Mexican Pizza

Okay I do love pizza.

I used left overs from the fabulous taco Tuesday (Saturday) dinner to make a pizza last night.

I didn't use any cheese instead brushed the dough with a bit of olive oil and topped it with some mexican chicken cooked with peppers, onions, tomatoes, and lawry's taco seasoning; black beans; and whole canned chipotle peppers. I baked it for a while to dry out the beans and chicken a bit. When it came out of the oven I topped it with a bit of fresh cilantro. It was fantastic and very interesting. I wish I had sour cream to drizzle on it but on well :)

Taco Tuesday

Friends in town. Special taco tuesday Saturday night :)

Got beer?

For months now Roberto, Ken D, and I have been talking about brewing beer. By chance I was able to score seven 5 gallon glass carboys off Craigslist for a great price and this became our catalyst for brewing beer (and me doing something about the mead that's been brewing for the last two years.)

I knew I wanted to brew my imperial chocolate stout again, of course Ken D wanted to make a hoppy IPA, and Roberto wanted to try making a fruity beer. So on Saturday we all went down to American Home Brewing Supply to get our goods.

It was a lot of fun scooping and grinding our grains, picking out of hops, and choosing the right yeast for our desired beers. Then we got hit with the bill! $377.00! Okay it was a lot. But we're brewing 8 gallons each and we had to also get supplies other than ingredients.

We made a whole day out of brewing beers. Roberto brought his slow cooker with a pork shoulder which we slowly cooked all day for carnitas while we were boiling our beers and drinking beers.

By the end of the day we had gone through 40lb+ of malt extract, 25 gallons of filtered water, several 32oz beers, In-n-out, and amazing carnitas. Here's two pics I managed to take. First we shredded the pork and I am frying it in a cast iron pot with some duck fat to crisp it. The second pic was the beer 24hrs later in the fermenter.

Pizza Night

Inspired by Anthony Bourdain's lay over in Rome, some friends and I decided to make pizza.

I wish I could say we made it all from scratch but making a perfect pizza dough is a lot harder than it sounds. Plus no matter how I decide to make it it will never meet up to my expectations of the light thin fluffy pizza crust found in Italy. So I just stick to Whole Food's pizza dough. The key is to allow it ample time to rise (1 hour on oiled baking sheets on top of the stove while the oven is preheating to 425F) and not to over knee the dough.

So while we waited for the dough to rise we were boozing up on a great dry Castle Rock Chardonnay and a lemon soda mixed with German larger and picking out our toppings.

The key to a good pizza is the simplicity. I don't like to make pizzas that are super cheesy and covered in sauce. The Italians don't add more than three different flavors to the pizza, and we decided to stick to the Italian method.

For the first pizza we brushed the crush with some home grown and made sun dried tomato italian basil pesto with a little extra olive oil and topped it with a bits of marinated artichoke hearts, feta, more chopped sun dried tomatoes in oil, and shredded roasted chicken. Yes I realize that was four toppings but the sun dried tomato was just an extension of the base sauce so it doesn't count.

The second pizza we decided to do something a little more classic. We started with a thin layer of homemade tomato sauce then topped it with thin slices of mozzarella (the big white ball of cheese in liquid is the only type of mozzarella that should be used), olives marinated mushrooms and anchovies... yummm. Again that was four toppings but we used a cow's milk mozzarella instead of buffalo and it was very mild in flavor.

The two pizzas were excellent. The pesto on the first pizza was so flavorful and really added a great flavor to the pizza. While the bits of marinated artichoke hearts added the right amount of acidity to make your mouth water. The chicken was also roasted to perfection and remained moist while the pizza was baking.

The second pizza was even better and so different. You could taste each topping. The pungent, nutty black olives, savory mushrooms, and the salty anchovies. Each flavor was very different but the creamy melted cheese and the slightly sweet and acidic tomato sauce harmonized all the sharp flavors.

Of course this wasn't a total carb party. We did have our greens. Ken D picked some fresh arugula (also seeds brought back from Italy) and dressed it with an amazing fig mustard vinegarette along with the left over feta. It was pretty amazing. I'm going to try and recreate the recipe for you.

Fig Mustard Vinegarette

1/4 cup Sherry Vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 egg yolk smashed
1/2 minced small sweet onion (about 3 tbsp or 1 shallot minced)
3 tbsp fig preserve

Shake all ingredients in a blender or jar. Add up to equal part light flavored olive oil and shake again.

