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Thursday, April 7, 2011

Toasted White Bean and Kale

So this is my attempt at a healthy, nutritious, protein dense lunch. The original recipe can be found here. It's basically white beans toasted with some garlic and shallots and whatever greens you like.

I really like the texture and taste of kale. If you haven't tried kale yet, I definitely recommend it. It's cheap, nutritious, and adds a beautiful green color to whatever dish you're cooking. I've used kale in stir fry and it works well there too! I've seen recipes for raw kale salad, but haven't gotten around to trying that yet.

So no more talking - let's get to the recipe =)


First, drain the white beans and toast it on a pan until golden brown. You can use dried beans too, but that was too much time for me.


Chop up some garlic and shallots. I like garlic and tend to add more to my dish. Add as little or as much as you like =)


Add a tablespoon of butter and let it melt. Add the garlic and shallots to the pan.


Wash and cut the kale into strips. I find the stalk too rubbery and hard so I tend to just cut the kale off the stalk and use the leaves. After stripping the leaves off the stalk, wash and cut into strips. It might seem like a lot of kale now, but it reduces quite a lot in volume once it's been cooked. I bought one bunch of kale from Stop&Shop and used the whole thing.


Add the kale to the pan once the garlic and shallots have browned. I know it might seem like a lot of kale now, but trust me, it will decrease in volume.


Cook the kale until it's wilted down (see how much kale there is now?). Add the juice of half a lemon and salt and pepper to taste.


I like adding fresh shavings of parmesan at the end. Now it's all ready to be eaten for lunch =)