If Looks Could Kale Caldo (trying the suspicious greens in Caldo)

It just so happens that I work at a school that grows organic vegetables and raises chickens. For Entrepreneur Day this year, the 5th/6th are hosting a farmer's market with organic vegetation (winter harvests) and free-range, organic chickens. What a fantastic fun-raiser addition! As a parent, my children have brought home classroom harvests that we've enjoyed.

It was an interesting day when a sea of 3rd graders carried beach-ball sized cabbage to dismissal for their parents to collect them. One of those children was my middle daughter. I had no clue they were involved with a gardening project, but our school has an amazing and healthy organic garden. My then 3rd grader brought home a 15 pound cabbage (not the record-holder cabbage, which weighed in at 15 lb, 9 oz). I missed the deadline for creating a dish for the feast (being a teacher means sometimes I'm a rotten mom; I just could not get a dish made because of work obligations). Luckily I was still invited to attend the harvest feast and check out dishes parents had made with cabbage and I felt less guilty about my lack of contribution because the feast was enormous! To store the beach ball for later use, it took 7 or 8 gallon size baggies to properly house the chopped cabbage. I gave several bags away to my parents and my sister and that still left us with an abundance. From that feast, a fellow teacher's husband (recruit the Daddy, I should have done that) made an enchilada cabbage casserole. Well, that gave me my first cabbage project! It's still one of my favorites and you'd think non-dieters would turn their nose up, but it's a hit at gatherings and my children (who'd thunk!?).

Often, my 6th grader best resembles The Dark Crystal's Aughra when she's carrying the world of supplies on her back. She prefers carrying her art supplies and library book in her hands. On her back is a overly-filled camping backpack (we had to go heavy duty and large-capacity) and on her arms are a gym bag, lunch bag, and a book bag for a stack of books she must carry. Just try to help her de-clutter that bag and remove the litany of books she's carrying around! This past week, my little bag lady had an addition to her load: a large bag of kale. We're talking a thin, medium size trash bag of kale.

I won't lie, I have tried kale once and thought, "Nope, don't like it." That means I haven't given it a real go. If I'm honest with myself, certain foods taste exceptional in one way, but completely disgusting in another way. Take spinach as an example. I could never stomach the cafeteria's soggy version growing up and it's alright in salads and yet I don't crave it. Then one day, I tried creamed spinach and it became one of my favorite work lunches, especially since it's a steamable veggie bag in the freezer aisle and that means zero prep on my part (save hitting buttons on the microwave). I'm certain the Parmesan and Asiago cheeses in the "creamed" part of the title is what does the trick. Many things are improved with cheese (that's how I get my children to eat cauliflower).

As the week progressed, my daughter pressed upon me the issue of a recipe assignment including the bag of kale taking up valuable real estate property in my fridge. What? I'm expected to cook it for a harvest feast. I don't even like kale! Due to having a child with poor memory who could not tell me when this dish was due, I sidled up to the science teacher at dismissal the next day and asked when the recipe and dish were due and...what do I even do? She replied, "It's great in Caldo!"

So, today, that is what I'm doing. My eldest daughter (it is her assignment, after all) and I are in the midst of making caldo. I have my medium crock pot and my largest pot put to work and we didn't even use all the bag. We've washed and cut vegetables and she wanted to put the kale in herself.

As for liking or not liking kale, I may have to talk to Sam I Am and explain a few things because I tried a leaf as I cut the greens for the If Looks Could Kale Caldo. It wasn't bitter like my first kale taste-test (then again, my first taste-test didn't come from our school's organic garden with pure chemical-free dirt; the size of our produce is astounding!).

If you are unfamiliar with the dish, Caldo is a Latin dish common to our area, but is found all over the world. Many variations exist and just like any recipe, each area will have its own unique ingredients. If you decide to google, you'll find many options to choose from: Caldo de Res (Beef Soup, which in our area, I've eaten as Oxtail soup), Caldo de Pollo (Chicken Soup), and Caldo Verde (Green Soup with kale or collard greens and sausage). That's just a few! While I am familiar with a Mexican version, the Portuguese have their national caldo, Caldo Verde and the spices and flavors have paprika and garlic spiced sausage, so the flavors are quite different than the smoky, cumin flavors that I'm familiar with.

