The kale is looking great and tastes even better! In our excitement (and ignorance) we bought far too many kale plants for a two person household. Fortunately we do love kale and so we have been trying out a few ways to prepare it. Here are our two favorite ways to cook kale.

#1 Baked:

• Rinse and dry kale leaves.
• Remove the thick stalk and spread on a cookie sheet.
• Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle a little salt or other seasoning of your choice and place in oven.
• Our oven runs really hot so I put it on 275- 300 for about 5 minutes. Make sure you watch it though! It can burn quickly.

#2 Blanched and Sauteed:

• Rinse, dry and de-stalk the kale leaves.
• Blanch your kale! If you don’t know how, check out this All Recipes instruction. It’s super simple.
• After blanching lay them out on a clean towel to soak up the excess water.
• In a pan with a drizzle of olive oil, saute diced red onion and a clove or two of garlic.
• Before the onion becomes translucent add your kale and sprinkle salt and pepper on top. Just toss the kale in the pan long enough to reheat it and spread all the seasoning so each leaf is coated.
• You can saute the kale without blanching first but we found that the blanching toned down the bitterness which was a nice change for kale

Next I am going to start blanching and freezing our kale so it doesn’t go to waste and we can enjoy it long after our plants have died. Pick Your Own has a great little page on how to blanch and freeze your greens. If you already know how to blanch scroll on down the page for some great tips on harvesting and freezing.

Enjoy!