Cheesy Rice with Leeks and Swiss Chard

We had a fantastic version of this comforting and nourishing casserole from Three Stone Hearth that was a big hit with the whole family, so we decided to try to duplicate it in our kitchen.  Ezra couldn't help much with this recipe, but happily ate his portion.

Cheesy Rice with Leeks and Swiss Chard

For the rice:
1 cup short-grain brown rice
1 tablespoon yogurt
1 cup broth/stock

Everything else:
2 tablespoons butter
1 leek, trimmed and finely minced
3 cups chopped Swiss chard (1 bunch)
3 tablespoons minced parsley
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup broth/stock
salt

We soaked our rice overnight with a tablespoon of yogurt and one cup of water.  You can, of course, skip this step if you aren't afraid of the phytic acid fairy.

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a small casserole dish.

Add 1 cup stock to the rice and water, bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer until the liquid is fully absorbed.

Heat the butter in a skillet and saute the leeks over low heat until very soft.  Set the leeks aside and saute the chard until soft.

Combine the cooked rice, leeks, chard, parsley, cheddar, 1 cup stock and salt in the casserole dish and cover.  (With unsalted stock, we added 1/2 teaspoon salt.  With commercial salted chicken broth, you might not need any salt.)

Bake for about 45 minutes, until the casserole is bubbly.

Slow-cooked Kale

Ezra loves slow-cooked kale, which we often eat by itself, but sometimes serve over whole wheat pasta and sausage.
Ezra and I took the kale outside with a bucket of water and washed each leaf thoroughly.  Then we ripped out the stems and ripped the kale into small pieces.  We weren't quite ready to come inside and start cooking at that point, so we fed the kale stems to the chickens.

Once inside, Ezra cut the butter (and helped himself to a pat) and I took over from there. 

Slow-cooked Kale

1 bunch kale, stemmed and chopped
1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
1 1/2 cups chicken broth or water
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
salt

Heat the butter in a cast-iron skillet with a lid.  Saute the garlic and kale until the kale is wilted.  Add the chicken broth, turn heat to low, and cover.  Cook, stirring occasionally, for about an hour, until the kale is soft -- adding more liquid as needed.  Add the vinegar, salt to taste, and serve.

Nettle Frittata (not to be confused with Nelly Furtado)

Our outdoorsy friend Tanya makes an annual pilgrimage into the wilds to pick nettles. Then she makes some of them into a savory pie for her yearly Pi Day party. This year, we went along for the nettle harvest and made a frittata variation on her delicious pie. If you would like to try Tanya's version, she uses a mashed potato crust from Mollie Katzen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and a spinach pie recipe from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Why nettles? They're full of iron, calcium and antioxidants. They taste like sort of like spinach, but with more integrity and less sliminess. You can substitute spinach if nettles are inaccessible in your area. If you do get your hands on some nettles, make sure those hands are gloved--nettles, when raw, are covered in stinging hairs.

A big bunch of nettles (two cups, once steamed and chopped)
1 tablespoon ghee (or butter or oil)
1/2 an onion, chopped fine
3 scallions, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped dill
2 eggs
1 tablespoon sour cream
2 cups small curd cottage cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper
zest of one lemon
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put on some heavy gardening gloves and remove the stems from the nettles. Steam the leaves until wilted. (This will kill their stingers.) Rinse and drain well, then chop.

Meanwhile, melt the ghee in a 10-inch cast-iron pan on medium heat. Saute the onion until softened, then add the scallions and saute for two more minutes. Remove from heat; stir in the nettles and dill.

Combine the eggs, sour cream, cottage cheese, salt, pepper and lemon zest in a separate bowl. Once the cast-iron pan has cooled for a few minutes (enough to keep the eggs from cooking on contact), fold the egg mixture into the nettle mixture. Sprinkle the top with Parmesan.

Bake at 350 until the eggs are set and the top is browned (about 30 minutes).

Home-Fermented Sauerkraut

Why the multiple sauerkraut-employing recipes lately? Oh, because we have a bumper crop of homemade sauerkraut! Fermenting sauerkraut is totally easy and will make you feel like an old-timey kitchen rock star.

1 large green cabbage
Kosher salt

First, a note on salt: Sandor Katz's guideline for salt is three tablespoons per five pounds of cabbage. You don't need to worry about hitting that exact amount, though. Just add salt one teaspoon at a time; keep going until it tastes pleasantly salty, like french fries. (If you end up with too-salty kraut, rinse it off before eating.)

