Kale & Butternut Squash Salad: Massage Your Kale

That sounds naughty...right?

Like you, I resolve every year to eat a little better. And every year, I succumb to the Nutella-buttercream stuffed whoopie pie at the expense of, well, my waistline.

This year however, I'm off to a good start, especially since I stumbled up on a really delicious recipe courtesy of the lovely folks over at the fab Food 52. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, please do so. It's a wealth of cooking info and a great source for really good, solid recipes.

As I looked through the site hoping for some inspiration on cooking with winter greens, I found a kale salad recipe from a restaurant in NYC called Northern Spy. You can check out the original recipe here, along with a gorgeous pic of their finished product.

Even though the recipe looked pretty darn good, I did a little more research into eating raw kale and found that massaging the kale lends a little extra tenderness to the final dish; something I was all for, as I find raw kale to be a bit too bitter and tough for my personal taste.

So I did what any good cook loves to do, which is change the recipe about here and there to include a new technique and get a few ingredients swapped about. Make no doubt about it -- this is definitely a riff on an already excellent recipe by Northern Spy, with just a few changes, including the whole massaging thing. Which is really funny to write, and even funnier to say. That said, take a look and give it a try.

Kale & Butternut Squash Salad
serves 4

1 small Butternut Squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into bite-sized pieces
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
1 large bunch Kale, de-stemmed and cut into strips/bite-sized pieces (choose your variety; I'm finding the curlier edged stuff at my local grocery but would love to locate a bit of Dinosaur kale)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 cup toasted, chopped Hazelnuts
1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano, not shredded, but cut into small little bite-sized pieces
2 more tablespoons good quality Olive Oil
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed Lemon Juice
Salt
Pepper

Just look at this gorgeous kale! And yes, I did cut the squash smaller for roasting.

Preheat your oven to 450-degrees. Toss the butternut squash with 1 tablespoon olive oil, then sprinkle to taste with a little bit of salt and pepper. Roast for 15 minutes, stir and toss, then roast an additional 15 minutes, until tender. Place on a cooling rack and allow to cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, Place the kale in a large bowl. Sprinkle the 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt over the kale and begin to massage the salt into the kale, but not in a wussy, sad kinda way, but vigorously, twisting and turning to be sure to work the salt into the kale.

You'll start with this...

And end up with this...

This is where you'll notice, after a minute or two that you've lost quite a bit of volume in your kale, and that it looks a bit shinier and glossier. This is very good.

Add the cooled butternut squash, toasted hazelnuts, Parm, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and lemon juice, then toss really well to combine. Taste, then season with salt and pepper as you deem necessary. (Be sure you taste before adding the s&p, as you've already added salt to your dish when massaging the kale.)

Healthy, tasty, and truthfully, a total snap to prepare. Doesn't that look delicious?


Now, go forth and be healthy!

Food Resolutions 2012

Yup-that time of year again. This is the time where I beat myself about the head and shoulders, desperately hoping to improve myself food-wise for the coming months. Do you do the same?

I can always thing of things to improve myself overall (whoo boy can I think of things!!), but in 2012, I'm upping the ante. I taking it big. BIG I say. BIG.

Here's what I've got food-resolution wise, 2012:

• Submit at least one recipe to the fab site Food 52, because they're where it's at for crowd-sourced cooking, and they have some excellent credentials plus a fab new cookbook you should check out
  
• Relaunch my teen & tween cooking site, Gotta Break Some Eggs with a weekly schedule, new cooking videos and recipes, and a section just for teens & tweens to submit their own recipes & photos (On track for Feb 1 btw:)
  
• Take better food pics with my terrific Nikon 5100
  
• Continue to develop fun, new classes for The Kitchen Studio that people love and will help them learn in the kitchen and have a good time too
  
• Make my own mayo more often, because it's awesome (and you can too, just look here)
• Do more real food writing, including my regular monthly column and weekly blog for Chesapeake Family Magazine
• And finally...eat more kale. No, really! I just did this whole thing on massaging kale to eat it in a raw salad, and it was pretty darn good. Pinky swear. :)

So now it's your turn. Any food resolutions 2012? I'd love to hear 'em. And Happy New Year!

