The garden is brimming with kale.
Kale.
Our favorite green.
Kale.
Whom we crave and eat all through the year.
Kale.
That we (guiltily) buy from California in February long after our freezer stockpile has run out.
Oh, kale. How we love you.
So I planted twice as much this season as I did last year in hopes of a stash in the freezer to last us through until spring. Recently I looked into the garden and couldn't believe how much kale there was. Despite the aggressive and enclosing weeds, there was serious kale happening out there. A few good rains and the plants (as one friend put it about her own crop) had "turned into palm trees".
So Lupine - my faithful garden helper - and I headed out with our harvest baskets.
We picked kale until we couldn't carry any more, than brought it inside to process.
Kale is pretty straight forward to put by, like any sturdy cooking green.
Quite simply: Rinse. (If you care to. Which I don't.) Stem (As in cut out the tough rib down the center). Chop. Blanch. Chill (with a dip in some ice water). Drain. Bag or jar up. And freeze.
That's all there is to it.
And armload after armload of kale was transformed into a (rather small) armload of bagged kale headed to the freezer. Greens are funny that way, aren't they?
Regardless, it's (good, nourishing, homegrown, affordable) food for winter. With more to come in long after the first frosts.
Food for the winter.
It's stocking up.
