Tuesday, June 15, 2010

What to do with Kale?

With my second delivery from this summer's CSA (Kretschmann Farm) in hand, I'm finding myself in my usual summer fix of trying to figure out what to do with all those veggies. I have lettuce, kale, beet greens, spinach, beets, garlic scapes, green onions, basil, parsley, and, best of all, fresh local strawberries. What to do with all those greens? The lettuce is fairly easy to figure out, but beet greens and kale are a bit more tricky. Here's a photo from the farm of kale growing:

I decided I ought to make a list of my favorite ways to eat kale as well as some recipes I want to try.
*kale chips (I think I posted this one already, but I want to try a new variation that has a couple Tbs. agave nectar added)
*Red Peppers Stuffed with Feta, Orzo, Lemon and Oregano (also kale, and my simpler family style version has the peppers mixed into the pasta instead of stuffing the orzo into the peppers)
*Kale, Sausage and White Beans (I posted the base recipe for this already - made with spinach, served over polenta and a fried egg on top. This version would have some kind of interesting sausage mixed in - I have a chicken and spinach one from Costco that was good - and would substitute kale for the spinach. I'd skip the polenta and egg and serve it with toasted crusty bread brushed with olive oil.)
* African Pineapple Peanut Stew
* black bean burritos with kale

and new ones to try:
* Kale Puttanesca (basically pasta puttanesca with kale mixed in)
* Toscana Soup (a chicken broth based soup with potatoes, spicy sausage, kale, cream)
* Greens with cannellini beans and Pancetta (big plus is that this one uses both beet greens AND kale)

Now I can't decide which sounds most delicious! I'll post whichever one I try first and hopefully work my way through cooking and posting them all before the end of the summer.

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