Kick Ass Kale

Man oh man, do we love kale in this house. We eat it at least once a month, and when we do there are never any leftovers. Michelle even loves her kale, which is awesome because it's packed full of vitamins.

It's taken us a while to perfect our own kick ass kale dish the way my family likes it. We used to just saute it straight up in oil with garlic, then add salted sunflower seeds and call it good. But then we wanted to cut back on our use of extra calories, so we started cooking it a little differently. And honestly, I like this way so much more!

There are so many varieties of kale, and they all taste great. We usually buy the plain old kale that you can find everywhere, but this week we bought purple kale. It is on sale at Raley's and the organic is actually cheaper than the non-organic. Sweet!

First we clean and chop the kale, making sure to remove the hard stalk. It tastes good, and is fine to eat, but it takes longer to soften, and Mish can barely chew her kale as it is. We also crush and chop some garlic. In my opinion you can't have enough garlic, so we chop up about 4 cloves.

Our beautiful leftover stalks go right into the compost bin :)

We start the whole cooking process off by adding a small amount of olive oil (just 1/2 a tablespoon)  to a large pan with high sides and cooking the garlic a bit. As soon as it's cooked we add the kale and a little bit of water. Put on the lid and let it steam for a bit, checking frequently and stirring. The water will steam the kale and let you get away with using less oil. Once your kale is soft, take off the lid so the water will cook out. Saute that delicious kale until it's cooked to your liking.

Next, we add some salt and pepper. Careful! Kale is easily over salted, so taste as you season. If you're like me, you can also sneak in a few shakes of garlic powder. Mmm, garlic.

And you're done! Easy easy easy, tasty tasty tasty!And did I mention it's really good for you? Well, it is.