Monday, January 5, 2009

Creamed Kale


A few months back, we hollered at you guys for kale recipes, and Zucu pointed us to a dairy-free creamed kale recipe in the free e-cookbook A Taste of Vitality. We're really into this quick weeknight side dish and it made a delicious, comforting accompaniment to a wedge of cornbread.

Some tips and modifications: the original recipe calls for white miso, but we've generally found that miso type doesn't make a difference, since what you're going for is the saltiness. We used barley miso because that's what we have, but feel free to experiment--chickpea miso is an especially nice option for those of you who aren't doing gluten or soy right now. Zucu likes to add extra onions; we just cook ours a little longer until it's close to caramelized. Finally, the original recipe called for white pepper, which we never taste, so we left it out. Your call.

Since it appears from reader comments on our site that the size of kale bunches varies widely, we tried this with two bunches from the farmer's market, about eight cups when chopped.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, sliced into rings
8 cups chopped kale, washed, stemmed & finely chopped
1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons miso
1/4 cup almond butter
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and fry until well-browned, then add kale and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft. Transfer the kale, onions and 1/4 cup water to your food processor, pulse until smooth, and then add remaining ingredients and blend (almond butter is added last to keep the blades from jamming). Add salt to taste.

Modified from A Taste of Vitality

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I cannot find you on Facebook...what am I doing wrong?

Anonymous said...

http://www.aminglingoftastes.com/2008/12/mushroom-barley-soup-with-kale.html

I Heart Kale said...

We're at http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Heart-Kale/25813903321

Other Lisa said...

Oooh, that sounds fabulous. But I don't have a food processor! What to do?!

I think I'll try it anyway. I actually have all the ingredients on hand.

I Heart Kale said...

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for stopping by! If you don't have a food processor, you might try using a little more water and trying to make this in your blender. If it's not thick enough, you can stir in some more almond butter when you're done blending.

Anonymous said...

this sounds amazing!! i'm so glad i found you guys, i've been feeling uninspired by vegetarian and vegan cooking lately, even though i have a thousand cookbooks. but this sounds MUCH more exciting (as do all the other recipes on here). thanks! :)

I Heart Kale said...

Thanks and welcome, Adina!

Rumela said...

Thanks for the Creamed Kale dish. Last summer I ate them at a party and has been looking for an authentic recipe ever since. Now I will be able to make them myself. Thanks again.

I Heart Kale said...

Great! Enjoy your DIY creamed kale.

Diane Moser said...

I love your blog-made the creamed kale the other day-whoa-totally scrumptious!
Tomorrow I'm making the massaged kale salad for a special mother's day pot luck.
Can't wait to eat my way thru all of your recipes here!