can still help others plant and cultivate their own seeds leading to a successful survivorship journey, too.

Where kale (and garlic, too) are more than decoration on our plates!

Diana (and Dick) Dyer, MS, RD

"The dose is the poison"

2010-05-25T12:39:00.003-04:00

Yes it always possible to eat too much of a good thing. A case report in this week's New England Journal of Medicine and reported in today's New York Times mirrors a question I recently received on this blog about the safety of consumption of raw Brassica vegetables related to thyroid gland dysfunction.

Even before this incidence was reported, I have already been making inquiries into the medical literature and to three researchers I know that have extensive knowledge of the effect of Brassica vegetables (raw and cooked) in humans to try to sort out "myth from reality" about the recommendations on various websites to not eat any raw Brassica vegetables due to possible suppression of thyroid function.

I am relying on the guidance from these 3 researchers (and those to whom they refer me for even more information) to try to come up with a "bottom line" recommendation regarding how much raw and fermented Brassica consumption is indeed both safe and/or beneficial that is based on evidence (in addition to taking into consideration, but by no means relying exclusively, on how someone's mother traditionally cooked and ate and felt in the "old country").

Stay tuned, but in the meantime, please don't eat 2-3 #'s of anything for months on end, raw or cooked. I remember the early hey-day of "soy is a wonder food" when I routinely was contacted by people trying to eat a pound of tofu a day or drink a liter of soy milk daily. Gosh, how boring, boring, boring let alone remembering that no population has a healthy dietary pattern of such rigidity and exclusion of so many other foods.

I'm sorry, I know it's not very "sexy", but I will predict that the bottom line will be variety, variety, variety of types, amounts, and ways of production (raw, cooked, fermented). As I said, stay tuned!

Where kale is still more than decoration on my plate but I have NEVER eaten 1# of kale (let alone 2-3#!), raw or cooked, on any one day in my life and nor would I ever professionally recommend doing so! :-)

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Top 10 Ways to Use Kale!

2010-05-07T01:00:00.000-04:00

I was not clever enough (or quick enough) to write this list myself, so I am sending you to a fellow ("sister" really) Michigan Lady Food Blogger who just wrote an article with this title for her blog called The Local Cook. Check it out - all her recipes sounds great.

In addition, I love the idea of a cooking class just on greens, what they are, which are which, how to prepare and use various ones. I would suggest also including instruction on how to freeze kale and other hardy greens for future use during the weeks (and weeks) when you are overwhelmed with the amount of various fresh greens in your CSA box. Yes, I've been there myself, so much so that is when I first started feeding kale to my dog (yep, she loves kale, too!). I have never given it away to friends (or worse, composted it) because I am pretty vigilant about freezing our extra greens. Here is the link to my post about freezing kale.

Enjoy reading another bloggers growing enthusiasm for kale!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Finding Gardening Space

2010-04-23T13:22:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted from my blog www.CancerVictoryGardens.com.

Want to garden but have no space of your own? Want to move beyond just the pots or hanging plants on your balcony or sneaking your kale into the landscaping around your apartment complex (yes, I know someone who does that!)? Here's a new free match-making website to help you find that special space where you can garden on someone-else's land!

SHARED EARTH LAUNCHES THE LARGEST COMMUNITY GARDEN IN THE WORLD.
SharedEarth connects land owners with gardeners and farmers.

Austin – SharedEarth (www.sharedearth.com) launches as the world celebrates Earth Day.

SharedEarth.com is a free match-making website that connects land owners with gardeners and farmers. Land owners share their land with someone they trust and get free fruits, vegetables and flowers. Gardeners and farmers get free access to land and the opportunity to grow what they love. The produce is shared between the two parties as they see fit. The result is a more efficient use of land and a greener planet.

“Community gardens exist in every major city in the United States, yet virtually all have waiting lists. With over 25 million square feet of shared space on the system, SharedEarth.com has created an alternative with the largest community of private land owners and gardeners on the planet. We are making more efficient use of land and a greener planet, one garden at a time,” said SharedEarth.com Chairman and Founder, Adam Dell.

Much like online dating sites, SharedEarth.com users create their own profile and find matches based on criteria such as location, years of gardening experience and the type of produce to be grown. Gardeners and farmers find the service useful because they are able to gain free access to land. Land owners find the service useful because they often lack the time, experience or commitment needed to cultivate a productive garden on their property.

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the best-selling books The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, had this to say about Shared Earth: “Whoa! What a grand idea.”

Shared Earth was born out of Dell’s own experience looking for help growing a garden on his property. He turned to the Internet to find a qualified match. And now he reaps the rewards of this partnership through the fruits and vegetables he eats every day. SharedEarth.com was established as a not for profit sustainable corporation to help facilitate this process for others.

Please visit www.sharedearth.com for more information and to register for FREE today.

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Gosh, what an opportunity! Good luck and have fun finding gardening space for your own special kale garden and for everything else, too!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

What is a Superfood?

2010-04-18T10:00:00.001-04:00

I don't really know - at least I don't think there is an agreed upon definition for this commonly used term in the media. But how about a super group of foods? Looking at the newly developed food rating score that Whole Foods Market has begun using (called the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index of ANDI), it is apparent that Brassica vegetables are a group that is collectively the top-dog for providing a wide variety of health-producing nutrients and additional molecules like the wide variety of phytochemicals. In fact, 8 of the top 10 foods in this new index are Brassicas:

Kale (whoo - hoo! I do not know what variety was used, but use it as a collective spot for this vegetable on this index!),
Collards,
Bok choy
Spinach (not a Brassica)
Brussels sprouts
Arugula
Cabbage
Romaine (not a Brassica)
Broccoli
Cauliflower

Please don't use this whole index as a means of completely avoiding any of the whole foods listed on it that have low scores (like olive oil). In fact, I am not sure that the list itself is very useful if you are sticking to whole foods as the main source of foods consumed (and enjoyed) in your diet versus processed foods or food-like substances. For instance, this list does not show you how a box of just-add-water bean burgers will actually stack up to compare with a soft drink.

I hope the day actually comes when WFM finally removes (or greatly reduces) the abundant junk food available to purchase in their stores. I agree with other bloggers who have commented that even organic junk food is still junk food (and designed to "hook you" so you can't eat just one, whatever it is). And I also agree with Michael Pollan who recommends that (paraphrasing here I am sure) you consume only junk food that you have made yourself. I think the example he used was french fries.

Well, I am veering off topic. :-) Let's use this post to celebrate kale and all other Brassica vegetables. I still intentionally enjoy eat a serving a day of kale or other Brassicas, yes, that would qualify as "365 Days of Kale", I believe!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate, 365 days of the year!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Cooking Methods - again

2010-04-17T10:39:00.003-04:00

Or - what's left after cooking by various methods? I'm always disappointed by various research studies that don't really simulate real cooking methods. Remember the broccoli and microwave study a few years ago in which the sound bites in the news never bothered to tell you that the study used a quart of water to microwave the broccoli? I actually wonder why that study was funded, let alone published.

However, this study actually tried to simulate various types of institutional cooking methods, whether food is being prepared to serve to large numbers of hospital patients at one time or to be held on a buffet table for a large crowd. Vegetables chosen were cut green beans or the brassica vegetable called swede rods or rutabaga (this study was conducted in Norway where rutabaga is a more commonly consumed vegetable).

(Photo: Rutabagas, photo from Wikipedia)

In the present study, vegetables were industrially blanched/frozen and then cooked in water or by pouch technology (boil-in-bag) with comparisons of their ability to retain vitamin C, total phenolics and antioxidative activity (DPPH and FRAP).

RESULTS: After conventional cooking, 50.4% total ascorbic acid, 76.7% total phenolics, 55.7% DPPH and 59.0% FRAP were recovered in the drained beans. After boil-in-bag cooking, significantly (P < 0.05) higher recoveries were obtained, i.e. 80.5% total ascorbic acid, 89.2% total phenolics, 94.8% DPPH and 92.9% FRAP. By conventional cooking, 13.5-42.8% of the nutrients leaked into the cooking water; while no leakage occurred by boil-in-bag cooking. Warm-holding beans after cooking reduced recoveries in all components. Recoveries in swede rods were comparable but overall slightly lower.

CONCLUSION: Industrially blanched/frozen vegetables should preferably be cooked by pouch technology, rather than conventional cooking in water. Including cooking water or exuded liquid into the final dish will increase the level of nutrients in a meal. Warm-holding of vegetables after cooking should be avoided.

Take home points:

(1) If you purchase frozen vegetables (or freeze at home), look for bags that let you simply "boil in the bag" to prepare for serving.
(2) Use any liquid from cooking vegetables (in soup broth, cooking rice, add to your simmering pasta sauce, or just drink it like my mother has always done!)
(3) Serve vegetables hot, right away. Be at the front of the line at a buffet table or wait at a cafeteria line for a freshly prepared pan of vegetables. Ask if they were prepared in a pouch or water.
(4) I save all left-over liquid from preparing vegetables (even a few tablespoons) by placing into a container I keep in the freezer. When full, I have a quart of delicious vegetable soup stock filled with nutrients ready to thaw and use.

My husband would actually say that rutabagas are his favorite vegetable. He got an urgent phone call 30 years ago from my older son's daycare where they did not know what my son had brought as his contribution for that day's activity, making "stone soup"; yes, it was a rutabaga. My husband is also picky about pasties; only those that contain rutabagas and enough of them to actually taste "cut the mustard" for him. You can enjoy his delicious recipe (yes!) for Glazed Rutabagas right on this blog.

Where kale (and other Brassicas, like rutabaga) are more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

I'll be watching Dirt: The Movie

2010-04-15T11:55:00.000-04:00

Calling all kale and other vegetable lovers! I'm cross-posting this blog posting from my dianadyer blog - my first time to do so - to make sure that all my blog readers know about the upcoming showing of the documentary Dirt: The Movie on PBS stations next week.

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If you haven't picked up on this yet, my blog has a pretty wide range of topics, all related to my far-reaching range of interests. I am putting the date and time on my calendar for watching the following show: Dirt: The Movie, airing next week on PBS TV channels. I honestly cannot remember the last time I did that for something on TV (oops yes I can - I do love to watch the Wimbledon tennis women's finals so I always make sure I know when that is being broadcast), so I highly recommend that you do the same.

Here is the link to the movie info. You will also see a link on that page to find the day/time of showing according to where you live.