Recipe: Blueberry Stuffed French Toast Casserole

Here's a great dish for your Christmas morning breakfast, classic with blueberries and maple syrup. It's a riff on a recipe that my friend Laura gave me years ago and that I've seen floating around the internet in one form or another for years. This is a do-ahead dish that you'll want to start the day before you plan to serve, so be prepared. :)

Blueberry Stuffed French Toast

You'll need:

• 6 large croissants
• 8 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk (whole)
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• 8 ounces cream cheese

Spray a 9" x 13" pan lightly with cooking spray. Tear the croissants into bite-size pieces and place one half into the pan. Pull cream cheese into small pieces and place on top of the bread cubes. Sprinkle the blueberries over the cream cheese, then top with remaining bread. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until lightly beaten, then add milk, maple syrup, and melted butter. Whisk well to combine, then pour over croissant mixture. Cover with foil and place in refrigerator to allow custard mixture to soak into the croissants for at least 2 hours, and up to overnight.

Preheat oven to 350-degrees, with oven rack in the middle of the oven. Bake for 40 minutes, then remove foil and cook an additional 10 minutes until custard is set. Serve immediately.

Note: The cream cheese doesn't get all melty and spread out, it stays the size it is when you break it up, so make the pieces nice and small.

Please, go forth and have a merry holiday. Eat much, nap much, and love often and with reckless abandon.

xo, cvb

The Class I'm Most Excited to Teach this Winter

When I was in junior high, home ec was a required part of the school curriculum. Well, home ec or shop. The girls usually took home ec to cook and sew skateboard pillows (mine was pink and purple with stripes and Hang 10 felt feet) and the boys toughed out the wood shop to make bookends or the like.

I remember very little about what we cooked through my 8th grade year. Except for the mayonnaise. I remember the mayonnaise so, so very clearly.

Because I failed. Failed mayo. Do they even teach mayo in middle school any more??

I don't remember the teacher's name, but what I remember is that she yelled at me; yelled about the stupid mayonnaise. Something I'd never made before and something, that for a new cook, require patience and sometimes even a bit of finesse. I've thought about it for years and I've never forgotten that feeling, deep in my gut that I wasn't good enough. For mayonnaise.

Think about it: Here's the recipe, here's a whisk, be sure you drizzle the oil in one drop at a time. To a thirteen year-old girl. One Drop. At. A. Time.

As if.

Patience has never once been one of my virtues. I want it and I want it now. You want me to pour this entire cup of oil in a drop at a time? Are you insane??? And at 13? Not a chance.

I was certain that if I just whisked hard, I could take a few liberties with the whole drop thing and perhaps just start with a steady stream of oil. FYI -- that doesn't work. I had created a gloppy, nasty, oily mess and was told it was completely unusable (which is not entirely true: you can fix a mayo that breaks into clumps--no, really--you can).

Mayo is all about forming an emulsion with egg yolks, oil, and a touch of seasoning, perhaps Dijon mustard, salt, and maybe the teeniest, tiniest hint of acid. You don't rush it. You take your time and do your best to get all zen with it. If you've done it right, you're rewarded with something luscious, creamy, and silky. Something that tastes nothing like that junk in a jar. Something that any Frenchman (or woman) would be proud to drag their fries through. And it is delicious.

I've been thinking quite a bit about the building blocks of cooking. The little shortcuts we've accepted over the years as required or really haven't given any thought to at all. How to roast a chicken in a cast iron skillet, or how to make homemade chicken stock or a good no-knead bread, how to make your own grainy mustard (it's super easy--pinky swear), and yes, how to make real, honest-to-goodness mayonnaise. No blender in sight. Just you, some eggs, and a bit of oil, whisk in hand, ready to take the challenge.

With the new domesticity sweeping the land, the timing seems right to teach you a few simple recipes and techniques that will ramp of the quality of your food, without a lot of hassle.

So I came up with this class: The Homemade Kitchen: Back to Basics.

On January 25 and March 17, 2012, I'll hold your hand and walk you through a few of the steps your grandmothers took to make your dinners, well, just better. And I promise, if your mayo breaks, I won't yell, not even a little bit. We'll just walk through how to fix it, and maybe give it another go. Because it's just food after all.

