The Classic

Braised kale and roasted sweet potatoes

The first, the original, the Classic. This was my first combination of the orange and green, invented shortly after I discovered dino kale, the gateway green. Take a few tokes off this bumpy, dark green leaf and it is a short spiral into more hardcore greens like curly kale, mustard greens, collard greens, broccoli rabe, red Russian kale, and the like. Like marijuana, dino kale goes by many names: lacinato kale, dino kale, cavolo nero. It’s all the same thing.

The Classic was my go-to meal for much of the late 1990s, leading some to call it “The Lynne Special.” It was probably the first dish I ever made that wasn’t from a recipe. I still eat it fairly often. It’s not particularly fast, but it’s easy and uses mostly things you have on hand (or should have on hand). Most recently I ate this for dinner after a yoga workshop dedicated to detoxifying the body (in the spirit of the season). I felt full but not toxic. A few more meals like this one and I’ll feel well enough to start on a retox diet.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

1 or 2 large garnet or jewel sweet potatoes, cut into 1″ chunks or rounds
a generous pinch of chili powder
a sprinkling of brown sugar
olive oil to coat
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400ish. Combine all ingredients and put them in a roasting dish with a cover. Use foil if the dish doesn’t have its own lid. Roast until tender and the chili powder and sugar have caramelized together, 45 minutes to an hour.

Braised Dino Kale

1 bunch dino kale, ribs removed and leaves torn into manageable pieces, washed and drained but not dried
2 or 3 large cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 dried chile de arbol

While the sweet potatoes are roasting, get the kale ready. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large saucepan or deep skillet.

Crumble the dried chile de arbole into the heated oil and stir for about 30 seconds. Add the garlic and stir until fragrant. Put the washed greens in the pot and stir to coat the leaves with the oil and garlic. If the leaves don’t have water still clinging to them from the washing, add about a ¼ cup of water to the pot.

Lower the heat, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until leaves are dark and glossy but not too mushy, about 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste, then turn out on a plate alongside the roasted sweet potatoes.