The movie is about how we care for (or don't) our soil, the very foundation of our food production and thus life on this planet. The word 'dirt' is just a catchier word. In fact, I have heard that the author of the book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations took flak from his professional colleagues (other geologists and soil scientists) for the title of his book, but that is what big publishing houses do to try to catch the public's attention in order to increase sales (most authors lose control over such details as the title and the cover image when their book is published by one of the main book publishing companies, just one reason I have turned down offers from two big publishing companies to take over publishing my book).

Two images I have kept in mind after reading Dirt are the following:

Modern agricultural practices are "soil mining",

meaning we are rapidly outstripping the Earth's natural rate of restoring topsoil.

The world loses 83 billion tons of soil each year.

I actually feel that reading Dirt a few years ago was nearly as life-changing, i.e., expanding for my view of the world, as when I read Diet for a Small Planet in the early 1970's. Both books permanently shaped my opinions as a nutrition professional by understanding that our choices of food to eat have social consequences to economic consequences. I find it terribly disheartening that I learned none of this during my professional nutrition education. The next book on the top of my "to read pile" (very large) is The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture by Sir Albert Howard, originally published in 1947, re-published in 2006 with a new introduction by the farmer-poet-activist Wendell Berry. I am only musing at this point, but when reading it, I will pondering if this book should be the first book read by all nutrition professionals in training.

This movie is being shown in celebration of next week's 40th anniversary of Earth Day, but make no mistake, if we don't change our agriculture systems to focus on practices that preserve and rebuild the health of our soils around the world, it is not the earth that will be the loser, but humanity itself (i.e., no soil, no food). I would hope that the movie makes this point clearly.

Ending with another of my favorite quotations about the soil, here is one that is especially apropos:

The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity.
~~ Henry Ford

Where kale (which needs healthy soil to grow) is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Kale and Cabbage Gratin

2010-03-23T10:59:00.011-04:00

Serve this hearty gratin as a main dish or at a potluck. It’s good hot or at room temperature. The recipe is inspired by one I saw in the New York Times. I am using fresh kale right now, but you could also use frozen kale, collards, turnip greens, or others. Feel free to use what you have available in season and on hand. The hardest part of this recipe is remembering to start the rice cooking about 2 hours before you want to eat (unless you have some cooked and on hand ready to use!).

Ingredients:

• 1/2 to 1 pound kale, preferably cavolo nero, stemmed only if stems are thick and tough, washed thoroughly and cut in slivers (use the larger amount if you have it - I only had 1/2# and that amount looked "skimpy" after being combined with the cabbage)

• 1 pound cabbage, preferably savoy cabbage, quartered, cored and cut in slivers

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1 medium onion, finely chopped

• 2-4 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed

• 6 leaves fresh sage, chopped

• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

• Optional - Salt, preferably kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper to taste

• 2 eggs

• 2 cups rice, preferably a short grain rice like Arborio, or brown rice, cooked

• 3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (3/4 cup, loosely packed)

• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs, preferably whole wheat

Directions:

Cook rice before chopping vegetables, or use some previously cooked rice that may be in your refrigerator or freezer.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil a two-quart casserole baking dish.

2. Heat two tablespoons of the olive oil in a large, heavy nonstick skillet over medium heat, and add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until tender and translucent, about five minutes.

3. Stir in the garlic, sage and thyme, and cook for another minute until fragrant.

4. Stir in the kale. Cook in the liquid left on the leaves after washing until the kale begins to wilt. Stir often, and when most of the kale has wilted, add the cabbage and salt.

5. Add 1/2 cup water, and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring often, for 10 minutes until the water has evaporated; the kale and cabbage should be wilted and fragrant but still have some texture and color.

5. Add pepper, taste and adjust salt.

6. Beat the eggs in a bowl, and stir in the cooked vegetables, the rice and cheese.

7. Stir together well, and scrape into the baking dish.

8. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the top, and drizzle on the remaining olive oil.

9. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until firm and browned on the top. Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Serve hot or warm.

Yield: Serves 6 as a main dish but many more at a potluck.

Advance preparation: This can be made a day ahead and reheated or simply brought to room temperature. Or prepare the vegetables through step 1 a day ahead, and assemble the dish the next day.

(Photo: Kale and Cabbage Gratin ingredients)

(Photo: Fresh sage, lemon thyme, marjoram)

(Photo: kale, cabbage, farm-fresh eggs)

(Photo: Garlic and cippolini onions - our last onions from 2009 growing season)

(Photo: Cabbage, kale, onions, garlic, and herbs in cast iron skillet)

(Photo: Eggs, rice, and feta cheese mixture)

(Photo: Egg mixture with cooked kale and cabbage and seasonings added)

(Photo: Kale and Cabbage Gratin in the baking dish almost ready to put in the oven)

(Photo: Last step - topping with bread crumbs and remaining olive oil drizzled on top)

(Photo: Kale and Cabbage Gratin - done, cooling, and smelling too good to wait to eat!)

Serve with a hearty whole grain bread, some other cooked vegetable (something colorful like carrots or beets or stewed/fresh tomatoes) and some fruit in season.

Yum, yum - the sage seasoning makes the house smell faintly of Thanksgiving while cooking, but the lemon thyme makes your hands and kitchen smell like a summer herb garden. Enjoy!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale Blog Publicity

2010-03-09T21:00:00.004-05:00

I am already days (weeks?) behind in keeping up with my daily "kale alert". Tonight I looked at all those emails, just randomly chose one, and found that day's alert just happened to have an article from AnnArbor.com (our on-line daily newspaper) about our local farmers' market that contained a "shout-out" for this blog along with the great recipes from my friend Debra DeMille at the Joan Karnell Cancer Center in Philadelphia that are shared in my previous posting. What a fun and pleasant surprise!!

I feel so lucky to have our farmers' market continuing year-round now, especially throughout the winter months. I enjoy heading down there on Saturday mornings, even on the cold days. I thrive on the connection I have in this way with my community (which includes the mushroom grower who comes all the way from Alpena with his delicious!! mushrooms).

I have just enough frozen kale for one more meal. I have been emptying my last bag of frozen kale very sparingly, adding little bits to soups and stir-fry's, rather than having a huge pile of braised greens on my plate, being reluctant to empty that bag.

SO............I'll make sure I get down to my farmers' market on Saturday early enough (note to self - don't dilly-dally on Sat morning this week!) to get those fresh greens. I hope to see you Saturday morning.

Yum, yum - I'm looking forward to Saturday night's dinner!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Soup and Salad

2010-02-26T20:24:00.008-05:00

Here are two beautiful and delicious recipes using kale shared by my friend Debra DeMille, MS, RD, CSO, nutrition counselor at the Joan Karnell Cancer Center, Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, PA. Debra uses both of these recipes in the cooking programs at her cancer center. They are so popular that she has given me permission to share them with the world! Debra also invites you to check out all the ultra-healthy recipes at the Karnell Cancer Center website.

THE WINTER WARM-UP CHOWDER

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped red bell pepper or mixed colors
½ cup chopped scallions or shallots
1/3 cup chopped almonds
1 tablespoon paprika
2 bay leaves
1½ cups water
1 14.5- ounce can seasoned, tomato juice or diced stewed tomatoes
2 cups vegetable broth (make your own - see my recipe at this page, scroll down)
2 cups chopped kale or spinach (fresh or frozen)
1 cup cooked brown rice (or barley)
1 can drained canned garbanzo beans

Directions:
Heat the oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, pepper, and scallions. Sauté for 2 minutes. Add the almonds, paprika, bay leaves, tomato juice or stewed tomatoes, and broth. Bring to a boil. Add the kale/spinach, rice, and garbanzo beans. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated.
*remove the bay leaves before serving

Serves 6 - Leftovers freeze well, if there is any left!

(Photo: WINTER WARM-UP CHOWDER, photo credit Joan Karnell Cancer Center)

CHOPPED KALE SALAD

Ingredients:
1 HEAD OF KALE, CHOPPED OR THINLY SLICED (if stems are especially thick, you may remove the leaves to chop and then save the stems for making future vegetable broth)
1 RED PEPPER, DICED
1 GREEN OR YELLOW PEPPER, DICED
1 RED ONION, CHOPPED
1 CAN OF CHICKPEAS*, RINSED
1 CAN OF BLACK OLIVES*, PITTED AND SLICED

Dressing:
1/4 C. LEMON JUICE
1/4 C. OLIVE OIL*
1/4 C. RED WINE VINEGAR
¼ tsp. dried mustard
Salt and Pepper to taste.

PREPARE ALL VEGETABLES AS STATED, WASHED AND DICED. COMBINE IN A LARGE SALAD BOWL.

MIX SALAD DRESSING INGREDIENTS. WHISK PRIOR TO POURING OVER SALAD MIXTURE. LET SIT AT LEAST OVERNIGHT.

THIS SALAD FEEDS 6-8 PEOPLE AS A SIDE DISH. IT ACTUALLY GETS BETTER THE LONGER IT SITS AND CAN BE USED FOR UP TO 3 DAYS.
*If weight management is an issue, these ingredients may be reduced by half.

(Photo: Chopped Kale Salad, photo credit Joan Karnell Cancer Center)

I have everything on my pantry or in my freezer to make this winter kale chowder for supper. Debra tells me she will head down to her Farmers' Market on Saturday to purchase some fresh kale. In addition to all the kale we froze late last fall, I think I'll head down to my local Farmers' Market for some fresh kale on Saturday, too!

Thanks, Debra - your patients and cancer center are soooo fortunate to have you!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate and at the Karnell Cancer Center, too!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale Alert

2010-02-15T17:54:00.004-05:00

For the past couple of weeks I have enjoyed having Google send me a "kale alert" with a list of what is being published on the web about kale. Well!! I don't know exactly how many pages published daily constitutes being a "hit" but I think kale may be approaching that point. In fact I don't think it would be possible to keep up with all the kale recipes being published (even with daily postings of a kale chips recipe!).

In addition, I have just been astounded to see the number of people with the first or last name of Kale who make their way for one reason or another onto an article posted on the internet. Hmmm, a potential name for a future new dog??? :-) I even found someone who posted an article about how to feed kale to your dog (not raw but steam it, especially the stalks, until very soft or well done to reduce resulting serious sulfurous odors!)

All of our kale is now under a big snowy blanket, but here is a great pix of the kale in our community earlier in the winter. As soon as we can get some ground worked at our farm in the spring, kale seeds will be one of the first things in the ground! Yummmm, I can't wait. :-)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale for Hair?? This is GREAT - really!

2010-02-10T21:47:00.004-05:00

Someone was much more clever than I am. The next time I build a snowman, I'll make sure to have a large bunch of kale in the refrigerator or ready to pick from our winter garden or hoop house!!

This photo came from KyPost.com. I just love it!

Where kale is clearly much more fun than decoration on a plate! :-)

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Something new under the sun: "Flower-Sprout"

2010-01-28T11:45:00.005-05:00

London's Marks & Spencer will begin marketing a new vegetable this week called the Flower-sprout, a cross between the Brussels sprout and kale. Ten years in the making by plant breeders patiently crossing, growing, and testing the results of crossing those two vegetables, the "Flower-sprout" is certainly beautiful.

I don't know if this new vegetable and/or the seeds will be available to purchase here in the US, but if anyone reading this post is in the UK and has a chance to eat this new Brassica vegetable, please let us know how it tasted and how you used it!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: One-Pot Supper with Kale

2010-01-27T12:47:00.004-05:00

(Photo: One-Pot Supper with Kale)

What is even better than "one-stop shopping?" time-wise? How about "one-pot suppers"? I see the last dish I posted was similar, so I guess cooking like this is both a habit and an enjoyment of mine.

I love cleaning out odds and ends from my refrigerator and freezer along with being creative by combining different foods and tastes. I also love the ease of this type of dish on those evenings when my husband and I have been busy all day and come home too tired and too hungry to cook anything, particularly something that takes pre-planning, effort, and is time-consuming. I'll just bet that sound very very familiar to all of my readers. :-)

Thus this dish is not a recipe per se but an invitation for you to do something similar with whatever you find in your refrigerator.

Here is what I combined (all amounts are approximate):
• 1 cup ratatouille (eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, onions - we froze this last fall)
• 1 cup corn kernels (we froze this last fall)
• 1 cup garbanzo beans (I buy these dried, cook them in bulk, and freeze so it is easy to make hummus or dishes such as this)
• 1 cup tomato juice (we canned and froze juice last fall)
• 1 cup fish broth (left over from poaching fish a few days earlier)
• 1 cup rice (cooked, left-over from a previous meal - I also always cook rice in large quantity to freeze left-overs in 1 cup portions)
• 1 cup kale (frozen, I crunched this in the freezer bag to make even smaller pieces, i.e., chopped very small, and then added it at the very end)
• 1 teaspoon curry powder (I used sweet curry and then added a couple of shakes of hot spicy curry, too)

Mix all ingredients in a large pan, heat until just boiling, add kale, then serve up to eat. This is good enough for a whole meal but it could also be served as a side dish. I did serve it with a small piece of left-over smoked salmon and a blueberry corn-bread muffin. I was stuffed and satisfied, very satisfied. :-)

(Photo: One-Pot Supper with Kale - close up)

What's in your refrigerator to make into your own "fast food" tonight?

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe - Risotto with Kale

2010-01-15T20:08:00.005-05:00

(Photo: Risotto with Kale)

Here is a easy and delicious Friday night dinner (good for any night, too!). I don't usually buy mixes, but my mother is a fan of her local Costco and occasionally purchases something "fun" for us. Thus we have been the recipient of a large container of risotto containing dried tomato pieces and many additional herbs (bonus - no added salt or sodium!).

I made the risotto per directions, using vegetable broth already in my refrigerator (supplemented with additional water and a teaspoon or so of Better than Bouillon vegetable broth concentrate, also in my refrigerator), thawed and diced about 4 ounces of chicken meat (from a local farm Back Forty Acres) and also added several handfuls of frozen kale (crushed into small pieces while still frozen in the ziplock bag), and ~ 1-2 ounces of freshly grated parmesan cheese.

As a main dish, this amount made more than enough for 2 people and easily would have made a side dish of 4-6 servings.

Serve with a glass of iced tea or red wine, an additional vegetable serving, some fresh fruit or a fresh green salad and dressing.

(Easy, quick, delicious, beautiful, frugal, and healthy - win, win, win, win, win, and win!).

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Garlic Kale Sweet Potato Soup Recipe

2009-12-09T22:32:00.004-05:00

This Garlic Kale Sweet Potato Soup Recipe was developed by the nutrition staff at Nutricare - St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI.

2 1/2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 1/2 tsp. dried Italian herb seasoning
6 cups vegetable broth
2 (15 oz) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 lb sweet potatoes, scrubbed and diced
4 oz. kale, tough stems removed, chopped coursely (about 4 cups)
12 garlic cloves (I've added a few more but it's up to your taste)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in soup pot over medium heat. Add onion and Italia herb seasoning; saute until
onions are soft and golden, about 6 minutes
2. Stir in broth, beans, sweet potatoes, and kale; bring just to a boil. Reduce heat to low
and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Add garlic to simmer soup base. Simmer until sweet potatoes and greens are tender.
About 15 - 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Yield: 6 servings (1 1/2 cup each)

It is scrumptious with these ingredients just as written. I know I'll be making this soup over and over and over again. In addition, this soup recipe is very adaptable so many other ingredients could be added, such as canned tomatoes, left-over rice, tofu, other vegetables, etc.

This recipe freezes well, so make up a double batch to have some delicious and healthy food ready for your own home-made and inexpensive "fast food".

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Another Simple Supper - Rapini and Pasta

2009-12-09T21:48:00.005-05:00

So many things to do during the holiday season, including shoveling our first snowfall of the season today. Here is one easy way to keep fueled with delicious and healthy foods, including a relative of kale called rapini, that are a snap to make for supper.

I purchased a large bunch of fresh, locally grown rapini (sometimes called broccolini) at our local farmers market this morning grown by Jonathan and Karlene Goetz of Riga, MI, in their hoop houses. I always look but usually pass by the tiny bunch of rapini at the grocery store, shipped from California, that sells for $3.99, but this enormous bunch was only $2.00. Karlene assured me that they would be showing up every week during the winter, and I assured her that I was a "regular" and would also show up to purchase fresh greens all winter long. Now that is a relationship that is truly "Made in Michigan!"

(Photo: Rapini, also known as broccolini)

Ingredients:
• 6-8 ounces of whole wheat pasta (made by a local company called Pastabilities)
• 1/2 large bunch rapini, washed and cut into pieces (about 4 cups fresh)
• 3-4 roasted tomato halves (frozen last fall, thawed just a bit and cut into small pieces - canned, drained tomato pieces will also do here, saving the juice for something else)
• 1 small stalk of fresh rosemary - snip the leaves off
• 2 'ice cubes' of garlic scape pesto, thawed (my husband makes this recipe and freezes it for use all winter - any pesto will do)

Directions:
1) steam the rapini for just a few minutes using a steamer basket - do not overcook
2) cook pasta until still al dente, drain well
3) combine cooked pasta in large serving bowl with pesto, tomato pieces, rapini, and rosemary leaves
4) toss to distribute all ingredients

Serve with additional freshly grated hard cheese (not really necessary), fresh crusty bread, and a salad, if desired. Also very good and filling all by itself. These amounts made enough for 2 very hearty servings with one serving left over for lunch tomorrow, which will be very tasty to eat either warmed up or chilled.

(Photo: Rapini and Pasta - the only ingredient I cannot see is the fresh rosemary leaves)

Where kale and delicious relatives like rapini are more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Simple Kale Supper

2009-11-21T19:03:00.005-05:00

Based on my last post regarding cooking techniques, I decided to try steaming kale instead of stir-frying for this recipe it in order to retain as many healthful molecules as possible.

I love just looking in my refrigerator and cleaning out ingredients to come up with something tasty, healthy, and easy for supper. This "Simple Kale Supper" fits that bill.

(Photo: Kale from our community garden - almost too beautiful to eat!)

Ingredients:
• large bunch of kale, chop
• bunch green onions, slice
• 1 large tomato, small dice
• ~1/2# firm tofu, drain, pat dry, cut into 1-inch cubes
• brown rice (Use left-over rice in the refrig if you have it ! If you don't, start a large amount before you start chopping your other ingredients).
• ~1 Tbsp. oil for stir-frying vegetables and tofu.
• Optional sauces: soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, peanut sauce, sweet-sour sauce.

Special note: These ingredients are what I had available. Use what you have: for instance you might have a small amount of left over chicken, beef, fish, or even some dried beans, in addition to many other little bits of fresh vegetables you wish to use up. You may have some left-over pasta or grains of some type instead of needing to cook up some rice. I have even served stir-fried vegetables over torn up toast pieces in order to use up a loaf of bread. Be creative - don't feel beholden to my recipe!

Directions:
1) Start the rice cooking if that is what you are going to serve the vegetables over. I admit to just loving my rice steamer. I can get the rice started, plan on finishing up the recipe in ~1 hour and then forget the rice. No worries about having it overcooked or undercooked.

(Photo: Rice Steamer)

2) Drain, pat dry and chop the tofu.
3) Chop your vegetables

(Photo: Tofu and vegetables chopped and ready to go)

4) About 15 minutes before your rice steamer is finished, steam the kale in a steamer just until wilted and tender (no more than 5 minutes). Save the water in the bottom of the steamer for soup broth later in the week. Or freeze for use at some future date.

(Photo: Vegetable steamer - I love this gadget!)

5) About 5 minutes before your rice cooker is ready to "ding", start heating the oil in your wok or pan for stir-frying the tofu and vegetables. Quickly stir-fry the vegetables and tofu until the tofu is browned and the vegetables are hot. Add the steamed kale, stir to distribute evenly.

6) Spoon ~1 cup of the rice on each plate and split the vegetables and tofu in half and distribute over the rice. (I will put extra rice into freezer bags to have for a quick supper (i.e., my own fast food) in the future).

7) These ingredients as pictured served two hearty dinners. Increase amount of tofu and vegetables for more servings or for left-overs to have for lunch tomorrow.

(Photo: Simple Kale Supper)

Steaming the kale is an extra step, but not really excessively time-consuming. It does result in one additional pan and the steamer that need to be washed, but they are easy enough to do by hand without even taking space in the dishwasher.

Simple, easy, healthy, beautiful and you cleaned out your refrigerator without any delicious and costly vegetables going "slimy" and into the compost pile.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

What's in kale and how to keep it there!

2009-11-21T14:46:00.006-05:00

(Photo: Fall harvested kale from our community garden, multiple curly varieties)

A reader recently asked a good question about which cooking methods cause the most loss of nutrients in kale; specifically he was wondering about the relative benefits of raw versus steamed kale. Reading a number of research studies investigating this question in Brassica vegetables shows a variety of answers. However, here are abstracts from two recent articles:

(1) Journal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE B, 2009 Vol. 10(8):580~588, Yuan GF, Sun B, Yuan J, Wang QM. Effects of different cooking methods on health-promoting compounds of broccoli.

The effects of five domestic cooking methods, including steaming, microwaving, boiling, stir-frying, and stir-frying followed by boiling (stir-frying/boiling), on the nutrients and health-promoting compounds of broccoli were investigated. The results show that all cooking treatments, except steaming, caused significant losses of chlorophyll and vitamin C and significant decreases of total soluble proteins and soluble sugars. Total aliphatic and indole glucosinolates were significantly modified by all cooking treatments but not by steaming.

In general, the steaming led to the lowest loss of total glucosinolates, while stir-frying and stir-frying/boiling presented the highest loss. Stir-frying and stir-frying/boiling, the two most popular methods for most homemade dishes in China, cause great losses of chlorophyll, soluble protein, soluble sugar, vitamin C, and glucosinolates, but the steaming method appears the best in retention of the nutrients in cooking broccoli (I suspect the same will be true for kale and other Brassica vegetables).

This next abstract shows the many points between raw, cooking, consumption, and absorption that influence the potential outcome for health-promotion from eating Brassica vegetables.

(2) Proc Nutr Soc. 2007 Feb;66(1):69-81. Effect of cooking brassica vegetables on the subsequent hydrolysis and metabolic fate of glucosinolates. Rungapamestry V, Duncan AJ, Fuller Z, Ratcliffe B.

The protective effects of brassica vegetables against cancer may be partly related to their glucosinolate content. Glucosinolates are hydrolysed by plant myrosinase following damage of plant tissue. Isothiocyanates are one of the main groups of metabolites of glucosinolates and are implicated in the preventive effect against cancer. During cooking of brassica the glucosinolate-myrosinase system may be modified as a result of inactivation of plant myrosinase, loss of enzymic cofactors such as epithiospecifier protein, thermal breakdown and/or leaching of glucosinolates and their metabolites or volatilisation of metabolites. Cooking brassica affects the site of release of breakdown products of glucosinolates, which is the upper gastrointestinal tract following consumption of raw brassica containing active plant myrosinase. After consumption of cooked brassica devoid of plant myrosinase, glucosinolates are hydrolysed in the colon under the action of the resident microflora. Feeding trials with human subjects have shown that hydrolysis of glucosinolates and absorption of isothiocyanates are greater following ingestion of raw brassica with active plant myrosinase than after consumption of the cooked plant with denatured myrosinase. The digestive fate of glucosinolates may be further influenced by the extent of cell rupture during ingestion, gastrointestinal transit time, meal composition, individual genotype and differences in colonic microflora.

Bottom Line? Enjoy all varieties of kale and other Brassica vegetables using all methods of preparation, however, it seems prudent to consume as much as possible either raw (well-chewed or put into a smoothie) or lightly steamed to maximize their cancer-fighting potential.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Eggs with Kale

2009-09-22T10:00:00.001-04:00

There is no real shopping list for this recipe. If you have some kale and eggs in the house (or backyard), I am sure you also have enough other vegetables to fill up a pan and whip up this supper, breakfast, lunch, or snack in a jiffy!

I love just looking in the refrigerator, the pantry, the freezer, or even the backyard (or our community garden) to see what I have available to make a quick meal. Although I do enjoy eating "fancy food" and do regularly try new recipes from cookbooks, I don't often cook gourmet recipes from cookbooks, magazines, or TV shows. I guess I prefer eating what are called "rustic" dishes, but I also do have a fully stocked pantry of staples such as brown rice both on the shelf ready to cook but usually also in the freezer already cooked and ready to quickly thaw to complete my own "fast food" meals.

In this case, I had been recently thinking about the recipes I remembered that were included in the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. One of my favorites was a quick and easy one called something like "eggs in a nest" (that may be correct or simply paraphrasing). In any case, it was easy, delicious, and fast, and apparently memorable!

Here are my ingredients as pictured:

• large handful of kale (about 5-6 medium leaves), washed, large tough stems removed, and then cut into strips
• two handfuls of fingerling potatoes, washed, steamed, and then diced
• 1 roasted red pepper, cut into big chunks
• medium handful of flat parley leaves, washed, dried, and chopped coarsely
• very large handful of green onions, whites and greens chopped (probably 2-3 bunches)
• 2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 4 eggs (use more if desired)
• Olive oil, enough only to coat the pan (I used my large cast-iron skillet)
• Smoked paprika for shaking over eggs when done

Directions:
• Pour small amount of olive oil into skillet, heat over medium high
• Add garlic and white part of onions, cook until just starting to sizzle and the aroma in the room is intoxicating (just a few minutes)
• Add all other vegetables, stir around in oil, cook for a few minutes until kale is just starting to wilt
• Spread vegetables out evenly into pan, make little depressions in the vegetable medley for the number of eggs you are using
• Break one egg into each depression
• Cover and turn down heat to medium and cook until eggs whites and yolks are done as you like them (this might take 10-15 minutes)
• Sprinkle the eggs with smoked paprika for a lovely smoky, bacon-like flavor and a beautiful color
• If your cast-iron pan is well seasoned, the servings will just slip out with a spatula onto a plate.
• Serve with cooked brown rice or toast, fresh green salad, or fresh fruit for a filling meal.

(Photo: Kale vegetable medley with eggs in their "nests")

(Photo: lid on to help steam the vegetables and eggs)

(Photo: Eggs with Kale, sprinkled with smoked paprika, all ready to serve and eat!)

With kale and eggs in your refrigerator or out your back door, cooking does not get much easier than this. Enjoy - yum, yum!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Brassica "Tri-fecta" Stir Fry

2009-09-21T10:16:00.007-04:00

(Photo: Brassica "Tri-fecta" Stir Fry)

Remember in a previous post that I mentioned I made a stir-fry dish using three different types of Brassica vegetables: red cabbage, baby bok choy, and yellow cauliflower? It was beautiful, easy, and tasty. I think this recipe might be called the Brassica "Tri-fecta" Stir-fry!

Because I always have several Brassica vegetables on hand, this dish really became a way to simply use up what was hanging out in the refrigerator. The baby bok choy had been picked from our garden, and the yellow cauliflower and red cabbage had come from Tantré Farm, one of our area's local organic farms. Thus chopping up those vegetables, adding some onion, garlic, and whatever else might be available to throw in the wok or skillet is an easy supper. I added some firm tofu and served over the mixture rice. Any seasoning could be added, and I chose some sweet curry.

I'm sorry that the yellow cauliflower does not really show up well in the stir-fry photo. It is shaped like regular white cauliflower but is a beautiful soft shade of yellow. The flavor is milder than white cauliflower, but an advantage is the higher level of health-promoting molecules called carotenoids, of which beta-carotene (pre-vitamin A) is just one. Here is what it will look like at your local farmers' market or grocery store. Buy it the next time you are shopping for a new way to include your Brassica vegetables.

All Brassica vegetables are "winners", no need to think about which are the top three for a true "tri-fecta". So choose any from the list on the right side of my blog for your next easy, healthy, and delicious stir-fry dinner! Be sure to make enough to have for lunch the next day, too. Stir-fry recipes may seem time-consuming due to the amount of chopping, but here is the perfect place to enlist the help of your family members. Start your evening "catch-up" conversation at the counter-top instead of waiting for the table-top!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Research: Eat your broccoli and eat some raw

2009-09-20T20:38:00.001-04:00

Mom Was Right: Eat Your Broccoli and eat at least some of it raw. Why?

Two studies published this year help us both understand how one of the important molecules we obtain from broccoli (and other Brassica vegetables like kale and all those listed on the right side of this blog) helps optimize our health and also how to maximize the level in our body.

(1) The first study (Oral sulforaphane increases Phase II antioxidant enzymes in the human upper airway. Clin Immunol. 2009 Mar;130(3):244-51. Riedl MA, Saxon A, Diaz-Sanchez D) found that the molecule sulforaphane increases enzymes that cut inflammation in our respiratory system that have been linked to increased risk of allergic rhinits, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This was a human study that used varying doses of broccoli sprouts or alfalfa sprouts to test responses of various enzymes involved in these processes. The broccoli sprouts showed significant increase (~2-3 fold increase over baseline levels) in these detoxifying enzymes while the alfalfa sprouts showed no response.

(2) The second study (Bioavailability and kinetics of sulforaphane in humans after consumption of cooked versus raw broccoli, J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Nov 26;56(22):10505-9. Vermeulen M, Klöpping-Ketelaars IW, van den Berg R, Vaes WH) aimed to determine the bio-availability and kinetics (how fast it is metabolized) of sulforaphane from raw and cooked broccoli.

When consuming 200 grams of raw or cooked broccoli (approx 1/2 pound) with a warm meal, this study shows that consumption of raw broccoli results in faster absorption, higher bio-availability (37% versus 3.4%), and higher peak plasma amounts of sulforaphane, compared to cooked broccoli.

I will still consume some cooked broccoli (quickly stir-fried or very lightly steamed, in each case so the broccoli is still crunchy), but these studies add to data from other studies that at least some of these vegetables that we consume should be raw (and chewed well since that is a necessary step in the release of the sulforaphane molecule, thus developing maximum levels of sulforaphane to be absorbed into our body).

However, variety, variety, variety are still key for both types of foods to eat and preparation methods. It is well accepted that some nutrients or phytochemicals are better absorbed after cooking (lycopene from tomatoes is one example) because the cooking process breaks down the plant's cell walls, thus releasing the intra-cellular molecules to be more available for absorption.

At the very least, be sure to eat the decorative kale leaves that may come on your plate in a restaurant!

Where kale (along with broccoli and all other Brassica vegetables) are more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

What's in kale? Sulforaphane

2009-09-07T10:11:00.009-04:00

(Photo: Curly kale varieties from Tantré Farms at the Ann Arbor, MI Farmers' Market)

This post could also be entitled "Research: Kale and other brassica vegetables may protect against heart disease, too!"

A new study has shown that a compound called sulforaphane, from brassica vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kale, may protect arteries from disease by boosting a natural defense mechanism. (Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Sept 2009, “Activation of Nrf2 in Endothelial Cells Protects Arteries From Exhibiting a Pro-inflammatory State”, M. Zakkar, et al.)