MTB at The Kitchen Studio Ending This November

You read that right--we're discontinuing our Make It, Take It, Bake It meal assembly service after our November session (scheduled for November 16).

After more than 5 1/2 years of helping to fill the freezers of a few of our favorite folks, we're moving on to bigger (and we hope even better!) things. Ever rising food costs have made this service cost-prohibitive for us. We're sorry to see it go, but we're hoping to have even more time to offer cooking classes open to the public, private groups, culinary team-building sessions and more! And don't forget those super-fun kid's and teen classes too!

Don't panic -- there's still time to get in on the full-freezer action. We have sessions currently scheduled for this Thursday, October 27 at 11a and 6p, and November registration will be open and online on Friday, October 28.

You can check out this month's menu here.

You can also take a look at our awesome cooking class schedule here, which is full-steam ahead, and getting better than ever, with new instructors, new culinary techniques, and a few favorites, back in action.

Now go forth and make your day delicious!

cvb

A Funny Thing Happened this Summer...

In early spring, I joined the board of the Boys & Girls Club of Frederick County. Not only is it a great organization doing a heck of a lot for teens/tweens here in Frederick County, but it seemed like an interesting job to take on.

One of the things I didn't know about being on a board is the tremendous amount of fundraising involved. It seems like it is non-stop. This summer, the members of the board were tasked with selling raffle tickets for The Ultimate Dine Out - a contest where the winner would take home $100 gift cards from 35 different restaurants in Frederick County. If you're good at math, you can quickly see that adds up to $3,500 in gift cards.

Being the person that I am, and absolutely hating fund-raising, I bailed on my chore of selling raffle tickets and decided to buy the lot myself. It was a hefty investment, but I purchased 30 tickets for $250 (tickets were $10 ea., or 3 for $25). I felt it would be well worth the money in order to save myself the hassle (and hey-it was going to the Boys & Girls Club FC).

Cut to a Frederick Keys game in very late August. I've just arrived home from picking up AVB from a road trip with grandma, then settled in to check out Facebook. One of the perks of buying a raffle ticket was also a free ticket to the Keys game on that specific night. I gave a bunch of the tickets away, hoping that others would go forth and have some local baseball fun.

Imagine my surprise, no, really, more like shock, when a message from one of the gals I gave tickets to popped up and read something along the lines of "We're having a great time and the game. How great that you won the big prize!"

Say what?

And so we went, back and forth and back and forth until I was certain, absolutely positive that the prize, all $3500, was mine.

Woo-freakin'-hoo!!

So yup, I won 35 - $100 gift cards. One card/certificate from each of the following:

• Acacia*
• Beef O' Brady's
• Black Hog
• Bonefish Grill*
• Brewer's Alley*
• Callahan's
• Canal Bar & Grill
• Capital Crave
• Carriage House Inn*
• China Garden*
• Clay Oven
• The Cracked Claw*
• Danielle's*
• Dutch's Daughter*
• Dutch's at Silver Tree
• Famous Dave's
• Glory Days
• Green Turtle*
• Griff's
• Home at Braddock
• Il Porto
• Isabella's*
• La Paz
• Magoo's
• May's
• Mick's
• Monocacy Crossing
• Morgan's American Grill*
• Olives*
• Pizza Blitz
• Red Horse
• The Shamrock
• Pizzeria Uno*
• Viet Gourmet
• Volt

*We've already used it or have given it away.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT I WON THIS???

We've used/given away a little less than half so far, which has been really, really fun, and I'm looking forward to using the rest to treat family & friends throughout the fall.

My question is this: Do you think you'll buy a raffle ticket from me next year?

The Wine Kitchen, Frederick: Gracious & Delicious...Booyah!

I don't usually write a review of anything or any place after just one visit. You want to be sure that there's a consistency, good or bad, before you recommend or discourage folks from going somewhere.

But seriously, I totally can't do that here.

Because The Wine Kitchen, located on Carroll Creek, next to Hinode, is JUST THAT AWESOME.

I kid you not.

