Kale, Carrots & Walnuts, Oh My!

It’s time to consume more greens. My body is desperate for more and more of these leafy mega sources of vitamins and minerals. Kale is a powerhouse green, providing fiber, vitamins A and C, and lots and lots of calcium! You can access all of that goodness in this simple and tasty dish, which serves 2.

• 3/4 pound kale
• 3 tsp oil
• 1/3 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
• 2 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
• 2 quarter-size slices of fresh ginger
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 2+ carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2-4T water or vegetable broth (optional)
• sea salt or soy sauce to taste

 

Kale has really thick stalks, and you don’t want to eat those. After you thoroughly wash your pieces of kale, strip off the leaves and rip them down to an edible size. Place them in a bowl until you’re ready for them.

I used a wok for this stir-fry, and assume you can achieve the same effect if you have a deep enough skillet. Either way, heat up one teaspoon of oil (I used safflower because of its high smoke point) over medium-high heat, and add the walnuts and toast them (stirring constantly) for about one minute. Remove them to drain on a paper towel.

Throw some more oil in your wok and move it around to be sure the entire bottom of the wok is coated. Toss in your garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add the red pepper flakes and carrots and stir-fry for another minute.

Finally, dump in your kale, and stir up all that goodness from the bottom, being sure to coat the kale with the oil. When you press down on the kale with your spatula, you’ll hear popping – don’t worry it’s just the water inside the kale expanding. Cover everything with a lid for about 30 seconds to generate enough steam to cook the kale, remove the lid and stir it all up again. Your total cooking time will be about three minutes. Keep stirring because you don’t want to burn the kale. If you think you need more liquid to cook the kale, toss in a couple of tablespoons of water or vegetable broth. I didn’t use any.

Before you serve this green goodness, remove the ginger and throw those delicious walnuts back into the mix. I prepared a batch of brown basmati rice to go with my stir-fry. What are you going to use?

Of course, you may be wondering what those three carrots are doing away from the rest of the meal? An excellent question. They just wanted to see what was on the other side of the rice.

Original recipe taken from Greens Glorious GREENS!