Coconut Baked Kale

I've recently started a new job. Among other things, this has meant that we've had a surplus of veggies that we have to figure out how to use within a week's time. Why do the two go hand in hand? Well my new job is at Full Circle, a company that does weekly deliveries of fresh, organic produce boxes. One of the perks of the job is that I get a box of fruits and veg to take home every Friday! It's super cool. We never know what sort of stuff is going to be in the box before we open them up or if the combination of things will be able to make enough meals for the week ( FYI this is not the way their regular boxes work, just the rand-o employee boxes). So far, I've been there for five weeks and we haven't had to do a lot of grocery shopping since. Which is awesome. Mainly it's been quick trips to the store for milk, bread, and eggs plus relying on pantry items we already have.

So far, we've also enjoyed the challenge of trying to mold all the random things into meals without having to buy much more, eat stir fry every night, or let anything go bad. It's kind of fun to have to be creative with whatever you get. And thus, I have arrived at today's recipe post.



A few weeks ago, I found myself with too much kale on my hands. And too little of anything else to, say, incorporate it into some other dish like lasagna or soup or a veg bake. I had already used up just about everything else from the box. I feel a bit like a cliche talking about all the kale I got in my organic veg box. Ah well. Insert kale joke here. You'll just have to trust me that we do get other things and not just a box of kale.

But, onward. Whenever I have a problem with veg I don't know what to do with my first step is to pull out Super Natural Everyday. And, just like that, dinner was unstuck. I made this coconut baked kale and served it up alongside some butter-fried mushrooms (also a bottom of the barrel item from my box) and some soba noodles. It was super flavorful and delicious, and made excellent leftovers the next day. Kevin loved it, too, so I'm filing it away in my mind palace as "here's what you do with too much kale" for future reference. Here's the recipe with my modifications based on what we had on hand.


Coconut Baked Kale

Ingredients: 

• 1/3 cup / 80 ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• Mixed bag of purple and curly kale, about 4 cups. Stems removed and roughly chopped. 
• 1 cup sweetened coconut

To Make: 

• Preheat the oven to 350°F with rack in the top third of the oven.  
• In a small jar, shake together the olive oil and soy sauce. 
• Toss kale and coconut in a large bowl, then toss well with two-thirds of the olive oil/soy sauce mixture. 
• Spread the dressed kale across baking sheet in a single layer. 
• Bake for 14 minutes, tossing once half way through. Coconut should be toasted and kale should be dry but not crispy-burnt.
• Remove from oven and dish up. Drizzle with more of the dressing to taste (or in our case to dress up the soba noodles).