Eat Yer Greens

I’ve  blogged before about my love of kale. Who would have ever thought I would grow up to be a vegetable loving vegan? My mother is rolling around on the floor clutching her sides as she reads this as she knows I was the pickiest eater on the planet growing up. Would not touch anything green but peas. Ate nothing but Spaghetti-o’s for years. The story goes that I came home all cross from first grade complaining that the day they served boiled-to-death mustard greens or collard greens in the cafeteria  suspiciously coincided with the day they cut the lawn. I am reported to have huffed indignantly saying, “You know what they served us today? Cooked grass.”  There was also an incident where I reported to my mother that there was “something irritable” in my salad. Probably anything but carrots. Carrots weren’t green.

But truly I love kale as it the powerhouse of the greens world. It is hugely high in absorbable calcium and tastes yum. We have a big old wodge blended up in our morning smoothie by Spiderman, but sometimes a grrl likes to taste the leaves, you dig? Now some people get kale attached to the thick fibrous stems and you have pull the leaves away from the stem to prepare it. I have never seen it like that here--ours comes already de-stemmed in a giant bag for £1 at Waitrose.

Here is my skillet piled high with green-y goodness.

All you do is throw some kale leaves into a medium hot skillet and stir/flip with tongs for a few minutes until it starts to wilt slightly and turns a brighter green. I tend to drizzle in a TB of water at this point and it really wilts down to just the right texture--not raw, but not cooked to death either.

Then take it off the heat and drizzle 1 tsp toasted sesame oil and 1 tsp maple syrup over the greens and a pinch of smoked sea salt. I know that may seem weird but it really is an amazing combination of sweet and smoky flavour. Don’t you trust your Auntie Spidergrrl?

Then scoop into a bowl and eat it all for yourself. Nom, nom, nom.