Dairy-tacular! Eggs, ginger ice cream, and Garlicky Kale with White Beans

Whoo, today has been a fun kitchen day! First, I hard-boiled a bunch of eggs. About half of them I'm just gonna dye pretty colors and eventually make sandwiches out of, chop and put on salads, or give to my cousins and the neighbor kids for Easter. Here's a tip I stole from Veggie Life magazine a couple Easters ago -- wrap rubber bands around the eggs before dipping them in dye for a pretty resist effect. The other half I'm pickling -- it goes like this: Mix 1/2 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup cold water, 3 cloves and 1 cinnamon stick. Boil young beets until tender (I used 6 tiny ones), peel and add to the liquid mixture. Then add peeled hard-boiled eggs. Let them pickle for at least two days before eating.

I haven't made them in almost ten years, and it's been nearly that long since I've even had a pickled egg. You don't actually have to use the beets, and I sure wouldn't eat them, but it does dye the eggs bright fuschia, which I see as a plus. They're tasty. You'd have to try them to judge.

Also, I really miss the Indian ice creams I occasionally got in San Francisco, like Cardamom, Chai, Ginger, Rose Petal . . . so I'm making ginger ice cream. I initially thought that I might go with the Ben and Jerry's principal off stuffing as much junk in there as possible -- Trader Joe's Triple Ginger cookies (ginger snaps), fresh ginger, powdered ginger, and candied ginger. But I don't actually like candied ginger much, and I started envisioning a smooth gingery ice cream, so I'm using the B & J's sweet cream base 1 (from their book), and I just minced about a cup and a half of fresh ginger and added it to about 2 cups of whole milk. Then I cooked it at a simmer, stirring constantly, for about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the milk kind of separated, and the solids stuck to the ginger when I strained it. My ice cream freezer thing probably won't be ready until later tonight (it has to be in the freezer 24 hours), so I'll let you know tomorrow how it turns out. I've got the milk in the fridge so it can cool down before I mix everything up. I plan to taste it first and add powdered ginger if it needs more flavor.

Finally, for dinner I'm using the following Jack Bishop recipe -- last week's veggie box was way heavy on the greens. We ate two bunches of lettuce in salad, one cabbage in stir-fry, two bunches of chard (white and red) last night in greens with sausage, and I STILL have one giant bunch of kale, so tonight's plan is Garlicky Kale with White Beans, a hot stew-y dish to go with the rainy weather.

1 1/2 pounds kale
Salt
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
4 medium garlic cloves, minced
Two 15 oz cans cannelini or other white beans, drained and rinsed
2/3 cup vegetable stock
freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in a large pot.
2. Wash the kale in several changes of cold water, stripping off both sides of the leafy green portion from both sides of the tough central vein. Discard the veins and tear the leafy portions into small pieces. Add the kale and 1 tsp salt to the boiling water. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the kale is tender, about 8 minutes. Drain well.
3. Heat the oil and garlic in a large skillet set over medium heat. When the garlic is golden (this will take about 2 minutes), add the kale and cook, tossing well, until heated through and evenly flavored with the garlic, 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Add the beans and stock and simmer just until the beans are heated through, about 5 minutes. Add pepper to taste. Adjust the seasonings and serve immediately.