We’re really lucky here in Edmonton to have greens year-round, due to some greenhouse magic – butter lettuce from TR Greenhouses, spinach from Peas on Earth, and mixed heritage greens from Greens, Eggs and Ham, to mention a few. Of course, sometimes hearty greens are what we crave in the dead of winter – like kale.

North African Chickpea and Kale Soup

We had a couple of kale bunches from Kuhlmann’s. Most of the leaves went into a North African chickpea and kale soup.

We used chicken instead of vegetable stock, but that was the only change we made to a recipe that resulted in the most flavourful broth we’ve ever made – flavoured with cumin, paprika, chili powder, saffron, ground ginger, bay leaves and a cinnamon stick. The contents of the soup reminded us of Mark Bittman’s carrot, spinach and rice soup, but this one was so much better, and it simmered only for an hour!

North African chickpea and kale soup

It’s definitely a soup that we are adding to our rotation.

Kale Chips

Kale chips are touted as a healthy alternative to fattening potato chips – kale drizzled with olive oil, baked in the oven, then tossed with seasoning (we like salt and paprika). We made kale chips earlier this year, but used a flat-leaf kale, which seemed to work well. We were curious about how curly kale would turn out.

Kale chips

It seemed not to work as well, perhaps because I didn’t do as good of a job drying the leaves before putting them in the oven, so they weren’t as crunchy as the flat leaves. The seasoning did its job, but both of us had to admit – given a choice between kale chips and their starchy, deep-fried cousin, the latter would win…every time.