Sulforaphane ia a compound most widely associated with broccoli. Highest levels of sulforaphane are found in commercially available broccoli sprouts, but are also present in all brassica vegetables. In this recently published research, sulforaphane as an individual molecule (not from a whole food), was shown to activate a protein called Nrf2 in arteries. While the protein is normally present and active in the inner lining of arteries, in areas of arteries that are susceptible to disease, i.e., the bends and branches of arteries, the researchers found that Nrf2 is inactive, which may explain why those areas are sights for inflammation, an early stage in the development of heart disease such as atherosclerosis.

Both cell studies and animal studies showed that sulforaphane could reduce inflammation at these high risk areas by turning on the activity of the Nrf2 protein. The researchers next steps are to test whether eating a vegetable such as broccoli (or kale or other brassicas) will have the same protective effect for both prevention and reducing progression in already diseased arteries.

Cruciferous vegetables, like kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts, contain high levels of the active plant chemicals called glucosinolates (see one of my previous blog postings about glucosinolates). The glucosinlates are metabolized in our body into another group of molecules called isothiocyanates, which are known to be powerful anti-carcinogens. The main isothiocyanate from broccoli is sulforaphane.

Considerable previous research regarding the potential benefits of broccoli and sulforaphane have focused on the anti-cancer effects. Epidemiological (population data) and animal studies have shown that diets high in cruciferous vegetables result in fewer instances of certain cancers, especially lung, colon, breast, ovarian and bladder cancer.

This study clearly adds to growing research that including kale and other brassica vegetables in the diet on a frequent, even daily, basis may have multiple health benefits, however, the portion size needed to experience these benefits will likely be much larger than just nibbling around the edges of the decorative kale on your plate once in a while!

As a tip, in addition to all the other brassica vegetables I grow or purchase, I do enjoy eating broccoli sprouts by adding them in salads. I also use them in place of lettuce in sandwiches or wraps especially during the winter if I cannot find lettuce to purchase grown by our local farmers in their hoop houses, which permit nearly year-round production of fresh greens even as far north as Michigan. (Note: I highly recommend obtaining all the various healthful molecules available in our food (many of which have not yet been studied) instead of purchasing a bottle of just one molecule as a dietary supplement.)

Last night I made a stir-fry dish using three different types of brassica vegetables: red cabbage, baby bok choy, and yellow cauliflower. It was beautiful and tasty. I finished it for lunch today. I think that easy recipe might be called the Brassica Tri-fecta Stir-fry! I'll post that recipe and a photo separately.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Transplanting arugula

2009-08-24T16:47:00.007-04:00

A friend dug up an aruluga plant to give me a start from her front-yard garden ~10 days ago. It is special - a variety called "Italian Rustic". I definitely would call its flavor 'assertive'! Only a few leaves need be added to a salad to give it some hefty bite.

I dug a big hole, filled it with fresh compost from our back-yard compost bin, watered the hole, and then made room for the plant's roots to spread out before watering again, and finally filling in the top of the hole with the dirt I dug out. It went from perky to flat overnight, and I wondered if I had killed it.

(Photo: transplanted Italian rustic arugula (flat, in the center of the photo), in among some kale, lavender, and strawberries right by our back garage door)

However, I faithfully kept the soil moist in between rains (not soaked). It took a week to become perky again. It must have finally decided that it likes its new home, and this is now what it looks like, just standing straight up, each leaf reaching for the sun, and downright spicy when I pick a leaf to sample. This variety is supposed to be cold tolerant, so I am hoping that having it right by my house, on the south side, in a little warmish micro-climate, will help it winter over so I can dig it up to take to its new home on our farm next spring and then just let it spread by seed popping, just like my friend's had (she had no trouble finding me a new volunteer start to dig up to share!).

Where kale (and other brassica vegetables) are more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Time to plant your fall and winter kale!

2009-08-20T12:56:00.004-04:00

The New York Times is not the first place I would look for gardening advice, but there they are with an article today, right on schedule, recommending that now is the time to start sowing seeds for fall and winter greens, including kale.

I have been collecting my kale seeds for the last month or so, that started from our one plant that first overwintered and grew back last year, just as this article describes.

I'll plant a little bit in my front or back yard at our current home but will plant most at our new farm as soon as the land is ready to sow.

Here are two recent photos:

(Photo: backyard kale plant so heavy with seed pods that the stalks are lying on top of the patio and strawberry plants)

(Photo: one Red Russian kale plant volunteer in our community garden, growing right next to the compost pile. Its roots must LOVE where they are growing!)

I forgot to send some kale seeds with my younger son when he left to return to his home in Seattle where he has taken a tiny tiny tiny piece of dirt in the courtyard of his apartment complex to plant his garden. Time to get some kale seeds growing while he waits for his tomatoes to ripen up. His neighbors took good care of his plants while he was on vacation here at home in Michigan and are now even offering to continue helping. Yes, there is something that feels good about putting your hands in the dirt and nurturing life (and good food). :-)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!
Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Founder of Whole Foods Market puts KALE in his breakfast smoothies!

2009-08-07T16:06:00.007-04:00

Alrighty! According to a recent interview with John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods Market, he makes a smoothie for breakfast every morning using almond, oat, rice, or soy milk, fresh fruit in season, plus fresh kale or spinach leaves!

Oh wow - I like the sound of that!

Although I have been making a soy shake/smoothie for breakfast most mornings since my breast cancer diagnosis in 1995, I only started putting kale in my morning shake a few years ago. I first heard of doing this from a friend who has survived a brain tumor years beyond her doctors' expectations. Her 'secret'? In addition, to surgery, chemo, and radiation, she began drinking my SuperSoy and Phytochemical Shake recipe every morning but with the twist of "2 handfuls of kale leaves" as additional ingredients.

I don't know what 'two handfuls' really means for her. I am content to put in 1-2 leaves (minus the thick stems). I still like to see my smoothie be the color of the fruit and not have an overwhelming vegetable taste. I do not like my smoothies as sweet as most people and often find myself adding frozen unsweetened cranberries or unflavored yogurt to cut some of the sweetness if using sweetened soy milk or sweetened fruit, so having a slightly more veggie flavor as background is just fine with me.

Of course, my friend's account is what is called an anecdote or case study, with only an N=1. Her individual success is not a research study or 'proof' of any kind. However, kale is off the charts when it comes to being loaded with molecules that are both antioxidants and have other health-promoting benefits (including cancer-fighting activity), too.

What's not to like and try? Many thanks to John Mackey and Whole Foods Market for finally getting back to promoting healthy ingredients and food preparation at home as part of ultra-healthy (and enjoyable!) life habits. Purchasing less junk food (even organic junk food) leaves more money for purchasing healthy produce from both Whole Foods Market and local organic growers at your own Farmers' Markets.

Here is my original recipe with the kale leaves added as an optional ingredient, developed back in 1995, even before the word "smoothie" made it to the Midwest. Experiment yourself!

Diana's SuperSoy and Phytochemical Shake

Ingredients:

2 1/2 oz. soft or silken tofu (1/6 of a 1 lb. block)

3/4 cup of soy milk (I use unsweetened)

1 large carrot or 6 - 8 baby carrots

3/4 cup of orange juice

3/4 cup fresh or frozen fruit (no sugar added)

1-2 tablespoons of wheat or oat bran

1-2 tablespoons of wheat germ

1-2 tablespoons of ground or whole flax seed

(Kale leaves to taste)

Mix together in a blender for 1-2 minutes, then drink and enjoy! Yes, it makes a lot. I drink this entire recipe for breakfast, which might take me an hour to consume. My boys (now ages 26 and 31) can drink this entire shake in a few minutes and also need cereal or a bagel to fill up for breakfast.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate or in my blender!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

PS - I found a copy of the full interview with John Mackey at the following URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124942686325006009.html, but it is possible that the Wall Street Journal may limit viewing the full article. However, with some searching, I'll bet you can find it on the web somewhere.

Coming Back!

2009-07-26T16:33:00.006-04:00

(Photo: Kale flowers on the over-wintered Red Russian kale in our Project Grow community garden getting ready to make zillions of kale seeds, if I don't eat all the flowers first!)

After 3 busy months (read my full update at my dianadyer blog post today), I am ready to start blogging again. I have missed doing so and have lots of ideas backlogged to post up. My life going forward is also going to be very busy, but my hope is that it will be busy in a more controlled chaotic way, rather than just plain chaotic, so that I can keep up with some regular postings.

This "hedge" of kale started with a packet of seeds purchased at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Charlottesville, VA, and planted in our community garden during 2007. We harvested the kale through the late fall of 2007 and then just left all the plants in the garden without cleaning them out. Most of the plants died back, but one "came back" in the spring of 2008, which we watched both flower and produce seeds that were subsequently collected and planted in the late summer of 2008 in a raised bed after the garlic was pulled out. We did mulch this bed of kale during the winter 2008, and much to our happiness, ALL of these plants came back in the spring 2009 (thus this summer "hedge" of kale in the photo).

We now have plenty of kale to eat on a daily basis (still edible the second year although the leaves are not nearly as big) plus even the flowers and tender early seed pods are tasty and edible (I use them raw in salads). Perhaps cutting some flowers and early seed pods to eat stimulates the plants to produce more and more and more flowers and seed pods as there is clearly no shortage. In fact, the kale hedge is now nearly always flat on the ground in our garden from both the weight of the zillion mature seed pods and the flock of House sparrows that is always hanging out in the hedge, scattering in a hundred different directions in one big fluttering poof! when we walk up to our garden. I'm not sure if this raised bed will have a zillion-zillion kale plants growing voluntarily next year (or this fall!) or if the sparrows have been diligent and efficient in finding and eating all of the seeds that have fallen. I'll be sure to watch.

In any case, I think we have found one strain of this variety of kale that has the natural genetics to withstand the northern cold winter. It will be interesting to see how many years we can keep it going strong! I am collecting seeds now for a fall crop and also next spring.

(Photo: Kale with flowers and early seed pods - the spiky things near the center and on the right of the photo. The pods eventually dry and turn brown with the tiny black seeds just exploding out of the pod when touched, scattering to all corners of the garden unless you can carefully catch them into some type of container such as ziploc bag or even a garden hat!)

It's great to be back - where kale is still more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Where have I been?

2009-04-19T16:27:00.000-04:00

Two weeks without a new post begs the question. I am sorry to say that I need to take an open-ended hiatus from my blogs. My mother had a stroke on April 3rd, thus there has been no time to think about blogging. She is currently in a rehabilitation facility, but there are still many unknowns and many decisions to make.

