Garlicky Kale and Black Bean Soup

I love it when the two thoughts of "I should clean out my fridge" and "What's for dinner?" converge to inspire me to create something tasty and delicious. Last night was the perfect example. I knew already that I was going to make mac 'n cheese, Klassen-style, for my dear husband: macaroni baked in a thick, creamy cheese sauce topped with cornflakes, thick slices of bacon, and baked until the bacon is crisp and the cornflakes and macaroni have soaked up the fatty goodness. But my heart started palpitating at the mere thought of eating that, and only that, for dinner.

So I rummaged through the fridge, looking for anything with more nutritional punch than mac 'n cheese. I found some cooked black beans leftover from bringing soup to a friend's house. I also found one lonely potato. Thankfully, I had recently bought a bunch of kale, thinking, "I need vitamins. And kale is tasty vitamins." Add sauteed onions, garlic, and broth, and we had dinner.

The soup was hearty yet brothy, filled with color from the kale, black beans, and potato. We topped it with lots of freshly grated parmesan cheese. You could definitely add homemade garlicky croutons to increase the interest and crunch-factor of this soup. And, this soup can be a good winter-time staple, since kale is a hardy winter green, and potatoes, beans, onions, and garlic are all easy to have on hand. Kale is also a really easy green to grow, so if you have some in your garden, use it up! Enjoy!

Garlicky Kale and Black Bean Soup

1 onion, roughly chopped

2-3 Tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 cups cooked black beans

1 medium potato, roughly chopped

4 - 6 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly diced

1 bunch kale, stems removed and sliced into ribbons

about 4 cups vegetable broth (using bouillion is fine)

salt and pepper to taste

parmesan cheese, grated

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat the olive oil and add the onions. Saute on medium-high heat until the onions are soft and translucent. Add the potato pieces and the black beans, a little water (to cover the bottom of the pan) and the chopped garlic. Stir, cover, and let cook for about 10 minutes. When the potato is tender, add the vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, simmer for a few more minutes, and adjust your seasonings to taste (add salt, another bouillion cube, etc.).

While the soup is simmering, thoroughly wash your kale, especially if it's curly. Dirt and little bugs can get caught and stay hidden in its leafy folds. De-stem* each leaf (the main rib of each kale leaf is really tough and probably not tasty, although I've never tried eating one). Chop the kale into thin ribbons.**

About 4 minutes before you're ready to serve, plunge the kale into the hot soup. It will begin to wilt and turn bright green, and stay bright green for about... 10 minutes.*** Serve it immediately, while the kale is still pretty. Top each bowl with a healthy pile of grated parmesan cheese. Slurp and enjoy.

Makes about 6 servings.

*To de-stem your kale, lay each leaf down on your cutting board. Using a small paring knife, run the tip of the knife along the stem, taking the leafy parts off both sides of the tough stem.

**To do this, pile your de-stemmed leaves on top of one another, and try to cut along the longest part of the kale leaf. Chopping kale into ribbons ensures that it doesn't turn to green confetti, but maintains some shape and structure in the pot.

***Kale tends to turn a dingy brownish-green when it's overcooked... or when it's sat too long. It doesn't affect the taste at all, but it does lose some of its vibrant, colorful green. Serving your soup immediately after you throw the kale makes it more visually palatable.

Rooftop Farms: Brooklyn, New York

Rooftop Farms in Brooklyn, New York, has transformed the roof of this old warehouse into a thriving urban farm. The farm supplies organic food to local restaurants and cafes, as well as providing protection for the roof its built upon.

The creation of urban farms can (and I believe will) slowly transform a barren urban landscape into a place where slow food and neighborhood connections can thrive. Read one Brooklyn-ite's experience of Rooftop Farms. He and his wife went for a Sunday afternoon visit, and came home with produce for the week. They walked there, and walked home. How many of us, living in cities where it's easy to pass a day without anyone recognizing you or knowing your name, would benefit from this kind of neighborhood interaction?

Guerrilla Gardening

I wish I could be this cool.

Keep up the amazing work, wherever you are!

a bowl of vegetables... or the gardener?

Going away for vacation for two weeks in the middle of June is a bad idea when you are a gardener. Especially when those two weeks happen to be a hot spell that make your peas, lettuce, basil, and tomatoes overtake everything else in your garden. Especially when your peas are supposed to grow to 8 or 9 feet tall and you haven't put up anything for them to climb on yet! 

This first year of my gardening life has been a steep learning curve. Thankfully, Rodale's Encyclopedia to Organic Gardening and my friend Bob at The Natural Gardener have answered many of my crazy, first-year gardener questions. And now, I am learning that when you plant all of your seeds, you end up with a crowded, overgrown, and high-maintenance garden. I guess I'll live and learn? That is, if my tomatoes and peas live to produce... well, tomatoes and peas. 