Trim away any brown or wilted parts of the cabbage. Slice the leaves and core into fine ribbons. In a large, non-reactive container, sprinkle the cabbage with kosher salt and massage it vigorously. Keep massaging and adding salt until the cabbage has given off a lot of water.

Pack the cabbage and cabbage juice into quart jars (two or more, as needed). Smash down the cabbage well, so that you have at least 1/2 inch of liquid on top. Fill a smaller jar with water and use it to weigh down the cabbage so that no cabbage rises to the surface. Some sauerkraut-makers put all of their cabbage in a large crock and use a plate to weigh down the top. We like the dual jar method because it makes it easy to minimize the surface area and you can see through the glass to tell whether you've got your cabbage fully submerged. Fermentation happens underwater, while mold formation happens on the surface. Therefore, less surface area equals less mold.

Cover the jars with a cloth and place in a dark corner. Once a day, take out the small jar, remove any mold that may have formed on the surface (but don't worry about it too much) and smash down the cabbage as much as you can. (Keep those potentially reactive metal utensils away! Wood or plastic are fine.) Rinse off the small jar and return to its original position.

Depending on the season--summer heat means quicker fermentation--your cabbage will show signs of fermentation in one to three days. You may see tiny bubbles forming or hear a fizzing noise. The kraut will begin to smell sour. Keep giving it daily attention and tasting.

Once it's been bubbling and tasting sour for a whole week, put a lid on the kraut and transfer to the refrigerator. In Ye Olden Times, people left their kraut in the root cellar for months or years, but we like to get ours into the refrigerator while it's young--the kraut stays crunchier that way, and is also a bit less sour.

You can begin to eat the kraut now, or wait for it to get a little more sour. The kraut will keep for a very long time in the fridge.

Slow-Cooked Broccoli Rabe

Broccoli rabe isn't actually broccoli at all, but a leafy relative of the turnip. If you don't have access to broccoli rabe, substitute mustard or turnip greens. In the past, we've always sauteed our broccoli rabe. But after spending some quality time in North Carolina last month and learning the aforementioned turnip trivia, we decided to treat broccoli rabe like turnip greens are treated in the South: cooked slowly with a smoky flavor. You won't taste tomato paste in the final product, but it does contribute to the satisfying, meaty umami flavor.

6 cups greens
2 tablespoons butter
3 cloves garlic, skinned but left whole
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
salt

Wash the broccoli rabe and cut off the tough bottom parts of the stem. Chop the tender parts of the stems and the leaves roughly.

Heat the butter over medium-high heat. Saute the garlic and greens for a few minutes. Add the tomato paste, paprika and 1/2 cup water. Simmer on low heat, covered, for three hours. Salt to taste.

Braised Brussels Sprouts with Rosemary and Lemon

We love Brussels sprouts roasted and stir-fried, but we wanted to experiment a little and decided that since cabbage is delicious braised, why not see if Brussels sprouts would be amenable to the same treatment?

And oh, are they ever.

olive oil
2-3 cups Brussels sprouts
6 cloves garlic
1-2 cups stock
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary (stems removed)
juice of 1 lemon
salt

Trim the bottoms of the sprouts and slice in half lengthwise. Heat a little olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the garlic and only as many sprouts as will fit in a single layer. Saute for a minute or two, until the sprouts are bright green and glistening. Add enough stock to cover the Brussels a little more than halfway. Add rosemary and salt (keep in mind how much salt your stock may already have). Turn the heat up to medium-high and cook, uncovered, until the liquid has completely evaporated.

Add some olive oil and flip the sprouts so that they are all cut-side-down. Fry until the bottoms of the Brussels are well-browned. Remove the sprouts, garlic and rosemary to a serving dish. Return the saucepan to low heat and add the lemon juice. Deglaze, scraping the pan to get all of the delicious browned bits, then simmer just a minute or so, to reduce the lemon juice. Pour sauce over Brussels and serve.

Shredded Skillet Brussels Sprouts with Walnuts

Mark Bittman wrote last month that the story of Brussels sprouts' new life as an actually-liked vegetable "is one part mystery, one part thanks to bacon, and one part a tribute to our ability (finally) to appreciate members of the cabbage family." While you're appreciating, try this: a quick stovetop option in which they're shredded to cut down on cooking time. These sprouts cook down to a third of their original size, so if you're making dinner for a crowd, scale up.

3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
4 cups brussels sprouts, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons dry red wine
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
salt

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sprouts and walnuts and saute, stirring frequently, until the Brussels are well-browned. Add the wine and vinegar, cook until they've evaporated. Salt generously and serve immediately.

Massaged Kale Salad with Asian Pear, Smoked Gouda and Cucumber

This is one of those rare October weeks at the farmer's market where you can find summer foods like tomatoes and cucumbers alongside harbingers of fall like delicata squash and Asian pears. To take advantage of the seasonal overlap, here's another massaged kale salad! The crisp, clean taste of the cucumbers and the sweetness of the pears nicely offsets the assertiveness of the kale and gouda. If Asian pears aren't available, we've also tried this with slices of green apple with good results. Best of all, this requires no dressing beyond the olive oil used to massage the kale, making it an excellent choice for you brown-baggers who would rather not get vinaigrette all over the inside of your briefcase.

1 large bunch curly green kale, washed, de-stemmed and chopped (about 5 cups)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large Asian pear, diced
1/2 cup cubed smoked gouda
1 small Persian or English cucumber, diced

Place kale in a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil and salt. Massage the kale for a few minutes, until it breaks down and wilts. Top with pear, gouda and cucumber and enjoy!

Complete Beet Fritters

These came to be when we wanted to make Swiss chard fritters for a brunch potluck last month, didn't have enough Swiss chard, and substituted a grated beet for half of it. The beets worked beautifully with the warmth of the cinnamon and allspice and the slightly pink fritters were a big hit, even with self-professed beet-haters.

Beet greens get very muddy, so be sure to wash them extremely well before you cook them, since you don't want dirt in your fritters! If your beets come without greens, or if the greens are slimy and past their prime, feel free to substitute chard.

1 large bunch beet greens, rinsed well
1 beet, peeled and grated
4 eggs, beaten
1 onion, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup peanut oil

In a medium stockpot, bring 1 inch of water to boil. Add the beet greens, cover, and cook for 2 minutes. Drain the beet greens thoroughly and chop roughly.

Combine the beet, eggs, onion, allspice, cinnamon and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Mix well and stir in the beet greens.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. When oil sizzles upon contact with a droplet of water, drop 1 tablespoon of the batter into the pan. Flatten the mound of batter slightly with the back of a spoon. Continue adding as many mounds of the batter mixture as the skillet will allow. Fry for 3 minutes, or until golden, turning once. Drain the fritters on paper towels. Repeat this process with the remaining batter.

Another Kale Recipe Roundup & Dehydrated Kale

We know, we know, there's no such thing as too many kale recipes. We hear you, we respect your insatiable need for kale, and we offer the following solutions.

1. Check out our Kale and Friends Tag for easy access to all our kale recipes.

2. Try a kale recipe from our favorite blogs:

101 Cookbooks:
Too many to list, but Heidi has her own Kale tag!

Eggs on Sunday:
Lacinato Kale and Ricotta Salata Salad
Breakfast Strata with Greens, Gruyere and Sausage
Greens & Beans Over Polenta

Orangette:
Boiled Kale with a Fried Egg and Toast

Wheat Free Meat Free:
Coconut Curry Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Desert Candy:
Tuscan Kale and Black Lentil Soup with Crispy Pita Chips
Kale and Gruyere Panade

JustBraise:
Tuscan Kale & Bean Soup
Kale Salami Sandwich with Celeriac Chips

Parsnips Aplenty:
Kale-Potato Soup with Balsamic-Roasted Garlic

Raspberry Eggplant:
Israeli Couscous with Kale, Butternut Squash and White Beans
White Bean, Kale and Butternut Squash Pizza

Raw Epicurean:
Winter Nori Roll with Ginger Garlic Dipping Sauce

3. Dehydrate your own kale!
We've gotten several comments from readers who like to make kale chips in the oven. We wholeheartedly endorse their recipes and would like to offer up a dehydrated variation of our own. In this recipe, we've stuck to the 112 degree limit set by raw foodists, so your kale will theoretically retain more of its natural enzymes and vitamins. More nutrition and also, it's tasty.

You can dehydrate kale without dressing of any kind. (We sometimes do this and then run it through the spice grinder to make kale powder.) You could also dehydrate it with your favorite salad dressing, lemon juice or a custom spice mix. Just keep in mind that the kale will reduce in size, but the spices will not. (We ended up with a few batches of burning hot cayenne-flavored chips before we learned our lesson!)