I have LOVED blogging. I didn't know what to expect when I first started, but I have found that sharing my thoughts (both personal and professional) plus photos has actually brought me much happiness. So it is only because my time is needed elsewhere for the foreseeable future that I am putting all of my blogs "on hold".

Wherever you may be, enjoy the new life that comes with spring! I'll be back just as soon as I can be. :-)

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Research: Daily intake of Broccoli Sprouts Helpful

2009-04-06T13:12:00.005-04:00

(Photo: Broccoli Sprouts)

Helpful for what? Good question!

A recently published article showed that feeding 70 grams (a little more than 2 ounces of broccoli sprouts daily for two months to 48 people with a documented infection of Helicobacter pylori (the bacterium known to cause stomach ulcers that may ultimately lead to stomach cancer) significantly reduced several bio-markers of both infection and inflammation. For comparison purposes, a control group was fed the same amount of alfalfa sprouts for the same time period with no beneficial changes seen.

This study is the first that has been done in humans documenting this beneficial effect, which is important in and of itself. However, the really important point is that the values showing the reduced inflammation and reduced infection returned to their original levels two months after the intake of the broccoli sprouts was stopped.

Now I would venture a guess that consuming 70 grams of broccoli sprouts daily is going to be boring if not difficult, and that statement is coming from a "fan" of all things Brassica! What this study does not determine is the minimum consumption of broccoli sprouts needed to produce this benefical effect in a daily diet or even as a weekly intake, nor does it demonstrate that other brassica foods containing a level of the presumed active compound(s) would not also be effective.

However, as I mentioned, the study clearly showed that daily consumption was beneficial, was not harmful, and that stopping consumption permitted a return to potentially harmful levels of molecules indicating both chronic infection and inflammation.

Broccoli sprouts are commonly available in most grocery stores, available from a couple of different sources. I am not "promoting" the purchasing of any one brand (i.e., I have no financial connection to any company that creates this product for purchase). In fact, there is information on one website that tells where to purchase the same seeds that company uses (same as those used in this research study), which I may do for home sprouting. In the meantime, I will say that I purchase broccoli sprouts regularly and use them on salads and in place of lettuce in a sandwich or wrap.

My bottom line: That should be easy to guess! Strive for daily consumption, i.e., 365 days per year, of kale (or other Brassica vegetable, including broccoli sprouts) to obtain a daily intake of delicious, cancer-fighting and overall health-promoting foods.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Mustard Greens - oh yeah, they have a bite!

2009-04-02T23:37:00.003-04:00

(Photo: Fresh mustard greens and chopped garlic)

I can't tell you how many times I have gotten to the Farmers' Market too late to purchase mustard greens from Brines Farm. My hand practically jumped out to snatch the bag I saw on their table last Saturday. I did contain myself from "snatching" but very happily put my greens in my market bag already thinking about what I would do with them at home.

I actually ate a good third of the leaves raw (I shared some with my husband so he could taste them raw before I cooked them), enjoying the punchy taste, slightly bitter but not overwhelmingly so.

I simply stir-fried them in a bit of olive oil with fresh sliced garlic and some roasted red peppers.

The leaves cook down a lot quite quickly, the whole bag was only two generous servings (of course I did eat quite a few raw before putting them in the pan!). The slightly bitter taste mellows out when cooked. It only has a little bite and was a perfect complement to baked fish and roasted potatoes with rosemary.

Like other Brassica greens, these are a great source of vitamin C, A, E, folate, potassium, manganese, calcium, and are a downright powerhouse for vitamin K (one serving containing over 500% of the daily recommended dietary intake) for all those important blood clotting and bone building functions.

There has been some very preliminary research evaluating the role of vitamin K in type 2 diabetes, with supplementation of vitamin K1 (the type found in mustard greens) able to reduce insulin resistance in older men (but not older women).
"Effect of Vitamin K Supplementation on Insulin Resistance in Older Men and Women”
Authors: M. Yoshida, et. al., , Diabetes Care, November 2008, Volume 31, Pages 2092-2096.

I'm heading back next Saturday to see if I can get there early enough for some more! I want to save enough to add to a fresh green salad, so the bitter leaves can become an accent.

Where kale (and other Brassicas) are more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale on the Radio! - Podcast is finally up

2009-03-30T23:29:00.003-04:00

Remember back in February when I was invited to talk about the health benefits of eating kale on the radio show 101 Foods to Save Your Life? The podcast for that show also featured my friend Maggie Green, RD of The Green Apron Co. as a guest. Here is the link to hear the show (scroll down to February 28), and it is also listed on the side of the blog under "Blog Publicity".

Enjoy listening to our enthusiasm for eating kale!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Scenes of Spring!

2009-03-22T19:36:00.006-04:00

The season of dirty hands, knees, and paws has officially begun. These are some of the seeds I got at our local seed exchange yesterday (the brassica vegetables kohlrabi, watercress, and Chinese Broccoli or Candlestick Gai Lan, and endive, pictured plus green soybeans called edamame, Cherokee Cornfield dried beans, and black-seeded Blue Lake green beans, not pictured). So, since directions for planting kohlrabi say that seeds can go in the ground as soon as the dirt can be worked, I planted 2 short rows this afternoon in our community garden with more to be planted in a couple of weeks.

It seems I did not take a photo of my rows of kohlrabi after I planted them (not that it would look like much!), but I did take several other photos of our community garden today to give you an idea of the little plot of land that we love and care for. There were several other gardeners with perennial plots who were out to do some clean-up, planting, rejoicing and enjoying the sunshine plus the (relatively) warm temperature, while remembering that we set a record for the amount of snow during the month of March last year in 2008.

Baby turnips and greens from Brines Farm, Dexter MI, purchased at the Ann Arbor Farmers' Market yesterday 3/21/09

Purchasing the little turnips and greens from Brines yesterday inspired me to look in my own garden for any possible overwintered turnips that were planted last fall. Well, ours are not as beautiful as Shannon's, and we have no real greens attached to them, but I was pleasantly surprised to actually find some small turnips in the ground that are intact and edible. We'll mix them with Shannon's for a yummy brassica veggie with tonight's supper.

Kaya, Garden Dog, surveying the garden from the one shady spot this afternoon. Once planting really begins, her 'indiscretion' about where to step with her heavy paws will mean that she'll either need to be on a "short leash" or left at home.

Earthworm quickly looking for a path back underground in the raised bed where the kohlrabi will be planted!

Garlic, two of our 309 cloves planted last fall, is peeking up! What little garlic we have left from last year clearly knows that it is spring as tiny green shoots are starting to form inside the heads we have stored in our basement.

Our bee box (no, not a bee hive) which provides shelter and an egg site for many of the other species of bees besides honeybees that are necessary to pollinate our vegetables.

Our overwintered kale (Red Russian curly variety). The kale that we put under a deep layer of straw made it through this long, cold winter. I did not take a pix of the other rows that did not get a blanket, but they are dead, dead, dead. These plants should all start growing soon and will ultimately flower and develop seeds to plant in the fall, starting the cycle over again.

I'm sorry the interesting rock did not look as beautiful in the photo as it did in real life. However, I was also interested in the feather lying next to it. When I began looking around, I saw many of these same feathers within close proximity to this one. Clearly some aspect of the circle of life, i.e., the food chain, happened in our garden or at least very nearby.

My favorite photo, even though it might arguably be the least beautiful. However, those viewing this who "know their birds" will be able to see enough to know that this is a Song sparrow and will also be able to hear its beautiful song in their head and heart. Nothing says spring is back like the beautiful song of the Song sparrow, nearly always sung from the tippy top of a small tree or shrub, right where this one was perching while singing its heart out looking for love just a few feet from me.

Ah, spring! More to come, much more in fact since it is only officially been Spring for 2 days. In Michigan, we savor each and every day that the daylight gets longer, we get more sunshine (and vitamin D), the air gets warmer, we can smell the earth, and more and more life reappears. We just soak it in!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate! It gets me outside to truly feel spring. :-)

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

St. Patrick's Day Kale

2009-03-18T14:34:00.006-04:00

(Photo: Arbor Brewing Company's Vegetarian Stew with Kale)

We got home from vacation Monday night and went out for dinner at Arbor Brewing Co., our favorite local brewery, knowing it might be a little 'crazy' if people were starting to celebrate St. Patrick's Day a wee bit early. Fortunately, it seemed just like a typical low-key Monday night, so we had plenty of time to peruse their menu (made of local ingredients as much as possible) plus chat with the greeter and our server. ABC's chef Nicole had come up with a vegetarian St. Patrick's Day Stew of potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and onions topped with steamed cabbage and KALE (!!) plus some Irish soda bread that actually looked like it might have been made with whole wheat flour. It was a scrumptious supper, perfectly complemented with one of their own beers. The portion served was large enough that I ate only half in the restaurant, taking the rest home for lunch the next day. So the photo above is just the half portion I ate at home on Tuesday.

For our supper on St. Patrick's Day, we bought a tiny piece of corned beef, potatoes, cabbage, and kale, and following the suggestion of one this blog's readers, we mixed the kale in with the potatoes to make green mashed potatoes. We steamed the kale separately from the potatoes, cut the kale into small pieces in the food processor after steaming, and then mixed it in when mashing the potatoes (we add a tiny bit of homemade unflavored yogurt, olive oil, finely chopped fresh onion and fresh garlic to make our mashed potatoes). Yum, yum, yum! I forgot to mention that our home meal was also complemented by a home-brewed beer made by my husband; this glass was called "Mom's Phyto-porter".

(Photo: Green Mashed Potatoes, close-up)

Life doesn't get much better than this, either at Arbor Brewing Co. or our own home cooking and brewing. Green potatoes are perfect for St. Patrick's Day, but don't reserve this unusual combination for just one day per year. This recipe can be enjoyed anytime during the year.

Happy St Patrick's Day (one day late), where kale is a wee bit more than just decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Kale is getting its due respect!

2009-03-13T18:52:00.004-04:00

(Photo: Dried tomato risotto with added kale)

In addition to the flurry of kale recipes published in the New York Times last week, I was informed today that my tip "How to use Kale in your cooking, and not as garnish" was chosen for the 'Nutrition Month RD Tip' feature on HealthCastle.com for their 550k monthly readers. You may see what I had to suggest for both why and how to enjoy eating kale here. Although I did not mention adding kale to risotto in my tips that were published, you can see how easy it was to do in the above photo. In addition to adding a healthy ingredient, the recipe is now even more beautiful!

