Prior to going vegan, my only experience with kale was using it to cover the metal on the salad bar I worked at in high school. I don't think I even knew it was edible back then. The first time I ate it, at Om Cafe in Ferndale in spring 2005, I was blown away that it could taste so good.
I've never been able to replicate the steamed kale I had back then, but I did find a really good recipe base for a raw kale salad here. The proportions are way off in that link, but it's a delicious concoction that covers all the basic tastes - bitter (kale), sour (lemon juice), sweet (tomatoes), salty (miso) and umami (nutritional yeast). The idea is that you take kale, massage in some lemon juice and white miso (about 1/4 cup of each), add nutritional yeast (another 1/4 cup) and as many cherry tomatoes as you have. It tastes healthy, but in a "wow this is delicious. I'm so happy I'm eating it" kind of way. I threw in some baked tofu from AFR and sat down to a delicious MoFo dinner.
Those lovely little tofu triangles.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing to me that for years so many people saw kale at a buffet or something around the food. Like kale was invisible... and now... it's almost the exact opposite (not that I'm complaining) I mean... I have kale soda in my fridge right now...