Fall Vegetable TKO!!

Fall vegetables: the bounty at the market threatens to overwhelm the Manhattan apartment suggestion of a kitchen. Mine’s 24 sq. feet. Stick a bunch of kale in it, and there’s no hope of doing anything else until that kale has been knocked down. Due to kale in the kitchen at breakfast this morning, Dr. V and I left the house and went to Bagelworks (1st Ave and 67th St – jalapeno cheese bagel with garlic poppy cream cheese!).

The best way to make sure those vegetables get eaten is to cook them as soon as possible, and get them in the fridge where you can pick at them. Roasted cauliflower makes a great snack, and is divine sauteed with some curry powder, and mixed with some rice, peas, protein of choice, and mango chutney (makes a great wrap too!). I sneak the sauteed kale into burritos, mix it with wheat berries, and use it on chicken sandwiches.

Here are my TKO recipes:

Yes, my oven is only 20″ wide. Get it a little more brown than it is here.

Roasted cauliflower

Break the head into florets. Toss with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Bake at 400 for about 30 min, tossing occasionally, until the florets are soft and a little toasty brown.

 

 

 

It’s dead, Jim. Sauteed kale TKO.

Sauteed kale (AKA “The Foul Leaf” to Dr. V)

Tear the leafs off the stems. Soak 2-3 times to wash and spin dry in your salad spinner (or don’t, I won’t tell). Stack several leaves, roll into a tight cylinder, and slice thinly (chiffonade). Repeat with all leaves – the little ones are too fussy for this, so just chop them up. Olive oil in the pan, in goes the kale and some salt. Knock that stuff down until it looks like it won’t knock down any more.

About Becky Fifield

Becky Fifield is a cultural heritage professional with 25 years experience in institutions large and small. She is currently Head of Collection Management for the Special Collections of the New York Public Library. An advocate for preventive conservation, Ms. Fifield is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation, Chair of the AIC Collection Care Network, and former Chair of Alliance for Response NYC. She is also a scholar of 18th century female unfree labor and dress. There's a bit of pun in the title The Still Room, delineating a quiet space brimming with the ingredients of memory, where consideration, analysis, and wordcraft can take place. Ms. Fifield’s interests include museum practice, dress history, historic preservation, transit, social and women’s history, food, current events, geneaology, roadtrips, and considerations on general sense of place. Becky and her husband, Dr. V, live in the Hudson Valley.