Learning to love your leafy greens

Chicken thighs with kale

Holy crap I love kale. But before I get to the leafy greens...

I went to a stats course this week for work, and lunch was provided. I made the mistake of checking "gluten free" as a dietary restriction when I registered, and was presented with a platter of "sanwiches" made with gluten free bread. It. Is. Terrible. It has the taste and texture of styrofoam, the stuff doesn't even bend. If you've been scared away from trying to make your own paleo bread because of a traumatic experience with this sort of stuff, I urge you to give it a try. The recipes from Elana's Pantry are much, much better.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the gluten free sandwiches were also vegetarian. Us paleo folk ended up ravaging the regular sandwiches and gutting them for their protein-filled innards. Next time, I'm going to click "other" and ask them to bring me a plate of meat.

So I haven't posted in a while, because I've been occupied writing profiles for the CrossFit Games mainsite! It is MUCH harder to write about someone else and try to accurately convey their thoughts; I'm used to writing about myself, and spewing my stream of concoiusness, uncensored. But it's been a neat experience so far,  I've had the chance to talk to some pretty neat-o crossfitters. I'll probably post some sort of sum up of the Games Open at some point when I'm feeling more profound.

Pecan and coconut crusted tilapia with chard and bacon

In the meantime, all this nice weather and growing green stuff has reminded me that I've yet to share my trials and errors with the fickle task of making leafy greens taste good. And so, I present to you....

Greens. I used to hate them with a burning passion (except lettuce, which I now think is a bit of a snore. Except arugula...arugula is a badass lettuce). But now, I eat some sort of leafy green probably twice/week, and since I've sort of figured out the preparation process, I actually enjoy them! So this is a compliation of my process with various tips and options based on the green of choice.

I will preface with a link of why leafy greens are worth learning to love

Oh So Good Leafy Greens
It took me 2 or 3 tries with each kind of green to make them actually tasty and not just edible.  Probably you'll just have to give it a try yourself, and probably it will be too squishy or too tough or otherwise not quite right the first time, but here's a place to start. If you don't love them right away, don't give up. I had to force myself through several iterations of greens at first, but now I actually look forward to them!

1. Pick a green! Kale is my most favouritest. I also often make collard greens and sometimes chard. Chard is more bitter than the rest, and requires bacon to help with that (Nick's mom's idea!).
2. Heat up your pan with olive and/or coconut oil (for kale or collards). Chard option: chop up a package of bacon and fry up the pieces until crispy. Set aside the bacon and leave enough fat for your chard.
3. Meanwhile, tear the leaves from the stems (kale or collard) or chop up the whole thing (chard) into a strainer and rinse. Don't shake off too much water, the water will help steam the greens.
4. Dump the greens into the pan. It will seem like they won't fit, just pile them in anyway.
5. Stir (or really it's more of a toss) the leaves to coat with oil. When they've cooked down enough that you can fit the lid on the pan, put the lid on. Let steam for 2 or 3 minutes.
6. Add stuff. For kale and collards I add raisins and sesame seeds, and a little bit of sesame oil. I also sometimes put a bit of salt and garlic powder, depending on my mood and the saltiness/garlicness of the rest of my meal. For chard I put the bacon back in (I leave some of the bacon out for breakfasts the rest of the week!), and add garlic powder.
7. Assess your greens. They will turn bright green as they start to cook, then get darker. After I've added stuff, I check how squishy they look. If they look a bit too squishy (too much water) I leave the lid off, and if they look a bit dry I leave it on to keep in the moisture. Cook some more.
8. Taste for doneness as you go along, stirring regularly. Kale and collards will take 10-15 minutes for the whole process. Chard takes longer.

Sausage and roasted sweet potato chips with collard greens

Tips
1. All greens are better fresh. If you leave them in the fridge for too long before cooking they will end up chewy.
2. Don't try to eat the stems of kale. The stems of chard are good though and get a bit mushy like rhubarb.
3. Sometimes I let the kale overcook and it ends up kind of crispy like kale chips.
4. The raisins really balance the flavour, I think, and steaming them with the greens makes them all plump. You can also add pinenuts or almond slivers, among other things (as a garnish, so they don't get soggy).
(5. Sometimes, when feeling indulgent, I fry some diced potatoes to add back in with the chard and bacon. But don't tell the person who write's this blog, as it would be a bit contradictory, given the title)

Paleo Chinese food SUCCESS! Lemon chicken and Mushroom fried rice

My apartment is right next to a chinese food restaurant. And this place serves Seriously Good Chinese food. If it were gross, I could ignore it, but try having to walk past the smell of Seriously Good Chinese food wafting at you every time you come home, and then having to go inside and cook something for yourself that probably won't be quite so Seriously Good. This is after convincing yourself to pass by the Seriously Good Burrito place that's in between my apartment and where I park my car.

Because of this, I have been attempting to make my own lemon chicken since I moved here. And not some healthy smealthy lemon and rosemary seasoned grilled chicken breat with a side of steamed green beans. I'm talking about the kind with the weird, gelatinous, gloopy sauce that you just know is full of who knows what but is still somehow the most appealing thing ever dispite its weird gloopy nature. Well folks, after some disasters whereby I misunderstood the properties of arrowroot powder, I have succeeded, and it is glorious, because not only did I manage to make credible lemon chicken that made Ashley go "Tastes like Chinese food!", but I also made almost-actually-fools-you Mushroom Fried "Rice" to eat with it. You're welcome.

I can't take full credit for these recipes. I went searching for a recipe for chicken fried rice and found this wonderful entry at Paleo Effect. I modified their rice recipe a tad, and adapted their General Tso's Chicken recipe for the lemon chicken. Their wonderful guidance was what I was missing in my attempts to make sauce thickened with arrowroot. Previously, I was trying to make the sauce and then add the arrowroot near the end. Don't do that, everything goes sloooooop and blobs up into jello-like lemon clumps instead of sauce. And it's not as tasty as jello...

Lemon Chicken

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts, chopped into bitesized pieces

Batter:
2 tablespoons arrowroot
one egg
salt (the recipe called for coconut aminos, which is a soya sauce substitute, but darned if I know where to find these, other than ordering them)

Sauce:
2 tablespoons arrowroot
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons coconut sugar (or more honey?)
~2/3 cup lemon juice
1/8 teaspooon ground ginger
1 tablespoon vinegar
salt (or coconut aminos) and garlic powder to taste

1. Stir up the chicken cubes with the batter, and fry in some oil (I used olive) until cooked and set aside.
2. Whisk the sauce ingredients together and pour into the hot pan. Stir for a couple of seconds and it will start to thicken right away (when it starts to boil I think?).
3. Add the chicken back in and stir the gloopy goodness all together.

Paleo Mushroom Fried "Rice"
This is a tasty stand-alone version of the plain cauliflower rice I normally make for stiring in with curries and other such runny sauce things. The oil combination isn't important, except for the sesame oil, which gives it the Chinese food vibe.

Ingredients
1/2 head cauliflower (makes enough for 2-3 servings)
lots of cremini mushrooms (or whatever sort you like)
sesame oil
coconut and/or olive oil
garlic/onion powder
salt to taste (or coconut aminos if you have them) and pepper

1. Chop mushrooms fairly small and sauté in some olive oil with garlic and onion powder and sea salt.
2. In the meantime, mulch up your cauliflower (I have a hand crank food processor, or use an electric one. There are also things called "ricers", apparently, or if you don't mind a mess you can just chop it up but there will be cauliflower everywhere, fair warning).
3. Add the "rice" in with the mushrooms once they're good and sautéd. Add a generous helping of sesame oil, and I also added some coconut oil for extra moisture. Add more salt and pepper if needed. I like salt.
4. Stir intermitently and fry until it's the desired tenderness. The original recipe also added a beaten egg and stirred that in but I left it out.

Serve together with the lemon chicken! Or apart, however you feel about these things.

I plan to try this next with orange juice on the chicken instead of lemon, stay tuned!