Toss with salad and don't forget to add a pinch of kosher salt and pepper to the salad.

Kale salad

I made a kale salad last minute for a thanksgiving potluck and it was a surprising hit! By popular request here's the recipe.

6 cup chopped black kale
1/2 large yellow onion sliced thin
3/4 cup diced Fiji apple
1/2 cup chopped red walnut
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
3 tbspn sherry vinegar
3 tbspn Dijon mustard
4 tbspn olive oil
Dash of kosher salt to taste
Black pepper

Toss all four top ingredients together.

Mix the vinegar and mustard and microwave and pour over kale to slightly wilt.

Add olive oil.

Add grated parmasean a few table spoons at a time tossing gently with a spoon.

Salt and pepper to flavor.

No need to refrigerate and can make up to one hour in advance.

Tuesday at the Food Coop

Today was farmer's choice. So basically I make something that's fresh in season, and I scored big going to my parent's house this weekend. They loaded me up with some of the first persimmons of the season. Using that as my key ingredient I wanted to create something for the food coop. I came up with a warm persimmon and kale salad with mock hazelnut (toasted garbanzo beans) tossed in a bit of sherry vinegar, prepared mustard, hazelnut oil, red serranos (which I grew and came out sweet rather than hot), and julienned red onion.

It came out really pretty... I would have added feta to it but I like to keep my dishes vegan at the Co-op.

As always, if you'd like the recipe let me know.

Pumpkin ale tasting

Pizza

Marinated artichokes, Spicy peppers, white anchovies, lemon zest, olive oil, sea salt on whole wheat crust

Pumpkin goat cheese stuffed hot pepper

A friend at work gave me these hot peppers from his CSA box. I'm not sure what type they are but they looked big enough to be stuffed so I took a cup of pumpkin mixed it with a splash of milk, half log of goat cheese, and a teaspoon of sage and stuffed the deseeded peppers and baked for 30 minutes at 400F. The pumpkin got overshadowed by the goat cheese but it was very nice.

Breakfast

So a Rosemary blood orange marmalade isn't one of those things I'd buy if i saw it but I sure did make it! I was going for regular blood orange marmalade but it tasted bitter from all the pith so I had added Rosemary to try and soothe the flavors. I figured I'd make a sauce with it to serve with pork chops or add it to my cranberry sauce this thanksgiving.

But the weather's gotten a little chilly in San Diego and I was craving something a little different from the fruity summer spreads I've been eating. I went through my box of random jams and preserves I'd made and collected this year and pulled out this particular jar.

It was a good choice. The Rosemary added a piney flavor and with the chilly air I could feel fall melting through me.

Blog app

Blog app is going to save my blog. Between work, cooking, and cleaning it's hard to keep up with blogging but I have been taking pics the whole time so I'm going to try to add pics at least as I cook and if you see something good you like let me know I'll write about it

Pumpkin

So I've had this pumpkin sitting on my counter for months and I decided to finally cut it open. It smells fine and looks great but it was crazy to see some of the seeds started germinating inside it.

What shall I make with it?

Rabbit Confit

I am never making rabbit confit again.

It was a wonderful idea... I think. Precook the rabbit then package it so that it'd be easy to pull out of the freezer and eat it right away.

The recipe I followed was for duck legs and it instructed me to slow cook it at 180-200 for 6hrs. I did so, but mine came out way too tender where it fell off the bones and as I fished it out of the duck fat it crumbled.

Then vacuum sealing it was a pain in the ass. It didn't seal very well so currently the meat went into the fridge so that the fat could solidify then I'm going to try to reseal it.

In the long run maybe I will try it again, but here's what I'm going to do differently.

Salt the meat heavily to make it tough. Smoke it with some alder or applewood to give it more flavor. (My biggest complaint and love about rabbit meat is the lack of flavor.) Then slow cook it in olive oil instead of duck fat, or do a mixture of the two lipids.

Currently, the rabbit confit tastes like turkey from the duck fat.

Grrr... this cooking experiment was a fail. Anyone need any duck fat???

Elk Ragu

Another reason why I love my friends... elk burger.

Roberto's moving back to San Diego! He went back to Tuscon to pick up all his stuff and his mom sent a few culinary delights. She sent a wonderfully smoked goose breast (consumed in SF during Outside Lands weekend), elk breakfast sausage (also consumed in SF), and ground up elk. Where'd the elk come from? Roberto's step dad shot it!

