Ypsi Cooks

I happened to post my facebook status as saying I had just processed some of our kale. Who knew that would draw the most response I think I've ever gotten (both online & in person, to boot). To process kale, or any greens for freezing, I pull the leaves off starting at the root end in order to discard most of the tough stem (I once saw instructions for cutting out the tough stem and was blown away by its major over-complication of a simple task. It is SO easy to just grab and pull, at least the red russian variety we grow). Then soak the leaves in order to clean them. Not that they really seem to need it, but I do it anyway. (I just have a big bowl of H2O in the sink where I swish each small batch, then let them sit in there for a min or 2.) Then they go into my big stock pot 2/3 full of boiling water, a little salt and about a tsp of baking soda (helps soften the kale). After 2-3 min (I occasionally plunge them down), I pull them out with tongs and put them in a colander sitting on a bowl that I've placed right by the stove. I repeat that process with a new batch, and while the new batch cooks, I transfer the original batch to the cutting board, let it cool a bit, then chop it up, squeeze out some of the excess water and put it in the container to freeze it.
In short: 1. Wash. 2. Boil. 3. Drain. 4. Chop.5. Squeeze. 6. Contain.
While it seems like a long process, it's really not, since each step only takes a few min at most. This morning I had kale in each phase, and I just kept making laps around the kitchen, and it went fairly smoothly, even with the interruptions of two small people.

But here's the real question: what to do with it once it is processed?1. Make veggie cake (see May 2009).
2. Make Quick-a-veggie-dillas (see previous post).
3. Add it to your tomato sauce in lasagna (or in your anything).
4. Stir the kale, finely chopped, in with bulgar and some other veggies and/or herbs & dome dressing (try cooked sweet potato, or parsley & tomatoes in a tabbuleh like incarnation, or feta, beets, cukes, bannana pepper for a greek salad type thing). These are most delightful summer salads.

For un-cooked kale:
5. Cook chopped bacon in a pan until rather cripsy. Remove the bacon to a paper towel to drain. Leave in as much of the bacon fat as appropriate. Add some minced garlic and cook for just a moment. Add *fresh* chopped kale (w/o the stem) and cook until soft (you may want to add a smidge of water and lid it for a bit). Put this on top of corn-pancakes, toast and cream cheese, pasta, whatever, and top with the crispy bacon! Oh, try a little avocado with this, too (esp with the toast and cream cheese). Sour cream and salsa with the pancakes. Cream, garlic and fresh chopped tomatoes with the pasta, maybe a little parmesan or blue cheese, too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 3:34 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.