Perhaps the best quality of caldo is the cheap and easy preparation. Every recipe lists food items often found in any kitchen and the portion you need of each item is small. My one large pot has only two potatoes and 2 corn cobs. As we cut and split the portions for the school's feast and our dinner, we watched it grow despite small handfuls of each ingredient going in. That tells me on those tight weeks or days before payday (perhaps when you went broke getting your children Christmas presents), you can look in each nook and cranny and drawer of your kitchen to put this soup together. Use that last potato in the bag that, alone, won't take care of a family of five. It's that half onion left over from another meal preparation or that one large carrot or half-used squash (happens when I'm the only one eating the vegetable on a regular basis). It's taking a can of chicken broth or a bullion cube and using leftover meat or emptying that 3 lb bag of frozen chicken that only has one large piece left. It sounds incredibly cheap (and quite possibly a leftovers mix) and fantastically easy (and I've been on a cooking boycott and this may be what ends the stalemate).

The caldo most typically found in our neck of the world includes squash and tender chicken pieces and it has a chicken-noodle soup healing feel to it. The chunks of vegetables are large and chicken is added without being cut. As it cooks (the longer the better), the chicken is so tender, it falls apart. It's colder outside lately and I really want to warm my hands around a soup bowl.

Being the cook I am, I research recipes and then do what I want. I see the common themes in each version. I know the flavors I like best and what my children will eat (the child who has the kale recipe assignment keeps remarking on the glorious smell. I know my group well and choosing the Mexican caldo spices would work. I even had herself so she could understand that fact. She inhaled a whiff of heaven...so choosing cumin was a win for us.

The recipe I'm working with includes carrots, onion, yellow squash, organic free-range chicken broth, frozen boneless skinless chicken thighs, potatoes, corn on the cob, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper...and that giant bag of kale in the fridge. Price-wise, this is a relatively cheap meal to prepare. I spent $24 on all the ingredients for two batches. I am estimating 16 servings for the stove top batch. Since some of the food I picked up were in bulk bags, like the potatoes and chicken, the full amount I spent isn't actually simmering on the stove or in the crock pot. I have enough potatoes left over for two meal sides and an extra piece of chicken. I estimate that, total, one batch costs $8.30 and one serving costs $0.52 cents.

I love crock pots so all we did was chop the vegetables into big chunks since caldo typically has large chunks of potatoes and onions and coins of carrots and squash. We put 2 potatoes, 1 yellow onion, 1 yellow squash, 2 corn cobs broken into 5 or so pieces, 2 or 3 frozen chunks of chicken thighs and 2 cups chicken broth. We trimmed the stem off about 6 leaves of organic kale for each batch and cut thin strips. We added approximately 3 or 4 tablespoons of cumin and garlic and added salt and pepper to taste. We eyeball spice amounts as a general rule.

Everything went in there at once and we set the crock pot for 4 hours on medium and the stove top simmered for about 2.5 hours before I turned off the heat altogether and let it sit. A side fact about chicken is it takes 30-60 minutes to cook frozen chicken depending on the size of the chicken pieces, so making sure it's thoroughly cook is quite important. We cook the caldo for longer because when the chicken is tender, you put a big spoon or mug into the soup to take out a serving, and the meat has separated itself and you have strings of chicken meat, it's that tender.

I love recipes where you prep and walk away until later. You don't even have to set a timer because it just gets better the longer it cooks. That's a great excuse for using the crock pot on low for the 8 to 10 hours you're at work for a day you know a cold front is blowing in. If you don't use a cover on the caldo while it simmers on the stove top, you will have to add water because of evaporation.

The verdict? Kale in caldo is mighty fine. I highly suggest it. As part of my daughter's project, she had to work on the nutritional value of one serving, which is included below. These numbers are estimates because often with caldo, you fish out what you want more of. My husband fishes out more meat while the youngest wants more broth and potatoes. Naturally, one of those bowls will have more protein while the other has more carbs and potassium. The kale and potatoes contribute considerable amounts of potassium. The kale alone put 2,227g of potassium in the entire pot. Potatoes added 1240g. When I have students in after-school sports and their little muscles ache from practice, I ask if they like bananas or avocados because they have potassium, but kale will be added to my suggestion list!

Happy eating!

Calories	Fat	Cholesterol	Sodium	Potassium	Carbs	Protein	Fiber
81.2g	2.4g	11.2mg	94.68mg	305.8mg	93.52g	4.36g	1.18g