From the food editor: Turning over a new leaf and discovering a superfood
When you buy heads of broccoli at the grocery store, you get just a fraction of the plant. So what happens to the enormous leaves that feed and protect those verdant florets until they're harvested for your plate?
Generally, those leaves would be left in the field to cleanse and add nutrients to the soil. A few months back someone at Foxy Organic in Salinas, California, brought some leaves in from the field to see how they would fare in a juicer. Turned out, pretty darn well.
“It's not bitter the way raw broccoli or other raw cruciferous greens taste,” says D.C.-based author and nutritionist Ashley Koff, who was in Chicago recently to promote the leaves. The flavor is a tad sweeter than other dark greens, like kale, and is an excellent source of calcium and is packed with vitamins A, C and K and folate.
So what do you do with your leaves?
“It's so versatile.” Koff says. “Purée for soup or smoothie; use it instead of a tortilla (for wraps) or as the base of a salad.”
I blended a few leaves up with pineapple, carrots and Greek yogurt for a bright green breakfast smoothie. I also chopped some into a salad along with romaine leaves, garden tomatoes, cucumbers and chickpeas. Like kale, the raw leaves can be a bit tough. Koff suggested “massaging” the leaves with olive oil; I used a combination of vegetable oil and fresh lemon juice, more for flavor, really. I let the leaves rest while I prepped the rest of the vegetables.
Keep your eyes open for BroccoLeaf at grocery stores like Meijer and Mariano's. When you find it, try the leaves sauteed with diced butternut squash, or with garlic and pine nuts. Or experiment with this Green with Envy Egg White Frittata.
Witches brew: I love mixing up punch for my sixth grader's Halloween party at school. In a big plastic black caldron, I mix pineapple juice and Green River for a swampy punch. Toss in some gummy worms and stir in some dry ice and the kids drink it up.
For grown-up ghouls, this year I'll be putting Wicked Red Punch on the table.
The punch starts with a 750-ml bottle of HobNob Wicked Red; it's a Grenache/Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz/Pinot Noir blend with hints of toasted hazelnut and orange zest that's available in grocery store liquor departments. Look for the bottle embellished with a white and red Dia de los Muertos skull. Pour the entire bottle into a large bowl (or black caldron!) and stir in 1½ cups spiced rum, 3 cups freshly squeezed orange juice, the zest of 2 oranges, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 tablespoons simple syrup and the zest of one lime. Chill at least one hour before serving. Coat glass rims with sugar and garnish with an orange slice. Gummy worms optional.
Sour lemons: Did you start making Digattacello yet? Turns out in our effort to make the batch size far more approachable for limoncello first-timers, there was a miscalculation in ingredient amounts we published last week. But don't fret! Your efforts do not have to go down the drain.
If you've already started, simply open the jar of soaking lemon peels and add 1 more cup vodka. The other mistake was in the amount of water needed in the second phase. You'll need 10⅔ cups. The corrected recipe is online and printed here.
• Contact Food Editor Deborah Pankey at dpankey@dailyherald.com or (847) 427-4524. Be her friend at Facebook.com/DebPankey.DailyHerald or follow her on Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter @PankeysPlate.