Kale Recipe Shoutout

Dear readers,

Many of you heart kale as much as we do. We bet you have some really good kale recipes up your sleeve that ought to be shared with the world. Well, here's your chance. Consider this post an open forum for your best kale recipes -- raw, cooked, salads, soups, we want them all. Give us your recipes in the comments section as well as links to the most delicious and inventive kale recipes you've seen online. Then let's eat them all! Prizes will be awarded for the most delicious and inventive. (Disclaimer: there are no actual prizes, except the satisfying warmth of a bellyful of kale.)

If you need inspiration, check out the Kale and Friends tag on the right-hand side of the blog, or try this:
Kale with Tomato Peanut Sauce

1 bunch kale, stems removed
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped.
3 large chopped tomatoes
3/4 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky -- your choice!)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
salt

Heat up a little olive oil in a medium saucepan, then add the tomatoes. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes reach sauce consistency. Stir in the peanut butter and cayenne. Salt to taste.

Meanwhile, chop the kale and heat a wok with a little olive oil. Stir-fry the garlic and kale over medium-high heat. When the kale is wilted to your liking, stir in the tomato sauce. We served ours over brown rice and roasted okra. Yum.

Yours in kale,
Hannah & Phoebe

Guest Blog: Beta Carotene Curry

****iheartkale note: In the spirit of Thanksgiving, our old co-op buddies Honor and Sarah have offered a guest post-enjoy!****

The first time I lived alone in Manhattan I bought onions. I diced five of them before I realized that I no longer lived with Hannah. It took a while to get out of the habit of cooking in bulk, and I thought I was alone with this problem of overcooking, until I mentioned it to Sarah. When Sarah lived in Germany she was only cooking for herself. Every night, she asked her roommate what she was having for dinner (usually canned peas) and incorporated that into her meal, just so she should cook for someone other than herself. We both have made scrambled tofu for our carnivorous parents. We both have a strong association with the smell of ground cumin and tonight we're reliving our past as cooking partners in Somerville, MA.

Now we're both together in Somerville and Sarah has acquired a large canvas bag of root vegetables and is slowly converting them into vegetable soup, all the way pressing things under my nose to inhale -freshly minced ginger, ground nutmeg, freshly cut squash, C. Moore's Northampton honey, chamomile & mint tea and most recently, curry powder (don't breathe in too deeply). Now that she's headed home tomorrow for Thanksgiving, she's decided to convert this pile of orange veg into...... Beta Carotene Curry.

The recipe is as follows:

2 onions
5 cloves of minced garlic
6 sweet potatoes in a 1/2" dice
1 5lb bag of carrots
1 butternut squash
1.5 tablespoons of minced garlic
4 bay leaves
Turmeric
Curry Powder
Cumin
Nutmeg

Cover the bottom of the pan with generous drizzlings of olive oil and add the onions, garlic, ginger, salt and pepper and heat on low until the onions are glassy. Then, add the chopped carrots first, then the sweet potato and squash (anything Orange!) and cover with your
favorite stock and bring to a boil. Now add your spices and wait until the vegetables are soft and blendable (don't forget to take out those pesky bay leaves!). Blend with the stick blender and enjoy with good company and possibly a dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream...