vegetarian

Colcannon

NOTE: An updated version of this recipe appears in my cookbook, The Ancestral Table.

Although there are variations of potato/kale combos found all over Europe, I’m inclined to believe that the Irish variation, colcannon, is grandaddy of them all. First of all, the Irish basically own the creative rights to cabbage. The Romans introduced cabbage to most of Europe back in the day, except that when they got to Ireland it was already there! By tracing the word for cabbage linguistically, it appears that cabbage has been a part of the Irish (well, Celt at the time) diet since the Iron age. Potatoes weren’t introduced to Europe until the 16th Century, with the Irish and French being the first to really embrace them, and so colcannon came about sometime thereafter.

Although colcannon is treated as a St. Patrick’s Day dish here in the US, it’s traditionally a Halloween dish in Ireland. Some families would put a plate of colcannon outside their front door with a large chunk of butter in the middle to feed ghosts/fairies that were passing by. It also was closely related to marriage divination, in that trinkets (wedding rings, coins) would be hidden in the colcannon and the girl that found the trinket would be the next to marry.

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Lettuce Chips

It might sound crazy, but you can totally make lettuce chips. Google it. It’s a thing!

Lettuce chips have a distinct taste to them – they retain a hint of bitterness, and just about melt in your mouth. They’re impossibly delicate so you’ll probably end up eating them all in one sitting instead of trying to store them without crushing everything. My technique for cooking them involved a quick bake in the oven, but I bet you could get the same effect with a food dehydrator for a longer period of time.

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“Loaded” Baked Sweet Potato

Last week I participated in the first-ever Highbrow Cook Off, hosted by Highbrow Paleo (an online collection of citizen scientists, researchers, nutritionists, exercise physiologists, book readers, comedians, modern homesteaders, political analysts, hunters and huntresses, foragers, eaters of guts – eyeballs – and insects, devoted followers of OakOy and culinary explorers).

The rules were simple:
– only use the ingredients outlined
– use of pre-approved pantry items is unlimited
– only use minimal processing, and minimal kitchen equipment, as outlined
– keep track of how much you spend on the ingredients
– will not use more than 3 kitchen gadgets/utensils, and nothing powered except the oven or stove top

For this first iteration, the incorporated ingredients were kale, mushrooms, onions, eggs, and a tuber. After a little deliberation, I settled on the idea of a baked sweet potato, with the veggies/eggs as toppings. Turned out beautifully! I was so happy with the results I thought that I should share it here as well. Total cost of the meal was about $2.

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Grilled Rosemary Potatoes

Rosemary potatoes are a classic French side dish, and we often roast them in the oven. I figured that grilling them under direct heat would speed up the process while eliminating the need to scrape and clean a pan afterwards – and I was right!

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Grilled Vegetable Medley

Grilling vegetables on an open flame sure looks nice, but it rarely results in anything but dried out veggies. To remedy this, I’ve come up with a simple way of steaming them in butter and garlic on the grill; the result is a tasty and effortless dish.

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