Today is National Kale Day! Yes, I have another kale recipe, a kale pesto recipe to be exact, because my basil is all gone, but the farm is in full supply of kale, and at 81 degrees in October, I still have a ton of parsley.

The usual ingredients will show up, olive oil, pecorino cheese, garlic, and pinenuts. I’m adding lemon because kale needs acid and cracked red pepper.

One of my recipes will be in this free on-line kale cookbook today.

This is the easiest kale pesto recipe to make except for one thing. Do take out those nasty little ribs between the leaves. I prefer the lacinato or Tuscan but today, the farm gave me curly kale and that’s okay, as it’s getting all chopped up.

Serve on spaghetti, toast bread, crackers, atop potatoes, chicken, fish, and tacos. It’s your call. We are celebrating National Kale Day with orecchiete pasta and this kale pesto recipe.

In Celebration of National Kale Day, here are a Few of My Favorite Ways to Eat Kale plus a Kale Pesto Recipe

Kale Winter Salad and Why You Should Eat Kale

Italian Beef Stew with Kale

Melted Tuscan Kale – This is popular and that surprises me. I use this with my Paleo Meatballs for full on grain free day.

How to Freeze Kale

Kale in Chicken Soup – Add kale to any kind of chicken soup, bean soup, vegetable. Wait till you see the cauliflower sausage soup that’s coming.

Kale Italian Ground Beef Stir Fry with pancetta, peas.  Sounds like a common dish. It is; but it’s a healthy dish and you’ll want to lick the pan.

Tuscan Kale Salad – This is a big favorite out in restaurants right now. Almonds, lemon, raisins, garlic, olive oil.

Kale Salad with Apples with Maple Vinaigrette A recent food blogger said, “this is the best kale salad of my life.” I said, “I know.” Sweet potatoes are roasted with olive oil and a pinch of cayenne first.

Kale Biscuits with Bacon & Blue Cheese

Sauteed Kale with Poached Eggs

Kale Olive Frittata

Crispy Kale on Salmon

Kale Risotto

Kale Spinach Smoothie

More Pesto Recipes

Basil Pesto

Walnut Garden Pesto

Happy Healthy Kale Day. Follow me on Instagram. I’d love to connect there. My feed is at the bottom of the post.

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Kale Pesto Recipe

A lemony Kale pesto recipe, great for pasta, crostini or appetizer

Course Appetizer

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 8 cups kale ribs removed, chopped
• 2/3 cups olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts or walnuts
• lemon sea salt or regular sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1/3 cup pecorino cheese

Instructions

• Put kale, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts in food process.
• Process until kale becomes the right consistency. Add more olive oil if you need to.
• By hand, add in cheese, salt, pepper, cracked red pepper.
• Kale can be bitter. Add in a little bit of pasta water if the pesto seems dry, a tablespoon at a time.
• The crushed red pepper helps to offset the bitterness.
• Once you toss the pesto with the pasta, it will balances out in flavor.

Notes

Serve with your favorite pasta.

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Do you know what broccoli rabe is? It’s not broccoli. And, it’s not broccolini. It is, however, also known as rapini. A few years ago, I didn’t know that it existed. And because of that, the first time I ordered it, I didn’t like it.

Naively, I was expecting the milder and different taste of broccoli, and not the slight bitterness resembling a mustard green. I had an anticipated perceived taste in mind, but, had I known this was a horse of another color so to speak, I would have been charmed by the dish.

Broccoli rabe does resemble broccoli, but is not related to broccoli at all.

It’s taste is more similar to mustard greens or turnip greens and has even been referred to turnip broccoli. Once you realize this is not broccoli, you can enjoy this new flavor because unlike broccoli, which can be a little bland, broccoli rabe has a bite of flavor that brings you back for more.

Broccoli Rabe with Orecchietti Pasta is a healthy, hardy comfort food dish with umami flavor.

Greens with a bitter taste are offset best with hot chili pepper or red pepper flakes just like this dish of dandelion greens and pasta. There is an incredible satisfaction when eating broccoli rabe. It sets off a desire for us to want it again the next day, so once I do a broccoli rabe dish, I’m back in the store the next day buying it again.