1 bunch kale (for us, that meant 20 leaves of lacinato from Riverdog)
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 tablespooon water
1/8 teaspoon salt
pinch cayenne

Remove the kale stems and roughly chop the leaves. Whisk together all the ingredients except for the kale and then pour the dressing over the kale, massaging well for full coverage. Lay the kale on trays and dehydrate at 11o degrees until crispy and fully dry, about 7 hours.

If you don't have a dehydrator, you can make still make kale chips! Set the oven to 400 degrees and keep a close eye on the kale -- it will be done in about 10 minutes.

Kale Thoren

As promised, here is our first kale-bastardized recipe from Kerala! Thoren is a dry curry with coconut and whatever vegetable strikes your fancy. While we were in India, we ate versions that used beets, okra and ivy gourd, and it turns out that thoren is also delicious made with kale--of course!

We learned to make this in Kerala with fresh grated coconut, and since returning home we've been able to find frozen grated coconut at Vik's. If you can't get fresh coconut and need to substitute dried shredded coconut, we'd recommend using less (maybe 1/4 cup) and adding it last, to prevent burning.

2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon urad dal
2 shallots, thinly sliced
3 sprigs curry leaves
1 dried red chile, broken into thirds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 cup grated coconut (fresh or frozen)
12 leaves dinosaur kale, stemmed and chopped

Heat the oil in a wok. When it's hot, but not smoking, add the mustard seeds and urad dal. When the seeds have popped and the dal is golden-brown, add the shallots and fry, stirring continuously. Once the shallots are soft and translucent, add the curry leaves, dried chile and turmeric. Stir for 30 seconds, then add the coconut and stir for two minutes. Add the kale and keep stirring! Once the kale is nicely wilted, remove from the heat and serve immediately.

Keralan Spinach in Yogurt

Where have we been?

Oh, you know, cooking school in the most gorgeous part of India, Kerala.

It was the best vacation we've ever taken, hands-down. (No offense to Phoebe's mom, who offers up awesome accommodations every time, but you can't get a young coconut with a straw in it on every corner in Western Massachusetts). We came home with a deepened appreciation for South Indian food (very different from what you get in most Indian restaurants in the US) and over 30 recipes, which we plan to convert from the metric system, bastardize with kale, and blog.

For our first Haritha Farms recipe, we offer this interesting take on spinach--rather than eating it raw or flash-sauteing it, you'll cook it down with South Indian seasonings until it starts to caramelize on the pan and then mix it with plain yogurt. It's an excellent accompaniment to rice and curries, and an unexpected way to get your greens in.

Ingredient notes: urad dal is used raw, like a spice, in Keralan cooking. If you can't find it in your local Indian grocery store (AKA you don't have a local Indian grocery store), it's OK to leave it out. The yogurt in India was much waterier than our favorite yogurt, so we diluted it with a little water. If you have homemade yogurt, or your yogurt is on the watery side, skip the extra water.


1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
2 teaspoons urad dal (optional)
2 large shallots, sliced (about 1 cup)
1 green chile, sliced
1-inch piece of ginger, finely minced or ground
1 teaspoon garlic, finely minced or put through a press
6 cups (1/2 pound) chopped fresh spinach
1 and 1/2 cups plain yogurt
1/2 cup water, if needed (see headnote)

Heat a wok over medium-high heat and melt the coconut oil. When the oil is hot, add mustard seeds and urad dal and fry (without stirring) until the mustard seeds are almost fully popped and the dal is golden brown. Add shallots and stir until browned, then add chili, ginger and garlic and stir until the garlic is browned and the raw smell is gone.

Add the chopped spinach and cook over high heat, continually stirring, for about 20 minutes. Be persistent! The spinach will reduce more than you could ever imagine and release sugars that will stick to the pan. When you're certain that the spinach can't reduce any more, remove it from the heat. Once it's cooled to room temperature, stir in the yogurt and water and serve.

Paneer with Tomatoes and Ninja Kale

We made this recipe from Mangoes and Curry Leaves several times with moderately tasty results before we read the ingredient list closely. Where we had been throwing in the typical 2 cloves of garlic, it calls for a full 1/2 cup -- and not just one onion, but three! We tried it again with the full dose of garlic and onions and were delighted with the spicy, filling results, not at all like the curried marinara sauce we had ended up with before. We kept tinkering with cooking methods (the original recipe takes all evening to make) and have finally arrived at the best variation yet, one that gives you a full serving of kale, so stealthily slipped in among strong flavors that you'll never know what hit you.

3 cups pureed canned tomatoes (or 2 pounds fresh)
1 pound paneer
canola oil or ghee
1 chopped onion (or go ahead and try three!)
1 full head of garlic, peeled and minced
3 inches of ginger, minced
2 small thai chilis, left whole
6 leaves of dinosaur kale or three leaves of collard greens, sliced into thin ribbons
5 green cardamom pods, smashed
2 cloves
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon of smoked Spanish paprika
Salt and black pepper to taste

Slice the paneer into 1/2 inch rectangles. Arrange the paneer on a well-greased pan, and drizzle some extra oil over the top. Broil for about five minutes, or until the tops of the paneer rectangles look like toasted marshmallows. Flip and repeat on the other side. Set the paneer aside to cool. (I prefer to chop my paneer slices into bite-sized squares once they are cool enough to touch, but you can also leave them whole.)

Heat 1/3 cup of oil or ghee in a large wok over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until soft. Add the garlic and ginger and continue frying until the onions and garlic are golden and fragrant. Add the tomatoes and one cup of water. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low, and add the kale, paneer and spices. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. You may want to add a little cayenne to boost the spiciness. Serve with cardamom-scented rice or spinach parathas.

Massaged Kale Salad with Grated Root Vegetables and Avocado

All you cold-weather-dwellers, now would be the time to eat your kale raw. We know, we know--it's cold, and all you want to do is curl up by the fire and cry about not being in California. But kale gets really sweet and delicious when it's been exposed to frost, and that means winter kale is ideal for raw consumption.

Our previous raw kale salad recipes have been really strict about using dino or Russian kale, but we took a chance with the readily-available curly green kind on the suggestion of a loyal reader named Chuck who emailed us his massaged kale salad recipe. So, we stand corrected: use whatever kind of kale you want to make raw salads, as long as you give it a nice, luxurious rub-down. We even got our two-year-old niece massaging kale, so all you readers who have small kids afoot when you're cooking, think of this as a sanctioned opportunity for them to play with their food.

Finally, feel free to be creative with the elements of this salad: try substituting crumbled goat cheese for the avocado, celeriac or parsnips for the root vegetables, and sunflower seeds or nuts for the sesame seeds.

For the salad:
1 large bunch curly green kale, washed, de-stemmed and chopped (about 5 cups)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 carrot, grated
1/2 a large rutabaga, grated
1 avocado, sliced
2 scallions, minced
1 teaspoon black or white sesame seeds

For the dressing:
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon agave nectar or honey
salt
pepper

In a large bowl, pour olive oil and salt over kale. Take off your rings and watch, roll up your sleeves, and massage the oil and salt into the kale for 2-3 minutes, until the kale starts to break down and wilt. The kale can benefit from having a half hour of relaxation after its massage, but that isn't strictly required. Top with carrot, rutabaga, avocado , scallions and sesame seeds. Mix together dressing ingredients and toss with the salad.

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

Pasta & Kale with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

This point in mid-September is a really great time for pasta sauces, because you still have seasonal tomatoes and bell peppers but it's finally cooled down enough to slave over a hot stove. Roasting the tomatoes along with the red peppers concentrates their sweetness and dries them out a little, which keeps the sauce from getting too watery, and a little tomato paste finishes the job. Fried shallots and fragrant oregano sing backup -- a nice change from garlic and basil.

We've also used the 101 Cookbooks kale and pasta trick: add kale to boiling pasta just as it finishes, count to six and drain. It really works! We made this with brown rice rotini, but ziti, fusilli or any other small shapely pasta will be work too. (And while we ordinarily heart rice pasta, this batch met with an untimely end: a DNC canvasser knocked on the door at a critical moment, which meant that the pasta got overcooked. Score: Barack Obama 1, rice pasta 0).

4 red bell peppers
4 medium-sized tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 lb. pasta
10 leaves kale, de-stemmed and thinly sliced

Place the red bell peppers and the tomato halves (cut side up) on a cookie sheet and broil for 15-20 minutes, until peppers are blackened (check periodically to turn peppers, so that they blacken on all sides). Remove cookie sheet from broiler, transfer tomato halves to the blender and place peppers in a paper bag to steam for about 15 minutes. When the peppers have cooled down, peel off the charred skins, discard cores and seeds and chop roughly. Add the chopped peppers to the blender and pulverize with the tomatoes until well blended.

