Thoughts on Kale De-Stemming and Pre-Cooking

De-Stemming.

I eat a lot of kale - both cooked and raw. I am lucky to be able to get it year 'round at farmers markets.  The size varies by season.  Right now (February) the stems are generally pretty short (5-7") from stem-end to tip of the leaf, but during the warmer months, very often twice that - or more. Every week I cook up a bunch (or two) to store in the fridge for daily use or use it in a few dishes or a salad.  Many recipes advise you to de-stem by cutting out the stem from the entire leaf.  If I am going to use only four leaves of kale this is fine, but if I am de-stemming two large bunches, I start to feel a little stab-y.

Sometimes I just cut off the woody part of the stems from the bottom of the leaf and don't bother with de-stemming.  If the leaves are tender, it's just not necessary.  I have tasted the stems and as long as it's not woody or stringy, they are generally tender enough, especially if cooked.

How to De-Stem Kale

Roasted Meyer Lemon Slices

You can use any type of lemon.  I prefer Meyers or any type with a thin-ish peel (and therefore less pith). I recently used these (chopped up) in a kale, olive and caper recipe (to be posted) and am planning to pop them into a variety of dishes.  I store mine in a zip-lock bag with a little olive oil slurped in to keep them pliable.

Recipe: Roasted Meyer Lemon Slices

Review - Kitchen Calculator App

I was a music major and had to take, "Math for Music Majors".  No, that's not a class that marries math with music.  It was a class for music majors who didn't give a rat's ass about anything other than music (me) and (historically) had the attention span of a bivalve (just guessing here about the attention span of a bivalve) for math and science classes (also me).

When I need to convert units when cooking, it's not something I'm going to be able to do in my head. Ever. Ergo, it is handy to have a helper just waiting to do my bidding.  I have no idea where or how I found this app, but I use it enough to rate it as "Worth the $".

Publisher: Forward Leap, LLC
Price on review date: $2.99
Runs on: iPod and iPhone
My Rating: Worth the $


In addition to the ability to convert by weight, volume, temperature and  dimension, there is a calculator (+/-), a quick start guide (?) and a settings button (check mark), which allows you to select US or UK units.

 Note: the vendor has a new(ish) app: Kitchen Calculator Pro that includes the ability to:

• scale recipes;
• convert ingredients from weight to volume (cups to grams, ounces, etc.)
• display results in standard cooking fractions
• 'grow' a database of ingredients, based on the built-in database of common ingredients from the USDA.

Am I going to shell out the $3.99 for the 'Pro' version?  Probably not, although the weight-to-volume (and vice versa) feature is attractive. It's annoying that I cannot pay an upgrade price instead of having to re-pay for the features I already have.

Raw Kale Salad with Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette

I first ate this at Seester #1's house one Thanksgiving and I was well and truly hooked. There have been weeks where I ate this five days in a row.  Sometimes I wash, dry and prep the kale and then wrap it in a length of paper towel, then store it in a plastic bag.  It will stay fresh for several days.

I most often see this kale labelled as "Dino" because of the pebbled surface of the leaves.  There are many types of kale, but this is my favorite and I can't imagine making this salad with any other type. See: Kale (Wikipedia) and Google Image search for "kale varieties".

A Crazy Good Make-Ahead Creamy Mac & Cheese

Several people asked for this recipe from Seester #1:

"I used a 'make-ahead' recipe from Cook's Country, amping up the mustard x2 (no need to use dry; I used Dijon), the cayenne by x3, adding Worcester--about two teaspoons, and replacing some of the Colby with Fontina, another good melter with a more interesting flavor.

The recipe was developed to allow making it in advance without it drying out while in the oven-- a problem with baked mac n'cheese. You'll see it references freezing it prior to baking and to quicken defrosting, using 2 8" pans instead of 1 larger one. I didn't freeze it; I simply made it the day before so used a larger pan."