HealthCastle.com is the largest nutrition web site run by Registered Dietitians. It is voluminous and packed with easy to find and easy to read reliable information that will help you better manage your health through healthy eating, with a focus on preventive health. So check out what I had to say and then browse through their great website. I'll bet you'll find something of interest there that is helpful, healthful, and delicious!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

What's in kale? Pesticides

2009-03-12T22:46:00.005-04:00

(Photo: Kale 2008, early season in our garden last year)

Oh dear, not good, not good at all! The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has just updated The Pesticide Shopper's Guide, a wallet-size guide that lists the 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest level of pesticide contamination (i.e., the "dirty dozen") and the 15 with the least amount (i.e., "the Clean 15"). EWG has been compiling data and releasing this helpful information for 15 years, and this is the first year that I believe kale has shown up on the "dirty dozen" list.

One kale sample had 10 pesticides (these were rinsed samples). We grow ours organically with no pesticides, and it grows robustly with minimal to no pest damage. I actually recently read an article that showed organically fertilized kale had higher biomass production compared to the plants grown with synthetic fertilizer plus the butterfly larvae (i.e., pests) grew faster on the kale grown with synthetic fertilizers. Soil fertility management and pest responses: a comparison of organic and synthetic fertilization. J Econ Entomol. 2009 Feb;102(1):160-9.

What is particularly helpful about this EWG list is the guidance it gives shoppers who need to prioritize their food dollars (really, who doesn't?) to choose to spend money for organic produce that makes a potential health benefit. This new worrisome information about the pesticide levels on kale, while being one of the healthiest vegetables to really give you "bang for your buck" in terms of nutrients and phytochemicals, is reason to look for kale grown by organic farmers, preferably crops grown locally to really maximize the retention of those nutrients.

Sounds to me like organic kale is the way to grow for numerous reasons!

In addition to printing out the wallet guide to summary of clean and dirty fruits and vegetables, here is the link to the full list of the 47 fruits and vegetables that were tested.

This information will have me thinking twice before I eat kale as decoration on my plate unless I know the kale has been grown organically.

Where organic kale is much more than just decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Diana's Spicy Greens with Bulgur and Tofu

2009-03-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

I first tasted a recipe called Spicy Greens with Bulgur (Tchicha bel Khoubiz) last summer and was excited to see that the recipe was recently posted on the blog for the Michigan Lady Food Bloggers. My friend Warda (who blogs at 64sqftkitchen and brought this dish for us to try last summer) has used many types of greens for this recipe. However, the original recipe calls for a variety of greens called khoubiz or bakool, found growing wild in the fields of North Africa, that tastes like a cross between arugula (rocket leaves) and watercress with a hint of acidity. Warda says there is no real equivalent for those greens here in the US, so she likes using a combination of spinach and arugula, which is a Brassica green, thus I have included this recipe on my kale blog.

However, I had a big pile of young, tender, and beautiful beet greens to use that I bought at the Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market last Saturday, which I certainly wanted to eat while they are still fresh and delicious. So I gave them a try in this recipe. Young beet greens do not add the same “bite” as the original recipe probably has, but the bright green leaves and deeply-colored red stems give the final recipe a gorgeous hue!

Why eat beet greens if they are not a Brassica vegetable, and so do not contain the health-promoting sulfur molecules unique to the greens like kale and its many relatives? Young, tender beet greens are both tasty and a great source of vitamin C, vitamin K (needed for healthy blood clotting and bone-building) along with the phytochemicals beta carotene (pre-vitamin A), lutein, and xeazanthin (all needed for healthy vision).

I made just a few adjustments to Warda’s original recipe.

First, I added some firm tofu to the mixture as a protein source to make it an easy and complete vegetarian (vegan) meal. I’ll bet that adding a small amount of cooked chicken to this dish would be tasty, too, and a tasty way to add a healthy amount of meat that complements a dish instead of being the main attraction. Any type of dried beans could have been added instead of tofu for another healthy, plant protein source, too.

Secondly, I used tomato-vegetable juice instead of broth and tomato paste.

Thus, with full credit to and inspiration from my friend Warda, I’ve changed the name from Warda’s mother's Spicy Greens with Bulgur to Diana’s Spicy Greens with Bulgur and Tofu.

Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1 tsp cumin, freshly ground
- 1 tsp red chili pepper flakes
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
- ½# extra-firm tofu, cut into small pieces ~ ½ inch cubes
- 3 cups tomato juice (low-sodium)
- 3 tbsp fine bulgur
- 1 bunch young, tender beet greens, including stems (roughly chop to equal ~4 cups)
- 1 tbsp cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp parsley leaves, roughly chopped
- Salt, Black Pepper

Method:
Wash the beet greens. Drain or shake off the excess water and chop roughly, including the stems. Set aside.

(Photo: 4 cups of chopped fresh, young beet greens)

In a pan, heat the olive oil. Add the onions and cook on a medium heat until translucent but not brown, about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, if you have a mortar and pestle, pound the garlic with turmeric, cumin, and pepper flakes to a paste; if not, chop garlic very fine and mix with spices.
Add the garlic paste or mixture to the onions and stir to incorporate.
Add the tofu pieces, stir to coat with the spices, cook a few minutes until starting to brown on some sides.

(Photo: Onions, spices, and tofu being sauteéd)

Add the tomato juice and bring to a boil.
Add the bulgur and beet greens. Stir again.
Lower the heat to a very gentle simmer and cook covered until the bulgur is tender, and beet greens are wilted but still very bright green, about 15 minutes, depending on the variety of your bulgur.

(Photo: Full recipe simmering with bulgur added)

Uncover the pan and add the fresh herbs to the sauce. Stir and cook for another 2 minutes and then remove from the heat.
Season with salt and pepper if desired. Taste sauce to determine if the “heat” is enough for your taste. If not, add some hot pepper spice of your choice for garnish and kick.

Serves 2 (generously, "cover the plate" servings) to 4 (as more of a side dish or lunch size serving as pictured in this bowl).

Serve with some whole wheat pita bread to mop up any left-over juices, a fresh green salad, and maybe some chilled fruit. The photo of this dish on the Michigan Lady Food Bloggers blog shows it garnished with crushed, hot chili peppers. You can decide it you want or need to add that. For my taste (and I do like spicy hot food) this dish was definitely spicy enough without any added chili powder as a garnish!

Warda says this dish keeps well in the fridge for up to 2 days, although she never recalls keeping it longer than one day. I don’t expect that it will last that long in my refrig either!

From start to finish, this recipe took only 30 minutes to make, which included all the chopping. During the time that the recipe was finishing up on the stove-top after adding the bulgur, I had plenty of time to feed our dog, empty the dishwasher, clean up the prep area of the kitchen, start to load the dishwasher up again, sweep the kitchen floor, sort the mail, and get the table cleared off ready to eat.

This is home fast food, tasty beyond delicious, ultra-healthy, and easy to make. The beet greens were the only ingredient in this recipe that is not part of my standard grocery store list and/or already on my pantry shelves. Pick up some available greens soon at your favorite place to purchase locally-grown fresh produce and enjoy this delicious dish!

Where kale (and also beet greens) are more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Kale Chips

2009-03-08T08:30:00.002-04:00

(cross posted from my dianadyer blog on August 3, 2008)

In the Dyer home, kale has long been more than just decoration on a plate. In other words, here's what to do with kale that just keeps on growing!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I ate kale chips for the first time at the Ann Arbor Lady Food Bloggers picnic. They were SO delicious that I just knew they would become a regular way that we would be eating kale in the future. I have already made them 3-4 times in the past month since I first tasted them.

I am still using our garden grown kale that was planted this past spring. It's now early August - I thought the kale might be done or bitter by this point in the summer, but it's all still growing with the young leaves very tasty and tender. Our one short row is a mix of the curly green kale that you see most often in the grocery store or as the ubiquitous decoration on a restaurant plate plus some flat varieties like red Russian kale. Fortunately, our resident garden groundhog does not seem to bother the kale (however, it has devoured most of my beans, including all the heirloom seeds I brought back from my trip to Monticello - can you hear me crying?)

Enough intro and/or rambling! On to the recipe and directions.

Kale Chips

Take a large bunch of kale leaves and trim off any tough stems (save the stems to later make soup stock). Wash the leaves, shake off excess water, tear the leaves into "chip size" pieces. A leaf the size of my palm would make 2-3 pieces.

Put all leaves into a large bowl. Sprinkle ~1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar over the leaves then add ~1 Tbsp. olive oil to the leaves. Next sprinkle with dried herbs or spices of your choice. Twice now I have used a few shakes from a bottle of a salad mix called Rocky Mountain Seasoning from The Spice House in Evanston, IL given to us by good friends. Use your hands to thoroughly mix and coat the leaves with the vinegar, oil, and seasoning.

Spread the kale leaves in a single layer on a large cookie sheet. I have used a sheet of parchment paper to make clean up easy, but just a spray or bit of additional olive oil on the cookie sheet also keeps the leaves from sticking to the cookie sheet.

Heat the cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven until the leaves get crisp. They will wilt at first but then start to crisp up. The color of the kale leaves will darken from a bright green to a deeper green. I do carefully turn them with a spatula after about 10 minutes and usually bake them for a total of 20-30 minutes. I check them often at the 15 and 20 minute marks to make sure they do not burn. Serve right away or they are also very very good at room temperature. In each case, a full cookie sheet of kale leaves was eaten in one sitting by two people (either by my husband and me or our younger son and me).

If I ever have any extra kale chips, I will try saving them in an airtight container to eat later as chips or even crumbling them into small pieces to use as an interesting salad addition or topping.

See the empty plate? All gone! Please let me know if you try eating kale this way and if you and your family enjoy it.

Kale is an excellent source of calcium and along with the other plants that belong to the broccoli family is power-packed with phyto-chemicals that promote general good health plus being a terrific cancer "phyter". I actually try to have so many fresh vegetables from this family on hand in my frig that I eat at least 1-2 servings from this power group daily (yep-daily!) as part of my efforts to increase my odds for long-term cancer survivorship. If you plan to always have kale available and you have the oven going for something else, it only takes a few minutes to prepare the kale chips according to this easy recipe to bake at the same time.

To get ready for planting our fall crop of kale, I finally collected the seed pods today that developed on the one plant that wintered over last year. I could see some of them had finally popped, scattering the seeds in the garden and the garden paths, and many more seed pods were also "ready to go".

