All Hail Kale!

I made a quick trip to a new (to me) local farmers' market this morning to pick up a cheese order from Zingerman's Creamery to take with us to share for Thanksgiving dinner later this week. That trip also brought the pleasure of buying a HUGE 'bouquet' of kale from one of my favorite new young farmers, Megan DeLeeuw who has started Hand Sown Farm in Sharon Township near Manchester, MI.

Here is a photo of the kale bouquet on my kitchen counter.

(Photo: Curly kale from Hand Sown Farm, Sharon Township, Manchester, MI)

Here is what I plan to do with it. First I will make my favorite cranberry chutney to take with us to Thanksgiving dinner and (if there is any left - hope hope!) next I will make Cranberries with Kale as one of my favorite Thanksgiving "left-over" meals.

I am sorry I did not have my camera to take Megan's picture today at the Canton Farmers' Market. Her stand was beautiful and bountiful, filled with gorgeous and delicious vegetables. I have tried to take Megan's picture at markets in the past but her stand is always too crowded with happy buyers (the 'problem' of success!) to get a great shot showcasing her and her lovingly hand-sown food.

So until next spring, I'll just have to be content with the photo of her kale bouquet on my kitchen counter and the anticipation of her sweet, delicious kale tantalizing my taste buds. Megan does promote my kale blog to help people find recipes to use kale, so over the winter, I'm going to work on designing a sign that she can stick into her bushel of kale on her market table to point people to all the tasty recipes on this blog.

What are your favorite recipes? I should look at my blog stats to figure out which are the top recipes people are viewing, but I am more interested in your comments after actually eating my recipes. Feel free to chime in!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my kale (and other Brassica vegetable) fans!

Where kale is more than decoration on my plate, on Thanksgiving Day and for those all-important left-overs!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD