Your best Kale recipe...

This recipe closest replicates the last thing I did with kale...but greens, to me, are always good steamed to oblivion and seasoned with lemon juice and red pepper flakes.

My favorite snack is kale crunch:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Take the kale leaves and rip into largish pieces. Lightly grease a jelly roll pan with oil and put the kale in the pan. Bake for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. The kale will wilt, then start drying out. Sprinkle on some salt, pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese and continue baking and stirring for another 10 minutes or until the kale is quite crisp. Some of the leaves may still be a little chewy, but that's okay.

I can eat a whole pan of this in one sitting.

ETA: I wish I could take credit for this recipe, but I can't. The original recipe is in Vegetable Heaven by Mollie Katzen (of Moosewood fame).

when i was a kid, my mom would cook kale ( the only veggie i would eat) until it's like cooked spinach and i'd mix it with mashed potatoes and then i'd build a volcano and put gravy in the top and then i'd tunnel a hole in the bottom and watch the lava come out. And then I'd eat it. Usually, she'd cook knackwurst with it. That's like a sausage only more like a smokie.

Kale is one of my favorites, right next to beets. Yum. . I love it with anything. I have a bunch of great recipes, but my favorite is just taking the leaves and thin ribs, giving them a good chop, throw some nice onions in a medium heat pan with olive oil. Saute. Add garlic, rough chopped, and salt, pepper, red pepper flakes. Throw in kale with a bit of water and cook it until it looks delicious. I also love doing this with pasta water and shrimp, then serving the lot over pasta with a shaving of parm. Yum.

jennifer75 said:

And can someone tell me what I'm smelling when the Kale is cooking???? A familiar smell, but couldn't put my nose on it. Is it just the cabbage I'm smelling??? Smelled strong, not too offending, but strong. I guess it's the cabbage, right?

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Kale, like cabbage, contains sulfur and I'm guessing that's the familiar smell?

1 med. onion diced
1-2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup dried cranberries
a whole mess of torn kale rinsed and well wet

sautee the onions with cranberries in butter until the onions fade clear. Add in wet kale and sautee until wilted. salt to taste.

Delicious, quick, and pretty.

Perks said:

1 med. onion diced
1-2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup dried cranberries
a whole mess of torn kale rinsed and well wet

sautee the onions with cranberries in butter until the onions fade clear. Add in wet kale and sautee until wilted. salt to taste.

Delicious, quick, and pretty.

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I bet it would be great with dried cherries, too. I'm trying this tomorrow. I have a gob of kale in the fridge that's been yelling at me since Friday's farmer's market.

My favorite is curly kale stir fried in olive oil with a little sliced garlic, salt and pepper. Yum!

Saritams8 said:

Kale is one of my favorites, right next to beets. Yum. . I love it with anything. I have a bunch of great recipes, but my favorite is just taking the leaves and thin ribs, giving them a good chop, throw some nice onions in a medium heat pan with olive oil. Saute. Add garlic, rough chopped, and salt, pepper, red pepper flakes. Throw in kale with a bit of water and cook it until it looks delicious. I also love doing this with pasta water and shrimp, then serving the lot over pasta with a shaving of parm. Yum.

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This is pretty much what I do, too, but with loads of garlic. I love garlic! Garlic is lovely!!!!

Basically, I use it wherever I would use spinach. Although I can't get kale here, so now I do that with kohl rabi, radish (large ones), beet, and whatever other dark green leafy veggies I can get.

L M Ashton said:

This is pretty much what I do, too, but with loads of garlic. I love garlic! Garlic is lovely!!!!

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Me, too! Finn will eat a few of the leaves of kale, a bunch of the onions, and ALL of the garlic out of the dish. He LOVES garlic. So, I am sure to throw in mass amounts.

In standard skillet, sautée sliced mushrooms (amount as to your preference) and onions in olive oil, with some ground pepper, until onions begin to caramelize, browning around the edges. Turn heat to low, or remove from heat altogether, pile as much chopped kale on top as will fit, cover and let simmer or just steam for about five minutes.

Eat.

One hint, with the kale, just use the leaves, trimmed off the stem. Stems tend to be pretty tough. Overall, I find kale an excellent substitute for spinach in anything cooked, as it doesn't get mushy the way spinach does. And it is generally inexpensive and highly nutritious. I routinely grow kale in my garden; it's dead easy to grow, and is the most frost-resistant vegetable imaginable. I've picked it as late as November here in Alaska, with snow on it.

Addendum: You can do this recipe with swiss chard or beet greens pretty well, too.

caw

blacbird said:

I routinely grow kale in my garden; it's dead easy to grow, and is the most frost-resistant vegetable imaginable. I've picked it as late as November here in Alaska, with snow on it.

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What's the temperature/time table for kale, bird? I'd love to throw it in the garden, but I might be too late.

My whole family loves Zuppa Toscana:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Zuppa-Toscana/Detail.aspx

I used to make a low carb version I found here:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=144020

And I found a weight watchers-friendly recipe too:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Mastercook4WW/message/143

Saritams8 said:

What's the temperature/time table for kale, bird? I'd love to throw it in the garden, but I might be too late.

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You could put in kale now, no problem. It actually does well after some frost; improves the flavor.

caw

We put kale in hearty minestrone soup. Put it in about 5-10 minutes before the soup is done boiling and it will soften up nicely.

nevada said:

when i was a kid, my mom would cook kale ( the only veggie i would eat) until it's like cooked spinach and i'd mix it with mashed potatoes and then i'd build a volcano and put gravy in the top and then i'd tunnel a hole in the bottom and watch the lava come out. And then I'd eat it. Usually, she'd cook knackwurst with it. That's like a sausage only more like a smokie.

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This sounds a lot like a very famous Irish dish called Colcannon, except for gravy, there was butter. It's great.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound kale (or cabbage)
• 1 pound potatoes
• 2 leeks
• 1 cup milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pinch ground mace
• 1/2 cup butter

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large saucepan, boil cabbage until tender; remove and chop or blend well. Set aside and keep warm. Boil potatoes until tender. Remove from heat and drain.
2. Chop leeks, green parts as well as white, and simmer them in just enough milk to cover, until they are soft.
3. Season and mash potatoes well. Stir in cooked leeks and milk. Blend in the kale or cabbage and heat until the whole is a pale green fluff. Make a well in the center and pour in the melted butter. Mix well.

Kale is a member of the cabbage family and is highly nutricious. I also like to boil it up and serve it with a little olive oil and lemon juice. Young kale takes only a little cooking but later in the season, it takes more. The plant is very hardy and can continue to grown under the snow. there are several versions; Red Russian Kale, Green Kale, Italian Kale (aka: dinosaur kale) and flowering kale. If you have a garden, you can grow it for a lot less than $.99 a bunch.

Saute a medium, thinly sliced onion in a pan with some portobella mushrooms, olive oil and a bit of sea salt and pepper. When they onions have softened and the mushrooms just begin to release their juice, add the wet, torn (or chopped) kale, a teensy pat of butter and cover. Steam for 5-10 min or so. You can add garlic with the onions if you are a fan (I'm not) but try not to overwhelm that mushroom flavor.

Kale to me equals garnish or fish food. I hardly ever actually serve it to anyone. If I am going to use kale. . . why not just go with a better tasting green of the same texture, swiss chard or mustard greens?

MeowGirl said:

My favorite snack is kale crunch:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Take the kale leaves and rip into largish pieces. Lightly grease a jelly roll pan with oil and put the kale in the pan. Bake for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. The kale will wilt, then start drying out. Sprinkle on some salt, pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese and continue baking and stirring for another 10 minutes or until the kale is quite crisp. Some of the leaves may still be a little chewy, but that's okay.

I can eat a whole pan of this in one sitting.

ETA: I wish I could take credit for this recipe, but I can't. The original recipe is in Vegetable Heaven by Mollie Katzen (of Moosewood fame).

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Ok- I'm making some of this later today- Will let you know how it turns out. I love most of the Moosewood recipes, so I bet this will be great!