So there's a whole process to acquiring elk meat. Stepdad had to submit his name into a lottery for a permit. Purchase the permit without any guarantee that he's going to get an elk. Find the elk. Shoot it. Process it. Freeze it. Have Roberto put it in a cooler with dry ice and bring it out to me from AZ. Yes it was a process.

I'd never cooked elk before. I smelled it and it smelled gamey and bit musky. Stepdad recommended not cooking it like a burger but cooking it into a sauce or something. So I did exactly that... and made a ragu out of it.

So this one took some time. I wanted to make it as perfectly as I could, so I did everything the Italian way. Slowly. I was following the steps for making a Bolognese, but I wanted to keep the gaminess of the elk so I skipped adding the milk.

I used a combination of Carbons (purple) and Jean Flemmes (orange) heirloom tomatoes for the sauce. I even took the time to blanch the Jean Flemmes to peal the tough skin off them. I did dice up the purples with the skin to keep a nice amount of color contrast and texture between the two tomatoes.



While I was prepping those I softened some onion, garlic, and celery hearts in a pot with a pinch of salt and grape seed oil. I added the meat and allowed it to brown without ever frying it or letting it dry out. (Doing either will make the meat tough.) I had to keep a constant eye on the mixture making sure there was always a little bit of liquid in the pot. When the juices started getting low I added a glass of Sangiovese to the pot and allowed that to reduce. The aromas floating out of the pot was amazing.


Once the wine reduced I added in the chopped tomatoes with all the juices and waited. I made sure to keep a constant eye on the sauce, making sure that it slowly simmered and never rapidly boiled. A few times I even stuck the thermometer in there to make sure the liquid wasn't boiling over 200F. (I found that when you boil red meats you can avoid having a bitter, tough product by slowly and gently boiling it. It's like scratching a kitty just right to get a soft purr.)


After 3 and a half hours of simmering the result was:

HEAVEN

What? I know this sauce took a while, but I was hanging out at home all night blogging. The sauce all ended up in a jar and I'm hoping the flavor will still be there when I heat it up. I'm waiting for Roberto and Lina to get back so that we can all have it together. I'll probably serve it on Penne drizzled with a touch of black truffle oil. Tonight, I'll be enjoying the rest of the wine that didn't end up in the sauce.

August Update

Okay August has been a busy month for me. Well... since Coachella it's been a busy party summer for me minus the few weeks in July when I was studying for my GREs.

First weekend of August I was up in LA for Hard Summer then came down and processed all of my rabbits with the help of my very good friends the Jew, the Walleys, and their friend... Jonathan (here on referred to as the Hillbilly.) I had 13 rabbits weighing in at 2-2.5lb each. All the rabbits have been quartered up and I'm planning on making rabbit confit when my duck fat arrives in the mail. Dior made an amazing rabbit pate with pork belly, port, onions, herbs, and other goodness that was just CRACK! I wish I'd taken pictures of it before it was all consumed last weekend. I'll get the recipe from her.

So the second weekend of August (last weekend) I was in San Francisco for Outside Lands, which is a music, food, and wine festival at the Golden Gate Park. It was a fantastic time hanging out with friends, listening to great music, eating like kings and drinking great wine. Noteworthy places I've tried at the festival are Split Pea Seduction and the Fabulous Frickle Brothers truck. The best lamb sandwich by Split Pea and amazing fried pickles with an even more amazing mole dipping sauce by the Frickle Bros.

I had the lamb sandwich. I this picture while I was in line, and I ment to get a picture of the sandwich but it pretty much disappeared once it got in my hands.

Again... I managed to remember taking a picture but only once there was one left. The panko crust on them was sooooo good!

It was mostly cold in SF, but when it got warm Saturday I found a pretty slice of orange watermelon to quench my thirst... followed by several glasses of wine.

I can't wait to go back to San Francisco. We stayed inside the Presidio at the Baker Beach Apartments which had an amazing view of the bay. These apartments used to be military housing until the early 1990s when they were converted. My parents actually used to live in one of these units (possibly in the same strip of units we stayed in last weekend.) When I told my mom I was staying in the Presidio she told me we used to live on top of the hill. Up the steepest drive way on the block... which was our drive way for the weekend. Crazy.

View from the downstairs balcony.

I also got a chance to go up to Petaluma, CA and check out the Baker Creek Seed's "Seed Bank". I wish I'd gotten some pictures to share. The store's inside an old bank and it's like walking into their catalog. Hundreds of different seeds all alphabetized, and lots of magazines and books relating to urban homesteading and gardening. Definitely worth checking out.

