Roasted Beets with Kale and Feta

I don't often cook with beets because my wife and I tend to find their earthy taste too strong after a few bites.  The thing is, we really enjoy those first few bites, so my challenge for the beets (which have been sitting patiently for over a week) was to find a way to serve them where we would not be overpowered by their flavor.  I had seen recipes that combined beets with feta, and that seemed like a good start; by using other ingredients with strong flavors, the beets would have more to compete with.  Wanting to use another item from the CSA share, I settled on the kale, thinking that their slightly bitter flavor would stack nicely with the beats (earthy and sweet) and feta (salty). Since kale will lose some of its bitterness when cooked, I used cider vinegar to ensure that it retained a unique flavor that would stand on its own.  I probably would have left the recipe at that, except as I was pulling the feta out of the fridge, my eye landed on a pack of bacon that had used its siren song to lure me into buying it last time I was at the supermarket.  Everything is better with bacon, right?  Darn right it is!  The olive oil can have a rest, for tonight we cook with bacon drippings!

The final dish was a great success. The combination of the beets with the kale, feta and bacon complimented each other wonderfully.  We still could taste that sweet and earthy beet flavor, but it never overpowered the dish.  Needless to say, we cleaned our plates!

One side note that you may want to know (and can probably tell from the picture) is that the beets immediately stained the feta red when I tossed everything together. Certainly didn't effect the flavor, but if you are worried about presentation, I suggest sprinkling the feta on top after tossing the rest together.

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Beets (from week 7)

Kale

Ingredients
4 medium sized beets

Salt and pepper
4  thick-cut bacon slices, diced
1/2 lb kale, washed, stemmed and torn into bite sized pieces
3 tbs water
3 tbs apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup crumbled Feta cheese

Preparation

Heat your oven to 425 degrees. Wash and dry the beets then cut them in half and place cut side down on a sheet pan covered with aluminum foil. Place in the oven and roast until the beets can be easily pierced with a fork, about 45 minutes. When done, set aside to cool.

Cook the bacon in a large skillet until crisp, then remove to a bowl and set aside.  Add the kale to the bacon drippings remaining in the pan and stir to coat all the kale with the drippings.  Add the water and vinegar, bring to a simmer and then cover the pan and cook until the kale is wilted, about 5 minutes.  Uncover and continue cooking until the majority of the liquid has evaporated.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

When the beets have cooled enough to handle, peel them and cut in to half-inch cubes.  Toss the beets, kale and bacon together in a bowl.  Adjust the seasoning to taste and then sprinkle the crumbled feta on top. 

Kale Chips

I guess I've been living under a rock with respect to the kale chip fad that has been going on for the last few years. I sampled some at a Whole Foods a couple weeks back and they were quite tasty but also cost more than my car! Okay, bit of an exaggeration there, but at $6.99 for a bag, they must be very complex and time consuming to make, right? WRONG! Couldn't be easier. The process boils down to four steps: clean, tear, season, and bake (maybe 5 steps if you count eat). I’m not sure why they cost so much in the store, but if kale chips are something you enjoy, then you should try making them yourself. Spend $2 on a bunch of fresh kale and put the $5 you saved towards some other overpriced food fad that you can’t quickly make at home.

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All the kale

Heat your oven to 300 degrees.  Wash and dry the kale, remove and discard the stems and then tear the leaves into bite sized pieces.  Toss the leaves with just enough olive oil to give them a light coating.  You want them covered, but not dripping with oil.  Toss the oiled leaves with salt and/or other seasonings (see below) then spread in a single layer on a sheet pan.  Bake for around 20 minutes, or until crisp, keeping an eye on them to ensure they don't burn.  Once cool, store in an airtight container.

Here are the other seasonings I tried with this batch in addition to the salt.
Garlic powder
Chili Powder
Cider vinegar (add with the oil before baking)

My personal favorite were the garlic chips, but they all had nice flavor to them. Go easy on the salt and seasonings, as a little can go a long way. An added bonus was that my almost 3 year old daughter seems to like them as well. Anything to get her eating more vegetables!