Did I have anything with me specifically in which to collect the pods so that I could find those itty-bitty seeds again if they popped on the way home? No, of course not. So I simply put them into my garden hat, which worked quite well! By the time I got to the parking lot and the car, many of the pods had popped by themselves with the tiny black seeds now sitting nicely in the bottom of my hat (see photo - thank goodness this was not a straw hat as I am sure these tiny seeds would have fallen through).

When I showed the small seeds to a young woman who was in the parking lot at the community garden, she said it seemed like a miracle that such tiny seeds produced our vegetables. I couldn't help but smile and agree!! and ask if she had read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, in which the author Barbara Kingsolver so eloquently describes the many miracles that unfold every day from the hard work of those who grow and produce food either for their own table or for us to eat.

The next time you're at a Farmers' Market, please thank the farmers for their hard work and the many miracles they have brought to market!

Where kale is definitely more than just decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

The following 7 comments were imported from the August 3, 2008 posting:

Kateri said...: I'm making this tomorrow! Thanks for sharing. I have so much kale in my garden right now.August 3, 2008 11:53 PM
Jen of A2eatwrite said...: I'm so glad you posted this, Diana - I didn't pay enough attention when Victoria was talking about making them. I'm very excited! August 4, 2008 11:44 AM

kim said...: Hi Diana
I learned about kale chips from Deb at Tantré. They are my most favorite way of eating this incredible vegetable. I might love kale chips even more than potato chips, which, for me, is saying a lot. :) Thank you for posting the recipe - I think everyone should know about kale chips!!!
KimAugust 5, 2008 1:35 PM

TeacherPatti said...: Victoria's kale chips were awesome! (So were Kim's fried sage leaves,come to think of it). Something I'd never think to do on my own, and oh so good!!!, August 5, 2008 6:42 PM

anne said...: I am now sold on kale chips. Thanks for the post and recipe.
Anne, Charlotte, NC, August 20, 2008 1:12 PM

Faye said...: Yum - just made my first batch - thank you, Diana! August 24, 2008 6:36 PM

Dunrie said...: Mmmmmm!
Kale is my new favorite, and Ed pointed me to your blog.
I tried this kale chips recipe from Bon Appetit, but I like your idea to add herbs/spices.
Definitely trying this. March 7, 2009 9:25 AM

How should I eat my kale, raw or cooked?

2009-03-07T18:09:00.003-05:00

How should I eat kale (and other brassicas)? Which way is best, raw or cooked? Is there any advantage or reason to eat it one way versus the other? As with all questions, there is rarely only one right answer. Life consists mostly of shades of grey, and the answer to this question is the same (only maybe it is shades of green and purple).

Several months ago, I signed up to receive all research articles published each week about Brassica vegetables in peer-reviewed journals. I have to say that I am rather surprised (pleasantly so) to see that 5-10 articles are published nearly every single week, thus I have accumulated a little stockpile of interesting articles to summarize on this blog that are relevant to eating these health-promoting greens. With 5-10 articles being published weekly, I don't think I'll run out of information to share!

In spite of my backlogged articles, I am choosing to summarize one I saw today, because it gets right to the heart of responding to the very practical question I posed at the top of this post. Raw versus cooked. That is an appropriate beginning. In subsequent posts, I'll explore what is known about the effects of different types of cooking on these vegetables, but for today, let's start at the very beginning.

Steam cooking significantly improves in vitro bile acid binding of collard greens, kale, mustard greens, broccoli, green bell pepper, and cabbage.
Nutr Res. 2008 Jun;28(6):351-7., Kahlon TS, Chiu MC, Chapman MH.

This study compared the vegetables listed above (which includes several Brassica vegetables) when raw versus when lightly steamed for their ability to bind to bile acids in a simulated human situation. Using a pharmaceutical drug to bind the bile acids after they are secreted by our gall bladder into our digestive tract is a strategy that has been used to lower serum cholesterol levels, reducing risk of heart disease.

Thus this study evaluated the effects of these various vegetables' ability to bind bile acids when prepared under different conditions (raw versus steamed) compared to the drug often used (cholestyramine). This study is of importance because bile acid binding potential has been related to lowering the risk of heart disease and that of some cancer. If we know which foods are able to lead to similar favorable outcomes as medications, a practical and easily achievable alternative strategy to the use of costly medications with potential side effects could be recommended.

Compared to the drug to cholestyramine, the bile acid binding was: for the collard greens, kale, and mustard greens, 13%; broccoli, 10%; Brussels sprouts and spinach, 8%; green bell pepper, 7%; and cabbage, 5%. Steam cooking significantly improved the bile acid binding of all the vegetables tested except the spinach and Brussels sprouts when compared with previously observed bile acid binding values by the same authors for these vegetables when raw.

Thus, while not as powerful as a drug (food rarely is when only looking at one isolated food or molecule within food versus a total diet and lifestyle), it is clear that including steam-cooked collard greens, kale, mustard greens (these three being the highest of those tested), broccoli, green bell pepper, and cabbage in our daily diet as health-promoting vegetables should be emphasized. These green/leafy vegetables, when consumed regularly after steam cooking, would lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. In addition, increased binding of bile acids in our digestive tract may also be associated with reduced risk of various cancers, thus recommending consumption of lightly steamed Brassica greens and other vegetables is certainly recommended for optimizing overall health.

I will continue to look for articles or information that can help answer the practical questions such as 'raw versus cooked'. At this point, my bottom line is still variety, variety, variety for both types of foods eaten and how they are prepared. Some methods may clearly be "out" (i.e., I remember a study a couple of years ago that microwaved broccoli in 2 cups of water ?? and found a dramatic reduction in nutrients, not an unexpected result with such a poor cooking technique, but of course that study got lots of press), however, my guess is that more ways will be in than out.

Enjoy your kale and other Brassica vegetables both raw and also lightly steamed. I always use a steamer basket, and I always save the small amount of water I used for steaming, putting it in the freezer to use for future vegetable stock. Hopefully, the majority of healthful nutrients that may have been leached out during the cooking process will still be unchanged and available when consumed at some point in the future.

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

Recipe: Apple and Kale Muffins

2009-03-05T08:00:00.001-05:00

(Apple and Kale Spice Muffins, cooling)

APPLE AND KALE SPICE MUFFINS

* 1-1/2 C organic whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat flour)
* 1 tsp. each baking soda and baking powder
* ½ teaspoon salt
* ½ tsp. cinnamon
* ¼ tsp. nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon grated vanilla bean (or use ½ teaspoon vanilla extract)
* ⅓ C honey
* 1 egg
* ½ C sour milk or plain unflavored yogurt (I used the yogurt)
* ⅓ C canola oil
* ½ tsp. vanilla (see above)
* 1-½ C grated apples or carrots (used cored, unpeeled apples chopped in my food processor)
* 1 C finely chopped kale or raw leafy green vegetable (I took off the stems and then chopped the leaves fine in my food processor)
* ½ C each any dried fruit and chopped nuts (optional, but adds a crunch and is also nutritious and yummy enough for a dessert muffin, too!)

Preheat oven to 400.

In a mixing bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices.

In another bowl, mix honey, egg, yogurt, oil, vanilla, apples, kale, dried fruit and nuts.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, stirring just till moistened. Fill 12 typical size greased muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Made 12 very full muffins.

(Muffins cooling on top of the refrigerator - if our dog, Kaya, aka "food stealer", can get these, nothing is safe!)

Yet another way to add kale (or other Brassica greens) to an otherwise unsuspecting recipe! You and your family will be curious about these "green specks" but will not have any possible objections to the taste of these delicious, colorful, and ultra-healthy muffins. Serve for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks. :-)

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

365 Days of Kale

Go for the Greens!

Recipe: Garlic Kale

Recipe: I found the missing carrots!

Recipe with Carrot-less Directions

Here comes the Sun! and Kale!

Kale in Kansas City!

I not only eat kale, I wear it, too!

Recipe: Pasta with Kale

I'm Rooting for Kale!!!

All Hail Kale!

Is kale on that pumpkin?

Two haikus - Just for fun!

Recipe Reprise - Kale and Cabbage Gratin

Garlic and Kale - together at last!

Just for fun - Kale quotes and t-shirts

Food, not pills - again!

What to do with turnips!

The Best Looking Kale Chip EVER!

Still cooking! Kale Lasagna recipe again.

Recipe: Kale-Potato-Fish Soup

Here's what we're doing and here's what we're eating!

A kitchen as green as kale

Article: Food: The Omnivore's (and Vegetarian's) Labyrinth

Kale and other Brassica seed recommendations

A Green Kale Blog Shout-out!

Food, not pills

"Thickets of cruciferous vegetables"

Kale and Paczki??

"Kale starts to sweeten up in March"

Recipe: Slow-baked beans with kale (my version)

Kale for the Super Bowl

Another Kale Blog Shout-out

Kale Blog Shout-out

Micro-kale to Macro-kale

Sweet Potato-Kale Patties - version 2

What's New? The 2011 Cancer Victory Garden™ Calendar

Eating raw broccoli helps bladder cancer survivors

Eating Brassica vegetables can lead to lower breast cancer risk

Research Shows that Bacteria Boost a Brassica's Benefits!

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Another good laugh - a song this time!

A new use for kale and a good laugh!

Kale and Garlic - Garlic and Kale

Kale Blog Publicity - and another great pesto recipe

Recipe: Garlic Scape - Kale Pesto

Garlic - not kale this time!

"The dose is the poison"

Top 10 Ways to Use Kale!

Finding Gardening Space

What is a Superfood?

Cooking Methods - again

I'll be watching Dirt: The Movie

Recipe: Kale and Cabbage Gratin

Kale Blog Publicity

Soup and Salad

Kale Alert

Kale for Hair?? This is GREAT - really!

Something new under the sun: "Flower-Sprout"

Recipe: One-Pot Supper with Kale

Recipe - Risotto with Kale

Garlic Kale Sweet Potato Soup Recipe

Another Simple Supper - Rapini and Pasta

Simple Kale Supper

What's in kale and how to keep it there!

Recipe: Eggs with Kale

Recipe: Brassica "Tri-fecta" Stir Fry

Research: Eat your broccoli and eat some raw

Mom Was Right: Eat Your Broccoli and eat at least some of it raw. Why?

What's in kale? Sulforaphane

Transplanting arugula

Time to plant your fall and winter kale!

Founder of Whole Foods Market puts KALE in his breakfast smoothies!

Coming Back!

Where have I been?

Research: Daily intake of Broccoli Sprouts Helpful

Mustard Greens - oh yeah, they have a bite!

Kale on the Radio! - Podcast is finally up