In a large saucepan, heat the oil or butter over medium-high heat and add the shallots, salt and crushed red pepper. Fry for a few minutes, until shallots start to color, then remove from heat. Add the tomato-pepper mixture, tomato paste and fresh oregano and return to a very low flame. Simmer and stir for 5 minutes, just to blend the flavors.

Cook your pasta according to package directions (unless you made your own pasta, in which case: feel superior! We're jealous). Just before the pasta is ready, add the kale, count to six, and drain. Mix in the sauce and serve.

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

Kale Pesto

We knocked out a healthy bunch of red Russian kale tonight for dinner simply by substituting kale for basil in pesto. We tossed our kale pesto with thick homemade whole wheat noodles, but any pasta will do. Also, we sprinkled a handful of raisins over each portion, always a delicious combination: sweet raisins are great with kale, and together they pack an iron punch for vegetarians, pregnant ladies and Popeye impersonators.

Again, this is a situation where kale type matters: you want a sweet variety like red Russian, karinata or even those flowering ornamental kales I've only ever seen in regular old supermarkets. The curly red or green kinds are a little too bitter for this type of showcase.

1 bunch (4-5 cups) red Russian kale, stemmed and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
1/4-1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place kale and garlic in a strainer over the sink and pour about 5 cups of boiling water over: this will blanch any bitterness from the kale and mellow the raw garlic. Toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet until they are touched with golden brown. Combine small batches of kale, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse well until you have a smooth paste. Stir your batches together and salt to taste. Toss with hot pasta, spread on crackers or bread, or use to top baked potatoes.

Balsamic Kale Salad with Strawberries and Hard-Boiled Eggs

Here's another kale salad, this one with a balsamic vinaigrette and two classic toppings; the sweet strawberries and the comforting blandness of the hard-boiled egg are a perfect foil for the assertiveness of raw kale. This plus an artichoke made a successful kale-centered dinner, with the added bonus of cramming a full bunch of kale into one meal.

A word about raw kale salads: they really do best with lacinato kale (also known as Tuscan kale, black kale or cavolo nero), which is much less severe and therefore better served raw than other varieties. If you don't believe us, the New York Times actually pays Melissa Clark to say so. So if you think you're ready for raw kale, please be careful not to do this with the curly green kind--it'll make you hate kale, which will make us weep.

You can also use with other fruit, depending on the season--try pears or apples in the winter, peaches and nectarines later in the summer.

1 bunch (ours was about 25 medium-sized leaves) lacinato kale
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mustard
10 strawberries, sliced
2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
Freshly grated parmesan cheese (totally optional)

Wash kale and remove stems. Slice into very thin ribbons and place in a large salad bowl. Whisk together the oil, vinegar, mustard and salt and pour over kale, mixing well to coat. Let it marinate for at least an hour (up to a day).

When you're ready to serve, divide kale into individual bowls and top with strawberries, hard-boiled egg and parmesan.

Potato and Kale Casserole

Operation Kale Binge is on track: we have consumed three and a half bunches of kale in three days! Mostly, we've been just having an extra-large portion of Wheeler greens along with whatever else we were planning to eat, but we've also generated some as-yet-unblogged recipes, like this filling, savory dish. It's loosely based on a recipe for "Delicious Winter Casserole" that came with our CSA newsletter a few years ago, but that one was mostly about using up red daikon, which isn't a concern in June, so we've pared it down to just thinly-sliced potatoes, some delicious fat, pepper, kale and parmesan cheese.

We sliced the potatoes extremely thinly on our mandoline, so this cooked up in less than an hour. If you're slicing them on your own and they're a little thicker, just cook for longer after you take the foil off (in our pre-mandoline days, we needed about half an hour covered and half an hour uncovered).


3 large red waxy potatoes, very thinly sliced
4 tablespoons melted salted butter
10 leaves kale (the curly-edged green or purple kinds are good here), washed, stemmed and finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper
5 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl, drizzle melted butter over the potatoes and mix well with your hands, making sure each slice is coated. Grease a large cast-iron skillet and arrange a layer of potatoes on the bottom. Top with kale, black pepper and 1/3 of the parmesan cheese. Repeat until you run out of kale, then top with a final layer of potatoes and a sprinkling of parmesan. Cover skillet with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove foil and bake for another 15-30 minutes, until potatoes are cooked through.