I’ve had some requests for what I do with kale, so here it goes…

What you’ll need:

• One or two bunches of kale
• 100% extra virgin olive oil
• A sea salt grinder (we actually got a sea salt/dried garlic grinder)

That’s it. Since there are so few ingredients, each one really stands out, which means the quality of the ingredients is very noticeable. So use sea salt instead of regular salt and make sure the olive oil says 100% pure (otherwise it’s probably a blend).

You’ll need to separate the leaves from the stem running up the middle. The stem is edible, but it’s very, very tough—too tough for this method of cooking to soften. Put the leaves in a large bowl and toss lightly with some olive oil. Not a ton—just enough to lightly coat each piece. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees. If the baking sheet is large enough for all the pieces to lay flat without touching, bake for six minutes, flip all pieces, and bake for another six minutes. If the pieces are all jammed together, just bake for thirteen to fifteen minutes. They won’t be cooked as evenly, but it works. Salt them when you take them out.

This actually went really well with a vegan dish I found online. Here’s the recipe for that:

What you’ll need:

• Two medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• One red bell pepper, diced
• One medium yellow or white onion, diced
• One can dark red kidney beans, drained
• One can small red beans, drained
• Three or four cloves of garlic, minced or diced finely
• Rosemary (1 teaspoon dried)
• Thyme (1 teaspoon dried)
• Paprika (1 teaspoon)
• One tablespoon butter
• Some olive oil

Put the butter and a touch of olive oil in a large skillet. (Use enough oil to coat however much of the pan that the butter doesn’t.) Sautee the garlic for a minute or two, but don’t brown it. Drop in all ingredients but the beans and sautee over medium heat until cooked (maybe ten minutes). Once cooked, drop in the beans and cook until warm.

This breaks the vegan rule, but a fried egg on top is really good.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 17th, 2010 at 9:52 am and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.