Christmas Year-round?
Picking up on my cranberry craze, I’m going to feature several recipes using dried cranberries, now that fresh cranberries are out of season. This first one includes four ingredients that Mike and I love - kale, fresh cloves of garlic, pine nuts and, of course, cranberries. As this is super easy to make, it’s been a staple recipe of our Happy Boolo kitchen for many years.
While this is a Happy Boolo original recipe, Mike and I take inspiration for this creation from a cold salad that we used to buy from Whole Foods, and then started to make ourselves, featuring curly kale (also known as Scots kale), pine nuts and dried cranberries. As Mike prefers kale warm, we evolved this simple salad into a cooked veggie side dish or main dish for a veggie-only meal. While we grow both crispy and dinosaur kale (also known as Tuscan kale) in our garden, we intentionally make this dish with dinosaur kale, as the texture works much better for sauteeing.
When we first started making the dish, we realized how it featured the traditional holiday colors of red and green, so we named it Christmas Kale, but of course, this dish is one we eat year-round.
There is nothing more satisfying than harvesting kale from our garden and whipping this up.
Kale happily growing in the garden
When kale is not growing in the backyard, we enjoy picking out a good-looking bunch from one of our fav food stores - Whole Foods or Fresh Thyme. The savory and earthiness of the kale and garlic mixed with the sweet of the cranberries and nuttiness of the pine nuts makes this a happy dance of flavor in your mouth. You can dial-up or down on quantity of pine nuts and cranberries you want to use to adjust your flavor profile.
(If you are looking to avoid sugar, simply leave out the cranberries, and this will still be a delicious veggie dish.)
Making Christmas Kale at my folks’ house for Christmas Eve!
Christmas Kale Recipe
Ingredients
1 bunch of dinosaur kale (also known as Tuscan kale)
Olive oil to drizzle in the pan - approximately 1-2 tsps
1-3 garlic cloves shopped or pressed (We love garlic, we consistently use 3.)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1-2 tablespoons pine nuts
Salt and Pepper to taste
Prep
Washing up!
One of the best inventions ever - the salad spinner for drying veggies!
Love our garlic press
Toasting pine nuts
Prepped ingredients ready for assembly
Instructions
Turn the stove onto medium/medium-low heat. One the pan is fully heated, drizzle the oil into a sautee pan. (We have used both a flat pan and a wok-type pan for this; either is fine.)
Sautee the garlic until slightly browned and fragrant. (usually 1-2 minutes)
Pour the kale in. Toss to cover with oil and garlic.
Cook on medium to medium-high heat until kale is tender.
Season with salt and pepper as desired.
Turn the heat down to low and pour in toasted pine nuts and dried cranberries. Cook for another 1-2 minutes to ensure all ingredients are nice and warm.
Turn into a serving bowl and enjoy!
Olive oil in! (Using the same pan I toasted the pine nuts in.)
Sautee the garlic!
Kale in!
Sautee and toss away
Season away!
Pine nuts in!
Cranberries in!
Christmas Kale ready to be served!
Paired with sauteed chicken thighs with baby bella mushrooms in a dried celery leaf cream sauce garnished with parsley….Bon appetit!
It’s so good I have to close my eyes!
The next night Mike made us another batch of Christmas Kale while I whipped up one of our favorite easy-to-make pasta dishes: cherry tomato sausage pasta, sure to be a future recipe post!
Wishing you many meals that make you a Happy Boolo!