Kale and Beets with a side of Bacon

Amanda, I can not believe that you have already posted three times before I even posted once, I haven't even started and am already slaking. Though the intimidation of the first blog post had a great deal to do with my delay.

As much as I have fun blaming a certain someone, who knows who he is, for my lack of baking drive, spoons can stir lots of things so that excuse for not posting is moot, though this has started a self analysis of why I'm questioning my identity as an awesome baker. Some of my thoughts; I left a lot of my baking stuff at school and am too cheap/lazy to replenish my supply during the summer. I would also like to think that the fact that it is super humid and hot and my apartment is without air conditioning would be a reasonable deterrent from turning on the over to bake but since I regularly turn on the oven to cook pizza bagels or baked peaches, that claim is also invalid... So although I still am not sure why I haven't gone into a baking frenzy this summer, I will do my best to supply other recipes to this blog. I figure Amanda can document all the delicious dessert and I'll go for main dishes. It's flawless. And diversifying.

SO to preface this recipe, I have been in Boston for a month and a half now and the expensive or lack of close grocery stores had me find the Haymarket farmers market quite quickly.

Haymarket in Boston

 SO cheap, I'm worried that it had spoiled me for produce prices when I return to school. The first few weeks I developed a rut of getting an assortment of berries and mushrooms. But then, I went with my roommate who inspired me to get kale, beets and mangos in addition to my traditional fare. This blog recipe has nothing to do with mangos, but I will have anyone who reads this know that I am currently enjoying the best mango eating of my life.

As for my other new food items, a quick internet search produced the recipe below and my first new cooking endeavor in like a month had begun. Quick side note for the record, I do, in fact cook a lot but so far this summer its been a variation of quesidilla, pizza bagels, pasta or omelets.

Upon stumbling across the below recipe, I started to read way too much into it. Sort of like how, this summer, I have started analyzing my social life through the lens of Grey's Anatomy... But anyways, I have decided that this Kale with Roasted Beet Salad is a symbol of our house last semester. Amanda is the kale, Camy the beets and I'm the bacon!! And together we make an awesome salad that an individual ingredient couldn't achieve by itself. Super corney, but this is the stuff you come up with when you are without you best friends/roommates in a large city.

When I made this, I didn't have chicken stock or foil and was super hungry, so I cut corners like crazy but I will describe what I did, though the real recipe is below.

I had 5 small beets and literally did nothing with them but throw them in the oven before I ran off to take a shower (I didn't have foil...). After my shower, I cut up 5 slices of bacon. It calls for 6, but bacon is a precious commodity and I wasn't exactly measuring any of the other ingredients either.... plus omitting an entire slice of bacon practically makes this healthy. To make this recipe even more exciting, I set off the fire alarm while frying the bacon... But in my defense, the fire alarm is super sensitive.

5 slices of bacon

While the bacon was frying, I cut the kale. Since I didn't put any salt and pepper on the beets, I added it to the kale. I also didn't cover the kale since I couldn't find the corresponding lid to the pan. I have zero measuring devices here in Boston (another excuse for my leave from baking) so I eyeballed some water in place of the chicken stock and apple cider vinegar as per the directions.

Kale!

At this point I was incessantly stabbing the beets to see if they were done. Once they were done, I didn't exactly have a peeler so sort of squelched the beet insides out of its skin... it was very elegant. I then mixed everything together and the resulting salad appeared!

Finished salad!!

I definitely ate more then half and, don't worry, the amount of bacon in the salad was not lost on me and since I ate the remaining salad for lunch the next day, I did in fact eat 5 slices of bacon in less then 24 hours... Despite my lose interpretation of the recipe, the salad was quite wonderful, though I feel that it would have taken a bit of skill to mess up... 5 strips of bacon is a lot of bacon. 

Ingredients
2 beets (about 14 ounces)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
6 thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon slices (8 ounces), diced
1 large bunch kale (about 1 1/2 pounds), washed, stemmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1/3 cup low-sodium chicken stock
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Wash and trim the beets, removing both ends. Place them on a 12-inch square sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Drizzle with the olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Seal up the foil packet and roast until the beets are fork-tender, about 1 hour.

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon until medium-crisp (or however you prefer your bacon). Transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate. Increase the heat to high and add the kale, stirring to coat in the rendered bacon grease. Cover and cook for a few minutes, and then add the chicken stock and 2 tablespoons of the vinegar. Stir to combine, cover and allow to wilt for 6 to 8 minutes.

Peel and cut the beets into chunks and add them to the kale. Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar. Add the bacon, stir to combine and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/guy-fieri/kale-with-roasted-beets-and-bacon-recipe/index.html?oc=linkback