Discussion Board

I've never eaten Kale before, but thanks to the number of people on these boards who seem to love them, I bought my first bunch yesterday, and I'm ready to give it a go. I really want to like this, so what's the best way to prepare it for my maiden voyage into the land of kale???

Thanks in advance for your great ideas!

Blessings,
Jubilee

p.s. I don't own an electric steamer or anything fancy. Well, except a pressure cooker, but I assume that's overkill... right?

Depends on the kind of kale. I've heard there are more tender varieties, but I've only eaten the curly kale. I tend to like it cooked a bit longer to be tender. Maybe 15 or 20 minutes braised or in soup. I like garlic in my greens like kale, collards or spinach. It wouldn't take long in your pressure cooker, maybe 3 to 5 minutes at pressure, then quick release. Put a couple cups of water or broth and some (4 or 5 or more cloves) sliced garlic in the pressure cooker with the kale. Or make soup. You could add it to minestrone or make a veg*n Portuguese Kale soup.

I love marinated raw kale salad with an Asian-style dressing.
1) Strip the tender leaves away from the coarse stems (which are bitter and woody): I sort of cup my fingertips around the base of the leaf and pull the stem through my fingers to strip off the leaves. If the stem breaks off near the tip of the leaf, that's a tender enough piece to leave.
2) Cut the leaves into smaller pieces.
3) Add a dressing of your choice. My favorite is NOT MWL because it has some peanut butter in it. You could also use lime or lemon juice, some ginger juice, maybe a shot of soy sauce.
4) Let the salad marinate overnight. It will keep for at least a week in the fridge and get more tender and flavorful as it sits.

I use the kale stems cut into chopped pieces in my veggie soups. I use the leaves, chopped into fork-sized pieces as a base of my chopped fruit salad. It's both pretty and healthful.

Kale is great prepared in a lot of ways.

1. Here's an excerpt from a bruised raw kale recipe from my old CSA:


You don't need to use much, or any, salt, really. The bruised kale is great in grain salads or with cooked whole wheat couscous.

2. Blanching: you can do this with any cooking green, such as kale, collards, mustard and turnip greens. It's especially helpful if you don't like the bitter taste of those last two on the list. Bring a pot of water to a boil, add the clean greens, and let cook just until wilted. The time will vary depending on the type of greens. Remove quickly with a slotted spoon or strainer and drain. You can run cool water over them to stop the cooking process.

At this point, you can chop them and them to anything - grain salad again, soup that's just finished cooking, stir-fry, pilaf, whatever. Or, toss with minced garlic, a splash of lemon juice, and a sprinkle of cumin and call it a side dish.

3. Stir-fry: kale and other cooking greens can be prepped in advance. Just strip from stems, clean, let dry thoroughly - a salad spinner is helpful - and slice thinly. (See instructions for easy slicing in quote above.) Store in the fridge in a bag and grab a handful to add towards the end of cooking your stir-fry.

4. Soups: kale and other greens are great in soups. Do not overcook. These greens go particularly well with potatoes! You can find a million kale-potato soup recipes online. Obviously look for the ones that are vegan, have little salt added, and no oil. Or modify, modify, modify!

5. Rice dishes: kale and other greens go wonderfully with cooked rice or grains. Braise or blanch to cook lightly and add to the dish.

6. Braising: this is like stir-frying - a quick stir in a hot skillet with no oil. Add a little moisture - water, broth, wine - if necessary to keep from sticking. Season or add to other dishes.

Hope this helps give you some ideas.

Wow, that's great stuff chile.

It took me a while to appreciate kale. Now I add it to my morning potatoes; I add it to stews, asian stir-fries and any place I can remember to throw it.

I've not made a smoothie yet. I hear a lot of people talking about it.

Thanks everyone!

I was thinking of making potato soup today, so I took Chile's suggestion that kale goes great with potatoes, and added some of the kale to that. It tastes fine, though admittedly I can't really taste it much at all. But, for someone who has trouble eating enough greens, this is a great start. My daughter tasted it and suggested that I should have chopped it into littler pieces- getting a big mouthful of kale was offputting to her. I guess I'll do that next time, but I really didn't mind at all. So, now I have about 3 more bowls to enjoy in the next couple of days! And I still have about 3/4 of the bunch left to try some of your other suggestions. Which one to do??? Decisions, decisions...

Thank you again for taking time to reply!

Blessings,
Jubilee

This is going to sound boring, but I love to steam it and have it plain. If I want a little seasoning, I'll add some lemon juice or balsamic or apple cider vinegar. I just love plain old kale - yum!

I have done the salt bruising, but I prefer it steamed to raw.

Hopefully Loveskale will chime in

This is one of my all-time favourite recipes.

I'll be happy to! This originally was a "quick" recipe from a vegetarian cookbook, but I modified it a bit and now it is such a comfort food. I hope you and your hubby enjoy it!

1 bunch kale, finely chopped
1 can white or red navy beans (any white beans work actually)
2 lemons
chile flakes or cayenne, to taste
1 package of spaghetti (I like Tinkyada borwn rice)
3 cloves garlic, minced
Salt, to taste

Cook the pasta according to package directions while you prepare the rest.
In a non-stick pan, carefully brown the garlic. Add the kale and the juice of ONE lemon. When the kale has cooked down and no longer bitter (the longer the better! I usually get this started and then start the pasta!) add the beans the the hot pepper flakes. When the pasta is done, stir it in and add the juice from the other lemon. Salt according to taste.

Actually, it's still easy if you are not cooking the beans from scratch! The recipe called for roasted garlic, but I never have it handy and just fell in love with the browned garlic.

I've always used spaghetti, but the recipe calls for fettucine. Use whichever you like best.

It is also fun if you use purple kale!

I am really into kale salads lately... kale mixed with any raw veggies and a ff vinaigrette.