The best part, though, of having an overgrown garden, is that you can start harvesting even the smallest arugula leaves and the earliest snap peas and the slightly-not-ripe-yet cucumbers, knowing that when the rest of it comes ripe, there will be plenty to go around! So, in July and August I will have an abundance of vegetables in my proverbial bowl, like the picture on the left. And, I will probably feel much like the fellow on the right - vegetables turned upside down, with a tin bowl on my head. 

o for a bit of earth...

Tonight I stole J.'s camera and shot some photos on my way to the last choir rehearsal of the summer. I'm so proud of my little seedlings that I couldn't wait to show them to y'all! I wish I had pictures of the garden-before-it-was-a-garden, i.e. a weedpatch. But alas. I was too excited to dig things out to take photos that day. 

How did our little garden come to be? We asked the dudes-in-charge if we could plant a garden in the weedpatch that bordered the parking lot on the west side of our church's property. Word got out, and a friend D. asked to plant a few things, too. So, we broke sod together, tearing out all the weeds, double digging the beds, and prepping the soil. It's quite sandy soil... perhaps because it's so close to the preschool's playground? :) D. brought in bags and bags of good ol' Vancouver Island Sea Soil, but I just added Gaia Organic Fertilizer to the soil. He already had seedlings started, but I had yet to order all my seeds. I bought them through Bob at The Natural Gardener, and he has become my most valued resource! Most of them came from West Coast Seeds, and I basically went through their catalogue page by page, making a list of everything I wanted to grow.  

Now, all the seedlings are coming up, including the yellow bell peppers, patty pan squash, and bush beans I planted in the last two weeks, and I will have to be creative about spacing and making room for all the plants I have going. I gave a cucumber plant to E. and M. tonight after choir... E. used to work in Africa as an agriculturalist, so I figured he would give the yellow-blossomed plant a good home. 

There were also some berry canes were in the weedpatch before we started. We decided to keep them in, to see what would grow. When I met a a few neighborhood friends (little two-year old W. and his nanny A.) I found out that they actually "harvested" the raspberries last summer! I pruned and fertilized them, and now they're showing beautiful buds and flowers. I'll have to bake a little tart for W. and A. when August rolls around. 

In the meantime, here are a few photos from the garden: 

Little bull's blood beetlings! I need to thin them out so they'll grow properly. I'm not going to have enough room for all my veggies... it's a serious problem. I've been so blessed to get permission to plant a garden in this space at all, but I have a problem with moderation. Meaning, I don't do anything half-way. So, I planted ALL of my seeds, not realizing that 2 summer squash plants feed a family of FOUR! Plus, they sprawl. I also planted ALL of my pepper, tomato, cuke, beet, carrot, and pea seeds. Oops. 

Arugula seedlings! My friend E. said they look like little hearts. Sweet little hearts I want to put in my mouth. 

We trellised our Alderman tall telephone peas on these metal trellises from Ikea. They come in boxes of 9 and you can screw them together to make any shape or height you need. We will definitely be adding to these. I'm sure J. was glad to be doing some "construction" work this last weekend putting these trellises together after digging and screening the last of our four beds last weekend! At the end of that day he said, "I feel like I've been digging holes and filling them back in all day!" Yup. Thank you, my dear husband. 

Our mixed greens (and reds) are growing! Okay, so maybe lettuce isn't sexy to everyone. But I think it's beautiful. Because this is my first year gardening, I'm just ecstatic that anything is growing at all! 

I've been noticing plants, flowers, and veggies everywhere. I've been especially impressed by the rising number of places where Vancouverites are planting veggie beds! It's incredible! 

I happened upon this one just the other day. 

It has been growing right under my nose for years. I walk past this backyard nearly every day on my way from home to my church. Maybe the gardener just put it in... or maybe I'm just growing a new pair of eyes. 

This garden is particularly interesting to me. First, the tall poles all lined up in a row there are deliciously exciting. What is the gardener growing? There were some berry bushes behind the poles, and I noticed at least one fruit tree. There are some things growing in pots, and good Vancouverite that this gardener is, the compost bin is in the front right. 

When I notice these little gardens springing up all over the city, what should I do? Try to take a photo surreptitiously... without seeming creepy? Introduce myself to the gardener in person or by a note left in the mailbox? I'm not shy about chatting with someone who's out in the yard working. After all, since I've started my little garden at church, I've met SO many people from the neighborhood! It's a lovely feeling to see little gardens coming to life in my neighborhood, and I want to make friends with the kind of people who would tear up the sod in their whole backyard to plant a veggie garden. At the very least, I have yard-lust. So, I will garden vicariously through my neighbor-gardeners, savoring my own small bit of earth.