The other common name for broccoli rabe is rapini and is often paired with orecchiette (a small pasta made with the thumb), which is featured here with red pepper flakes, garlic and lots of authentic pecorino Romano cheese.

This is the dish that helps to reset the palate. I can’t explain the draw on the taste buds, but it does something else. It feels good and even cleansing. There is a pow to the flavor centers that is perfect for this time of year, after all the sugary cookies, heavy meals and one too many cocktails.

If you have never eaten or cooked broccoli rabe, make this the year to try new things, especially greens that increase your health and expand your palate. Just be sure to cook it correctly. It takes all of 5-8 minutes, but there are some tips you need to know.

My recipe for the best broccoli rabe is here. 

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Broccoli Rabe with Orecchietti: A Classic Pasta Dish that Leans Healthy and Hearty

Course Main

Cuisine Italian

Ingredients

• 2 pounds of broccoli rabe
• olive oil enough to cover bottom of pan and more for adding in later
• 3-4 cloves thinly sliced garlic
• 2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 cup pecorino cheese grated and more for serving at table
• 1 pound pasta
• salt and pepper

Instructions

• Rinse and trim stems up to leafy area. Discard bottom inch of stem.
• You can maintain stems, by cutting them in 2 inch pieces and cooking a little earlier. I usually don’t keep stems.
• Submerge in large pot of boiling water for 5 minutes. Place in ice bath to keep green color, while preparing next step.
• Boil pasta according to directions holding back the last three minutes.
• Slice saute garlic in olive oil in large frying pan (large enough to hold pasta.
• Add in pepper flakes and lemon juice. Add in Broccoli.
• Toss pasta into pan. Add more olive oil as necessary.
• Toss with pecorino cheese. Season with salt and pepper.
• Serve immediately with more cheese and red pepper flakes at the table.

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The post Broccoli Rabe with Orecchietti: A Classic Pasta Dish appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Sausage in a cream sauce was not love at first thought, or at first sight, but it was love at first bite.

It just didn’t sound good, but a friend told me it was one of his favorite Marcella recipes. I’m so glad I listened and kept an open mind to put it on the schedule. It doesn’t photograph very well and if it weren’t on the schedule, I might opt out of posting, but it is a worthwhile dish to try.

The challenge of this dish from Bologna is that Marcella requests we use a sausage that has no spices, no fennel, reminiscent of something she knows from Italy. Well, I wasn’t going to use Jimmy Dean, so what do I do? Make my own sausage? Well, sort of. I adapted a recipe from her son, Giuliano Hazan that a member of our group suggested. This is what is fun about cooking recipes with a group. The feedback, the help, the suggestions from each member are so valuable.

I took the suggestion and made the homemade sausage. No worry to stuff the sausage, because the sauce calls for crumbled sausage outside the casing. I like spicy fennel-flavored Italian sausage, so I had to mentally prepare myself for a completely different kind of flavor. I should know better by now, because Marcella’s recipes are always balanced just right and never disappoint.

A dish that at first seems potentially bland is incredibly flavorful, but not in a way you expect. I was sick last week and barely ate, but I went back for seconds on this dish. The crumbly sausage, onion, cream and parmigiano-reggiano work very hard together to bring a dish not quite like I’ve anything I’ve eaten before.
The pasta recommendation is something call crab grass or gramigna, thin curved tubular macaroni. I used orecchiette which held the sauce just as well.

Recipe (adapted from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking) by Marcella Hazan

• 1/2 pound sweet sausage (containing no fennel seed, chili pepper or other strong seasoning)*
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• Black pepper, freshly ground
• 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• salt
• 1 pound pasta
• Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table

*Guiliano Hazan’s Homemade Sausage

• 1 small clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons dry white wine

1. Mix well with hands. Cover, rest overnight, use within 2 days.
2. If you are using a store-bought sausage, skin it first. Add butter and vegetable oil to pan with onion. Cook until onion is pale gold. Add sausage, cook for 10 minutes. Add pepper, cream and turn up to medium high heat, until cream is thickened. Add salt. Taste for seasoning.
3. Toss with pasta and add freshly grated cheese.

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