Cold Frame Dinner

Remember the harvest from the cold frame this past weekend? First, there was a basket of kale.


We turned this into an appetizer of kale chips. I realize that if you haven't heard of these, it probably sounds pretty gross. But really, they are quite delicious, and might be addictive.


They are also super-easy to make. Drizzle some olive oil over a cookie sheet and toss the kale leaves around on it so they get a light coating. Sprinkle with kosher salt and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until the edges are brown (not burnt). That's it. The flavor is kind of toasty but still green, and it's really good. Make sure the leaves are about bite-sized, though (or tear them to be so). We found out the hard way that once you bite into them, they pretty much disintegrate, so it's best as a one-bite snack. We made them plain with just salt, but I could definitely see seasoning them with chili powder or curry powder, maybe onion salt or a little garlic powder … I think the possibilities are endless.

The other big harvest from the cold frame was our multi-colored bunch of carrots:


All the preparation these required was scrubbing off the dirt. They were so sweet already that nothing was added. In fact, Kirk just boiled them (briefly) whole:


Having conducted a semi-serious taste test, I can tell you that color doesn't affect the flavor or carrots. (The red ones seemed to be softer, but it could just be that they were a little thinner and so cooked through more quickly.) I managed to get one of each color on my plate, with the exception of purple.


According to Tiegan, the purple one was just as sweet and delicious as the others, but more fun because it was bright orange on the inside.

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