But my favorite part adventure of the weekend was visiting the Wok Shop in Chinatown, San Francisco. I've been wanting a wok for a really long time, ever since a pledge taught me how to make fried rice a few years ago. I found the website while searching for the perfect wok and I've been wanting to check out the store since. The store offers over a dozen types of woks, so I was much relieved when the lady in the store was more than happy to give me her recommendations. She recommended going with the traditional round bottom cast iron wok. (If I ever move into a place with an electric stove, I'm screwed but from her experience she said it cooks Chinese food the way it was meant to be cooked! Who can argue with that.) So coming soon... stir fry action!

I got a 16" wok, a ring stand, a wok spatula, bamboo scrub brush (in the back left corner next to the stove), a steaming ring, steamers, a lid, and a skimmer. The long chopstick was complimentary. I'm hoping to make a Chinese housewife jealous of my set up here.

But my favorite part of the weekend was coming back to the apartment with Roberto, Lina, Ken D, Mr. Vickers, and Jelly Kelly after Sunday night's show. We had California grapes, peaches, pluots, and nectarines purchased along the 5 North on the drive up to SF. Along with several types of cheese, crackers, and rabbit pate. Bottles of wine. Grilled rabbit. Quinoa salad. Preserved eggplants. Zucchini Pickles. Fig jam (courtesy of Liberty Farms). We chatted, laughed, ate, and drank late into the night.

There is nothing better than being surrounded by friends you love eating good food.

Figga

Figs. They are a treat. I love biting into a perfectly ripe one and feeling the juices bursting into your mouth.

Unfortunately, I have a hard time finding such perfect fig in San Diego. Most the figs I can find are black missions and they are usually a bit dry. So I make do with what I have. Instead of eating them fresh I cook them up to bring out the sweetness and the softness in the fig.

The Italians call figs "figga" which is also a slang for vagina. In many ways than one the name fits. You must treat a fig like a vagina; delicately with love. When a fig is perfectly ripe then you eat it. When it is dry you must warm it up gently and add a little love into it.

Tonight, I did just that. I took the figs and quartered them. Exposing their pink insides. I drizzled them with a little grape seed oil and salted them gently. I put them skin side down on warm skillet and allowed them to warm up. Once the juices started to flow, I gave them a stir and tossed in sliced Italian Torpedo onions. Within minutes you could hear the pan sizzle as the mixture started to caramelize.


While all that was going on, I decided to make a steak salad. I had a perfectly grown head of lettuce from the NC garden and a prime new york strip from my mother. The steak was lightly seasoned with salt and peppered and seared in a pan. The lettuce roughly chopped. I piled it all up, topped it with a creamy danish blue, and drizzled some of my favorite balsamic on it and within 30 minutes dinner was done.

NC Garden... when everyone's away.

Arugula that self seeded and coming back.

Lettuce nestled between purple basil

Perfect head of lettuce

One pepper plant growing tall and strong

Parsely and peppers

Jean Flemmes (Julia Child's favorite tomatoes) just about to turn orange.

I'm about to get soo many cocozelle squashes.

Pretty water plants. Look at the Parrots Feathers grow

It's no lotus pond, but it sure is pretty during the summer.

Zucchini Pickle

I dread pickling.

Pickling means hours of prep work. Followed by hours of standing around in a hot kitchen with vinegar and water vapors filling your space. It definitely is not a pleasant task to be performing during a hot summer day.

So... I've been avoiding pickling this season. But the eggplant and squash plants are going absolutely NUTS! Ken D's asked me to pickle his extra produce in exchange for some of the products. He had at least a dozen large yellow zucchini and cocozelles.

I was actually pretty excited to help. I'd gotten a Better Homes and Gardens magazine on Canning which had some a small section on zucchini pickles, and I can't help but to try out some new recipes. I decided to go with the bread and butter zucchini pickles, hot and spicy zucchini pickles, and a sweet zucchini pickle using my favorite pickling mix from the OB People's Food Co-op.

So the first step to crispy pickles is to slice and salt them. You want most of the water to leach out of the pickle, sort of drying them out so that they absorb the vinegar better. But you have to do it cold otherwise your pickles come out mushy. Several recipes recommend making a brine of salt and cold water and soaking your zucchini slices in it at room temp. It's easy to do so if you have the fridge space or plenty of ice, but with several gallons worth of zucchini I had to improvise a bit. The huge bucket and colander I purchased for making kimchi came in pretty handy. I sliced and salted the zucchini, then I mixed in a few pounds of ice cubes into the zucchini and let it sweat in the colander fitted into the bucket and let it sweat for a few hours.

