Kid-Friendly Ham and Cheese Endive Nachos from Rachael of La Fuji Mama

Ham and Cheese Endive Nachos

Looking for a way to entice your kids to eat more endive? With all the nutrients that endive packs into those pale yellow or red leaves, you should be!

One of our OnDivas, Rachael of La Fuji Mama, helps out with this great recipe for Ham and Cheese Endive Nachos. All the crispy, crunchy, salty, cheesy goodness, with less fat and calories than traditional nachos. Find out which took less time: making the nachos, or watching them disappear!

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Korean Barbeque-Stuffed Endive Leaves from Amy of Word Kitchen

Today we are honored to have a guest post from Amy of Word Kitchen, who writes about the culinary connections between American Thanksgiving traditions and her son’s South Korean heritage. Her Korean Barbeque-Stuffed Endive Leaves are a savory treat from her home to yours, ready to be enjoyed any time!

Writer Amy Rogers Nazarov (in black, at end of table) enjoys Thanksgiving dinner with her family at home in Washington, DC in November 2011. The Korean Barbeque-Stuffed Endive Leaves were long gone by this point. (photo courtesy Ari Nazarov)

My husband Ari and I brought our son home from South Korea when he was almost nine months old.

Adopting Jake has made our lives richer in so many ways, from the friends with whom we socialize – families built by adoption and biology – to the dreams we nurture about a journey back to South Korea so Jake can see where he was born – and, with luck, see his foster family and his birth relatives.

Jake is almost five years old, and talking openly about his adoption is just the way we do things around here. He knows he did not come out of my belly but out of his birth mom’s. There is a photo of his foster mother holding him on our living-room mantel. And I’ve told him he used to ride in his foster mom’s podaegi when she went out to buy food or run errands in the bustling city of Seoul. A podaegi is a Korean baby carrier, a great length of fabric the caregiver wraps around herself and the baby so the infant is cozily snuggled against her back. The moment I first laid eyes on my son, in the parking lot of his foster family’s apartment building, all I could see was his head sticking out of the podaegi.

Happily, Jake likes Korean food, which we eat in restaurants about once a month and which I am learning to make at home. Last Thanksgiving, I experimented with Korean barbeque, which is usually made with short ribs marinated in a salty-sweet sauce. I thought it might be the basis of an appetizer giving a nod to Jake’s birth culture, which we seek to honor and learn more about any chance we get.

My entire family – my parents, my brother and sister and their spouses and children – came from New England to Washington to celebrate and eat with Ari, Jake and me. By and large, it was a traditional American feast: there was a 20-pound turkey, my brother Paul’s green-bean casserole, my sister Alison’s squash, my mother Carol’s apple pie (true confession: we’d all take apple over pumpkin any darn day). But like I said, I wanted to put a Korean stamp on the meal.

This dish is based on the Korean barbeque recipe in Joohee Muromcew’s The Baby Bistro Cookbook (Rodale, 2003). I used 80/20 ground beef, marinating it for an hour or so before I dropped it down in the hot skillet. The first time I prepared the dish, I made two mistakes: one, I used ground sirloin, which dried out because of the relative lack of fat. Also, I worked the marinade into the meat, which made the cooked beef tough. I advise you to purchase ground chuck for the recipe and then to just let the meat hang out in the marinade, turning it a couple of times; you’ll have a chance to work the flavors in later when you are browning it.

When it’s cooled a little, I spooned the cooked beef into endive leaves, which not only add crunch, color and contrast but are sturdy enough to hold the meat. My husband is a vegetarian, but everyone else gobbled up the meat-stuffed leaves with gusto.

My hope is to serve a Korean dish at every Thanksgiving. We’re a Korean-American family now, and preparing and eating the food of our son’s birth country can, I think, help tide us over until we get back to Korea one day to help him better understand where he came from on his journey to us.

Korean Barbeque-Stuffed Endive Leaves

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 scallions or chives, chopped

½ cup low-sodium soy sauce

1 T hoisin sauce (optional)

1 T white sugar

1 T brown sugar

2 T toasted sesame oil

1 pound ground beef (preferably ground chuck, which has a higher fat content)

Two heads of endive, washed, with leaves pulled off and ready to fill

Mix the scallions, garlic, soy sauce, hoisin sauce (if you are using it), sugars and oil in large self-closing plastic bag (it has to be big because the meat’s going into it). Make sure you dissolve the sugars. Place the beef in the bag and let it marinate for a minimum of 15 minutes. You can also leave it there overnight.