Fantastic. Wonderful. I may even go so far as to say, Just Right. Because for me, it totally is.

Let's start at the beginning: A few weeks ago, a friend and I stopped at The Wine Kitchen's Leesburg location (don't get all "it's a chain" panicky on me here -- there are just two...relax) after a funeral. We were sad, and hungry, and it was a grey, rainy day. So we threw down. A cheese course. A charcuterie plate. A salad. An appetizer. Four or five main dishes. And let's not forget dessert.

For two of us.

Hey - I said we were sad and hungry.

Before you think we totally gluttoned out (ok-we totally did), we did indeed have half of each dish(except the cheese, the charcuterie, & dessert) packaged and took them home. We just wanted to try everything we could. And It. Was. Good. Really, really good. It stoked the fires of desire for the Frederick location to bust a move and open it's doors. Pronto.

And so they did.

The Frederick Wine Kitchen opened quietly on Saturday, October 1, and the Twitterverse started to hum. "Excellent service" I heard. "Reasonable prices" hit the interwebs. "Great food!" You had me at Hello.

So I grabbed the nearest spouse and was a total door buster this past Saturday night. They currently open at 5:30 for dinner, Tuesday through Sunday. I'm assured that lunch service will begin shortly and have already decided to host the annual TKS holiday soiree there in December. because this place is great.

Scott, our server, was knowledgeable, friendly, and had a great sense of humor. We were off to a good start.

Before even really looking at the menu too hard, we ordered cheese and charcuterie plates, along with two flights of wine. For those unfamiliar, a flight is a series of glasses of wine, not full pours, but slightly less so that you can try more options. Since I'm one of those annoying "red wine gives me migraines" people, I stuck to the only all white wine flight on the list, which went for 9 bucks. My whites were a little brighter & lighter in flavor -- good for warm weather. I'm hoping they add a Winter White flight of really buttery, oaky whites perfect for fall and winter soon. Each wine comes with a clever descriptive paragraph. Being married to an English teacher, we dissected the writing. It was a fun little touch that we both enjoyed.

JVB tried the Pinot Evil flight (3 different pinot noirs for $12) and was very, very happy. So happy in fact, we even bought a bottle and took it home with us, partially because the deal was so great. See, if you try a wine and you love it and want to take a bottle home, The Wine Kitchen will sell it to you for 10 bucks off the menu list price. Buy more bottles and the deal sweetens from there -- woo hoo!

But back to the vittles...The cute dish runner (she needs to work on her pronunciations and menu knowledge a bit - buy hey, they've been open a week) brought our board loaded with 3 cheeses (a camembert, a Humbolt Fog, & a blue) and charcuterie (coppa, some variety of prosciutto...I think...and the most luscious chicken liver pate, topped with glorious duck fat). Seriously -- the fact that I even left the place is a miracle. I did everything but lick the pot the liver was served in. It was that good. It was served with red onion jam & coarse mustard (and needed a bit more of each of these on the plate to balance out the quantity of liver), and a fruit compote of some sort to go with the cheeses. The portions felt reasonable and not the least bit skimpy. Very nice for $12 each.

Dinner included the scallops with pork cheeks (so tender I almost stabbed JVB so that I could eat every morsel from his plate) and the biscuit chicken, which was simple, but cooked perfectly. I cleaned that plate, and good.

We had saved a bit of room for dessert (duh), and imagine my surprise when at the very end of my pbj deliciousness, my mouth started popping...like mad! There were some sort of pop rocks of all things included in the dessert. Heaven I tell you. Heaven.

The only (slight) damper of the evening was when my new friend Scott knocked over an entire glass of wine. On me. I was soaked right through to my undies (tmi?), but there were 3 people on me in seconds with towels to help clean up the mess. Scott was very apologetic, but I assured him that it really wasn't that big of a deal. I was in a good mood, had a nice meal, and was relaxed. What's a little wine between (new) friends?

So The Wine Kitchen? Yup -- you need to get there asap and give it a try. You won't be disappointed, your mouth will be happy, and your soul will be fed by gracious and knowledgeable service. I'm even rounding up a group of ladies and headed back this weekend. I can hardly wait. :)