Oh, Kale Yeah!

On a whim, I bought a bunch of kale at the grocery store. It had been a long time since I'd eaten kale and I had no idea what to do with it. The only thing I know about kale is that for a period of a few months as a kid, we ate kale with just about every meal. This was because a family friend of ours had it growing rampant in their garden. They couldn't keep up with their harvest so they decided to gift about half of it to us.

My mom, never wanting anything to go to waste (I come by it naturally), tried to figure out ways to incorporate it into, well,  everything.

So, I saw the kale in the store, thought to myself, "I think I'm ready to try this again," and threw it in the cart. I spent an hour or so doing some recipe research that afternoon and came across a lovely recipe for Lemony Kale Pasta. After skimming the ingredient list, I was relieved to find I had all the necessary ingredients, with the exception of the preferred variety of kale. We do not have variety of veggies. We have what we have and whatever kind of kale I had, called simply, "kale," was going to have to do the trick. Then I read the direction to remove the stems.

Now, I didn't know if this meant, cut below the part where the leaves start growing or cut the leaves completely away from the stem all the way up the stem. I decided to call the only person I could think of as a kale expert, mom.

She said she felt it meant to cut below the point at which the leaves grew. She then said, "think of kale like collards, they will cook for a while and soften up so the stem shouldn't be a problem higher up on the leaves."

I referenced my recipe. 

"You eat the kale raw in this recipe," I said. 
"Raw?" she said.

I could tell by the tone of her voice that raw was a form of kale she never tried.

"Hmm...well," she said, "why don't you just chew on a bit of the stem higher up on the leaf and see how firm it is?"
"Yeah, I guess I'll just see how it goes," I said. And we hung up.

Heeding her advice, I went to taste a bit of the raw kale. The stems looked too hard to eat raw so I opted just to taste the leaf. Wow, so bitter! I started to have doubts about my recipe and started expressing them aloud. Maybe the variety of kale did matter after all? After a few minutes of listening to my second guessing and rambling, I heard Eric say, "just give it a try, will you?" 

Smush garlic into pulp with fork.

And so I did. I am still not sure what "stems removed" meant, but after looking at the stems, I interpreted it as the full removal of the stem all the way up the leaf. It worked out well because the leaves retained a rather course texture, anyway. Almost how you'd imagine fallen leaves in autumn feeling in your mouth. 

Okay, maybe a little less crunchy...

But the acidity of the dressing really counteracted the bitterness of the kale and the end result was really quite tasty. I was very pleasantly surprised! I'm sure the meal was also packed full of nutrients and vitamins and all that good stuff that makes kale so fantastic. 

I made some fish to eat with the pasta. I topped cod fillets and with a little butter, lemon juice, some dressing from the pasta recipe, and capers then broiled them for a few minutes. We ended up eating the fish on the pasta much like you would eat grilled chicken on a Caesar salad. It was really yummy, but the best part was discovering that capers are a beautiful addition to the Lemony Kale Pasta.

When we had leftovers for lunch the next day, we dumped some capers into the pasta and mixed it up. If you are looking to chew on some tasty ruffage, I absolutely suggest giving this recipe a try.  

Add capers!