Into a skillet preheated to medium, dump the entire contents of the bag. Break apart the marinated beef with a spoon for 10 minutes or more. Resist the urge to turn up the heat; the sugar in the marinade can burn if it’s too hot.

Once the meat is no longer pink inside (be sure to take out a knife and check!), pile a tablespoon or so of the beef into the waiting endive leaves (enlist some help from anyone standing around in the kitchen, as this is a bit time-consuming). The bigger leaves might be able to hold a bit more.

The meat-stuffed leaves look nice arranged on a round platter. These tasty bites cool off quickly, but they taste good warm or at room temperature.

About the blogger:

Amy Rogers Nazarov (photo courtesy Ari Nazarov)

Amy Rogers Nazarov writes about food, adoption and technology from her home in Washington, DC. Her byline has appeared in Cooking Light, Washingtonian, The Washington Post, The Writer, Cure, BizTech, The Baltimore Examiner, Media Bistro, and many other outlets. Amy blogs at www.wordkitchen.net, tweets @WordKitchenDC, and is represented by Fairbank Literary Representation (http://www.fairbankliterary.com/)

Ricotta and Endive Appetizer from Paula at Bellalimento

Ricotta and Endive Appetizer

This Sunday, February 26, the 84th Academy Awards will be broadcast. Paula, from Bellalimento shares her delicious Ricotta and Endive Appetizers, which make a great snack to share during award show viewing! Elegant, delicious, easy and nutritious. What more could you ask for? Read Paula’s full recipe here!

 

California Endive with Homemade Boursin and Smoked Salmon

Endive with homemade boursin and smoked salmon

The holidays are filled with wonderful opportunities to share home cooked meals, entertain friends and neighbors, and celebrate all that is delicious during the season. Today, one of our OnDivas, Carolyn, from All Day I Dream About Food, shares a family recipe for homemade boursin. The recipe is her husband’s, and Carolyn promises it is “out of this world!” She puts a healthy dollop on raw endive leaves, and tops that with smoked salmon. Try Carolyn’s version, or use the delicious spread as a base and come up with your own mouth-watering combinations. Ideas include:

• chopped walnuts
• dried cranberries
• thinly sliced cucumber
• buttery croutons (for extra crunch!)
• fresh herbs (basil, dill, Italian parsley)
• smoked almonds
• crumbled bacon
• a drizzle of honey

Mix and match a few to see what you like best! And be sure to visit Carolyn’s blog for the full recipe and story behind this family favorite!

Endive with homemade boursin and smoked salmon

Endive with Mexican Shrimp Salad

All week we’re highlighting fabulous yet simple recipes to help you add delicious dishes to your holiday entertaining, while minimizing stress. The recipe below uses the bold flavors of lime, cilantro and Serrano peppers to bring a taste of Mexico to your holiday table.

Endive with Mexican Shrimp Salad
Serves 6 to 8

Dressing:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 small clove garlic, very finely minced
Salt

Salad:
1/2 pound cooked and peeled baby shrimp
1/2 cup radishes, halved and thinly sliced
1/2 ripe but firm avocado, in small dice
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, plus whole leaves for garnish
Minced serrano or jalapeño chile, to taste
1/2 lime
18 to 20 endive spears

For dressing: In small bowl, whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and salt to taste.

In medium bowl, combine shrimp, radishes, avocado, green onion, chopped cilantro, chile and a generous squeeze of lime juice. Add dressing and toss gently with your hands. Taste for salt and lime.

Divide mixture among endive spears. Garnish each spear with a whole cilantro leaf. Serve immediately.

De-Stress the Holidays with California Endive

Home entertaining peaks at holiday time, and stress spikes along with it.

But that was last year. This year, implement a new strategy. Start stockpiling festive recipes that rely more on your flair than your time, such as anything made with the fashionable and elegant endive. Both white and red varieties make an immediate style statement and can take you from Thanksgiving through New Year’s with minimal effort. Endive (say on-deev) can help you keep a lid on holiday calories, too. At only one calorie per spear, endive is truly the “slimmer dipper,” a more wholesome choice than crackers or salty chips.

A versatile vegetable developed in Belgium (but now California grown), endive can come to the table either hot or cold. Crisp and refreshing when sliced raw in salads with candied walnuts and ruby beets, the shapely heads also bake to perfection. Braise them with broth, cream, and mustard for a side dish worthy of your Thanksgiving turkey or a holiday roast. For a cocktail party, the curvaceous spears can cradle any filling or scoop any dip, from a creamy feta spread to a spicy shrimp salad.

