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