(Ran some errands and washed all my jars.)

Came home and rinsed out zucchini to wash away the extra salt and the canning began.

First thing you've got to make sure when canning is to make sure everything you use is sterile. I cleaned and wiped down the counter top and began boiling LOTS of water. Pour boiling water into all your clean, dry jars and cover with foil until you're ready to use them. Then get more water boiling for your water bath.

Make your pickling solution of vinegar and sugar and bring it to a boil. Add your spliced zucchini and onions into the mix and bring back to a boil. (Recipe says you should bring to a boil and simmer the vegetables for 5 minutes before packing the jars. I drop the vegetables in and wait for it to start boiling.) Once it starts to boil, dump out the water from the jars and fill them with the hot vegetable mixture. I like to fill my jars about 80% full from the top. Add your pickling spice (or peppers, garlic, bay, etc) on top of your hot vegetables and pour the hot vinegar mixture to top off the jars. Then its important to use a dinner knife or a spatula to help air bubbles escape to the top. (Stir the inside of the jar using your tool to free air bubbles.) Check the level of the vinegar, there should be a 1/2 inch gap from the top. Clean the lip of the jar and assemble the two piece lids. Screw on the lids just enough so that there's resistance but not too tight that air can't escape it when you set it in the water bath. Boil the jars for at least 10 minutes. I used quart jars and boiled for 20 minutes to make sure that jars are completely sterilized. I also did it for a longer time since I didn't simmer the vegetables prior to packing the jars.

Anyways, after almost 8hrs of pickling I've got 16 quart jars and 12 pint jars for a total of 5 gallons of zucchini pickles! This was round one. I still would like to make more of the Italian style zucchini pickles, where the pickles are preserved in olive oil instead of the vinegar solution. Maybe next weekend?

If you want a complete recipe let me know I'll update the post.

Eggplant Preserves

I usually pickle everything, so I thought I'd change it up a bit. This is one of my favorite recipes I found when I started pickling last year, and I've been prepping for it all year. It's an Italian method of pickling where the vegetables are boiled in vinegar and wine then preserved in olive oil. The variety of ingredients used gives the preserves an amazing aroma and a layers of flavors.

I like to capture the essence of summer in this pickle by using a dry Riesling or Gewurztraminer. The floral and fruity notes of peaches, apricots, lychees, roses, jasmine, etc (depending on which wine you choose) just add such a wonderful layer of flavor and aroma when you bite into an eggplant or olive. You can choose another dry white wine such as a Sauvigon Blanc or a Chardonnay but choose a wine that you would drink and consider the flavors they'd impart.

The homegrown eggplants freshly picked at the height of the plant's production, sliced and salted overnight to remove all the bitterness from them. Then they are rinsed and squeezed dried until they are ready to go into the vinegar/wine mixture. The small, meaty diameter of the Japanese eggplants work much better than the usual fat eggplants used in Italian cooking.

The nasturtium capers are made from nasturtium seed pods. You can find a recipe online if you type in "Poor Man's Capers". If you have a garden you should definitely plant nasturtiums, and if you have nasturtiums you should definitely make these since a healthy nasturtium plant will produce hundreds of seeds in the spring. You can also go scavenging for them around town. In San Diego you can see them blooming everywhere in the spring. They have a wonderful peppery crunch to them with a sweet floral flavor to them. Although the flavor is very unique they are as versatile in the kitchen as regular capers.

Last year when I made this I used only kalamata olives and everything purple... after a few weeks the whole thing looked kinda blah. This time I hit up the Whole Foods olive bar and used a variety of different olives. When I was in Italy last fall I learned that each type of olive has a unique flavor and that the flavors change as the olives change from green to black. Some olives are peppery, grassy, bright, floral, etc all which are imparted into the preserve. If you're a purist then stick with one type of olive. I liked the colors, shapes, and sizes of the variety of olives, but according to an Italian, mixing that many different types dilutes the unique flavors of them all.

My stove top set up when pickling.

Ingredients

The vegetables boiled in the vinegar mixture for 5 minutes

Into the jars. Filled them with oil and put them through the water bath.