Endive may have a glamorous aura but it’s a remarkably practical choice: less expensive pound-for-pound than most bagged salad mixes; longer lasting (up to 14 days if kept in moist paper towels in a plastic bag); and all but effortless. You don’t even need to wash it or spin it dry; just slice the heads crosswise for salads, discarding the core, or braise the plump heads whole. Its captivating bittersweet flavor has made endive a European favorite, a complement to apples, pears, and nuts, smoked fish, and roast meats.

All week we’ll be offering fabulous recipes that add the delicious to your holiday entertaining, while steering clear of added stress. First up, Endive with Roasted Red Pepper Feta Spread!

Endive with Roasted Red Pepper Feta Spread

Makes 1 1/3 cups spread, to serve 8
1/2 pound Greek or French feta, in small chunks
1/2 large roasted red bell pepper, peeled, seeded and sliced
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, or more if needed
2 dozen white and red endive spears for dipping
Fresh dill sprigs, for garnish
Kalamata olives, for garnish

Put feta, bell pepper and garlic in food processor and blend, adding just as much olive oil as needed to make a smooth puree. Transfer spread to serving platter or bowl and surround with endive spears. Garnish with dill sprigs and olives.

For more holiday entertaining ideas, visit the Discover Endive website.

 

New Discover Endive Video!

Dr. Oz recommends one ounce of raw endive each week. That’s only one head of endive! In this video, culinary expert and cookbook author Jill Silverman Hough shows you how easy it is to incorporate endive into your weekly menu with five different and tasty ideas.

Endive Spears filled with Goat Cheese and Fresh Cherry Relish

This post originally appeared on Table Talk, written by Debi Shawcross, and is reprinted here with her permission. Please visit her blog for more inspiring recipes, cooking tips and entertaining ideas.

This past weekend we were invited to our friends’ house for a casual summertime dinner party. When I asked what I could bring, our hostess said “How about an hors d’oeuvre? I think I’m making lobster rolls for our entree, and going with a kind of picnic theme.”

My ears perked up when I heard “lobster”, which is my favorite thing to eat in the whole world.  Lobster chilled, tossed with a  lemon aioli, and sandwiched into a lightly buttered,  toasted New England style roll is one of the best ways to enjoy lobster on a 90 degree summer night as far as I’m concerned.

I was excited about seeing our friends after being away for most of the summer, and excited for the lobster rolls. Now what to bring?

Something that was assembled, and ready to go when I arrived was at the top of the criteria, and knowing it would be a warm night, I wanted something that could be served chilled, or at room temperature. What flavors would complement the sweet, succulent lobster? How about smoky, salty pancetta? That’s always a good thing, and also happened to be the first flavor that came to mind, as I thought of a filling I could spoon into  Belgian endive spears.

So here’s what I came up with: Endive spears filled with a bit of chive goat cheese, and topped with a fresh cherry relish made with pancetta, arugula, and hazelnuts.  A balance of sweet, salty , and tangy, rounded out with some of that butternut squash seed oil that I fell in love with in the Beef Tenderloin Rolls filled with Arugula and Crispy Leeks I made a few weeks ago.

The relish and goat cheese worked really well  served together in the cool endive spears (they disappeared off of the tray pretty fast!) I think the relish  would also be a fine addition  to  grilled chicken, lamb, or duck, and plan to try it that way soon.

And the lobster rolls? They were fantastic.

Endive Spears Filled with Goat Cheese and Fresh Cherry Relish

Endive Spears filled with Goat Cheese and Fresh Cherry Relish

1 teaspoon olive oil

4 ounces pancetta, finely chopped

1 cup (about 5-6 ounces) pitted cherries, finely chopped

1/2 cup arugula, cut into a chiffonade

1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts

1/4 teaspoon fig balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon butternut squash seed oil (or extra virgin olive oil)

Salt and pepper to taste

8 ounces goat cheese (I used chive flavored)

4 large heads Belgian endive, trimmed, leaves separated

Heat olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium high heat. Add pancetta and saute, stirring frequently, until browned and crisp. Drain on paper towel lined plate.

Transfer pancetta to a medium bowl and add add next 5 ingredients, stirring thoroughly to combine. Spoon about 1/2 teaspoon into the bottom of an endive spear. Top with an equal amount of cherry relish. Repeat with remaining ingredients.

Makes 36-40 spears.