coraa | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dinner: Kale leaves, blanched and then stuffed with risotto and cheese.

Not a total success. I was quite fond of the risotto (I committed heresy and made it with sushi rice instead of Arborio, which tasted fine), but the kale leaves were way too tough. Needs some fiddling. Or possibly next time I just use chard.

Also, does anyone know what to do with kobocha squash?

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I thought the flavors were all quite good, although I agree with the sentiment that the kale was a bit too tough. Once I thought to slice it up before trying to eat the whole giant stuffed chunk though it was smooth sailing.

This icon isn't really appropriate. Oh well :->

I am happy with the flavors. Possibly it would help next time to boil the kale for a few minutes rather than just blanching it.

ah yeah, when I did the meat-stuffed kale leaves I had them sort of half-boiling in about 1.5" of chicken stock. It helped a lot.

I thought one could roast kobocha squash just like any other...but mine turned out very very dry and we ended up not eating it. Research!

Eek! Thanks for the warning.

I'd try something like this or this. I'm usually lazy and bake it but if you want something fancier then I think the Japanese methods of cooking it are the way to go.

Ooh. Those look very good -- the miso-glazed one especially. Perhaps I'll try that tomorrow.

A restaurant around here makes a really excellent curried kobocha squash soup (pureed, like butternut squash soups usually are). I've never cooked with kobocha myself, though.

Some kale is really tender, other kale is very tough. It's very hit-or-miss.

Yum. Yeah, a spiced soup sounds like a good option -- almost all the recipes the Food Network has for kobocha are soups.

When I was in Japan, I used kobocha as a substitute for pumpkin and made some sort of squash soup. Tasted great - my only complaint was that the skin was extra thick and I had a very hard time cutting it open.

Mmm, soup.

That's my biggest problem with most winter squashes -- they take so much force to slice open that I'm always afraid I'm going to slip and cut a finger off! (Butternut is probably the easiest to cut; sugar-pie pumpkin was a monster.)

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