Deconstructed Summer Squash Tacos

So walking into the Food Co-op's deli/fridge has turned into a delightful experience for me. Instead of going into it with a recipe in mind, I go in there looking for any interesting ingredients I can cook with. Last week I found blue potatoes, this time I found at least 50lbs of dried black beans and several boxes of a gluten free quinoa-corn pasta.

Black beans, quinoa, and corn. These three flavors made me think about Taco Tuesday. When we used to host our weekly taco Tuesdays during the summer time there would always be summer squash involved.

This week, I decided to sautee the squash like I would taco meat, with some oregano, chili powder, and cumin. I added the black beans to it, a squeeze of lime, and added in the cooked quinoa-corn pasta. The whole thing looked like a summer squash/black bean/pasta salad... but that didn't sound very appetizing. So I called it my deconstructed summer squash tacos with black beans, and garnished with tomatoes.

And I'm BACK!

So it's been a crazy few months. I moved. We thought the Surf Club was a goner. I've been working a full time job. Then Spring hit full force in San Diego. Warm 70+ degree weather and every weekend's been devoted to getting all the gardens going.

The result: the garden at Surf Club looks AMAZING! Tomatoes, squash, corn, beets, carrots, beans, everything is exploding. Ken D took all the chickens, and the coop looks bad ass (coop 4.0). We have four new chicks that just hatched out this past weekend. My garden was installed first week of June and now it's starting to do something, but the rabbits are extremely happy and growing bigger every day.

Now that I've settled into the groove of things and everyone is taken care of and all the gardens are taken care of I started volunteering at the UCSD food co-op. I'll be cooking for them once a week to start with. Today was meal 1 and I made a warm Italian Potato Salad.



When I say warm, I'm not talking only about the temperature but I'm talking about the essence of the dish. (I know its summer, but I had to make something that'd go into a hot water bath and stay hot so I had to think warm. I'm also challenging myself by using only what I can find left over from the previous week in the Food Co-op's fridge and what I can grow.)

Ingredient List: (scale it down if you decide to make it)

Potatoes - Russets and Blue Potatoes (8-10lbs)
Onions - Yellow and Red (3-4lbs)
Sweet Green Peppers (2)
Garbanzo Beans (3 cups dried or 6 cups cooked)
Black Kale (yes its summer but this stuff is still growing strong in my garden) (6 cups chopped)
Fresh Rosemary (about 3-4 tbsp)
Canola Oil (1/4 cup)

1. I cubed up the potatoes and onions and threw them into a large bowl of cold water as I was cubing them. Not only does this prevent the starch in the potatoes from turning black but it also leaches out the slimy starch from the blue potatoes and the spiciness from the onions.

2. Deseed the peppers and remove the white parts from it and dice it up also but don't throw it in the water.

3. Drain the potatoes and onions and toss them with the peppers and rosemary in canola oil.

4. Spread them out in a single layer and oven roast them in a 400-425 degree oven for about 45min to 1 hr. Try not to open the oven for the first 30 minutes, then pull them out of the oven (close the oven to keep in the heat) toss them with a spatula and throw them back in until the peppers and the onions are soft and the potatoes start to crisp a bit. When they are done put them in a bowl, salt and cover with foil.

5. While the potato is cooking. Cut the black kale into 1/2in slices (the short way) and get a heavy pan hot. (A good way to know if your pan is hot enough is to splash a bit of water and watch it sizzle away immediately.) Add a tablespoon of canola or grape seed oil (which both have higher burning temperature) and immediately throw enough kale to cover the surface area of the pan but not enough to create a thick layer. Toss it quickly to cover with oil and press down on the kale with a spatula for about a minute. You should hear the kale sizzle and pop. (You're trying to almost fry the kale in a thin layer of hot oil.) Toss once and press down for another minute. Repeat until all your kale is "blacken". You don't need to keep it covered once you take it off the heat. Don't salt until you're ready to serve otherwise it'll loose its crispness.

6. Garbanzo beans... if using dried make sure you soak it over night and then boil at medium for 1 1/2hr before using. No quick soak method has ever worked for me. I recommend just using canned garbanzo beans. With this recipe rinse the beans before using so the gunky starch is removed.

7. Toss everything together and salt to taste.

But wait? What's the secret ingredient? I added a tablespoon of black truffle infused oil to the salad to give it an amazing, buttery warmth.

Truffle oil is one of those things where a little bit goes a long way. Although the black truffle is highly prized and expensive, the infused oil can be purchased for a moderate price. The French company La Tourangelle makes different gourmet oils in California and offers the oil for a reasonable price. (Henry's had it on sale this week.)