What can I do with kale?

I do all sorts of things with kale as I also planted several plants. I make a soup with broth (or a cube), kale, a leek and milk. I blend it and serve it with parmesan cheese. As a side dish, I boil kale, take out all the water and mince it with a knife (no blender) and I put it in a pan with milk, cream and butter. Parmesan cheese as topping again. I make all sorts of omelettes with other veggies and all sorts of veggie soups. I even make a vegetarian lasagne with kale. I use the same recipe of the side dish, white sauce and the pasta of course. There are more ideas. I haven´t had good experiences with freezing it, except when I freeze it as soup.

I've read several times of making kale chips, where you cut away the ribs and lightly salt the kale leaf then dry it in the sun or a dehydrator. It's supposed to make a really good snack or you can toss it into cooked dishes. One "recipe" that I discovered kind of by accident was to make a soup with broccoli stems, ham and cheese. I didn't have enough broccoli stems, so I added shredded kale and it was really good.

Kale can be frozen. Take off the harder stems, blanch the kale for two or three minutes in boiling water and then immediately put it into ice-cold water to stop the cooking process. Shake the kale dry and put into ziplock bags to freeze. It will be good for up to a year. You could also try the older (but smellier) method of preserving as sauerkraut. I don't know if this would work well with kale: it is usually done with white (or red) cabbage. On the whole, I would go with freezing it. That way you will have fresh and highly nutritious greens through the winter.

I would chop it up and mix it into a meatloaf or veggie loaf. Or, it might be good in stuffing. It might be good in stew; although, depending on where you're at, it might be too hot for stew. You could also donate some of it. See if the local food pantry would be interested in it or the local soup kitchen.

We have kale in our green smoothies quite regularly but what we do if we have loads of kale, (curly leaf Kale is best) is to dehydrate it into kale chips. What we do is make a cheesy sauce out of blended cashews, lemon juice, curry powder, salt or any other flavouring and mix it thoroughly through the kale leaves and then stick them in our dehydrator for 24 hours or so. These turn into a great tasty snack that is extremely healthy and very addictive!

You can use it to do various stuffed cabbages. Kale is also used for "farci poitevin" : it is originally a medieval dish popular again in France since 30 years. You will find a recipe here : http://www.breilbon.com/table_en.html