Cooking, it’s cheaper than therapy. And with all the wellness and economic crises of 2020, you bet your bottom dollar I’ve been working it out in the kitchen lately. (Like, literally. Bottom dollar.)
Speaking of finances and playing with food, I’m all about making the most of our grocery budget and eliminating food waste this year. I’ve been reading the James Beard Foundation’s Waste Not cookbook, and it got me thinking about kale stems.
Cooking with Kale Stems
Nearly every recipe tells you to remove stems and discard, but kale stems are totally edible. Not only are they edible, they can be downright delicious when done right!
But… why would you eat kale stems, you ask. The average bunch of kale contains a full one cup of chopped kale stems, based on my experiments, and that’s a decent amount of fresh veg to just toss in the compost. More than that, kale is a good source of:
Dietary Fiber
Protein
Thiamin
Riboflavin
Folate
Iron
Magnesium
Phosphorus
…And a whole slew of vitamins and other nutrients, but this list was starting to get obnoxiously long, so let’s get to why you’re actually here.
Aren’t kale stalks just going to taste like goat food? Nope, not if done correctly! Now, I love spinach artichoke dip, but I’m on like, the forever wedding diet, assuming this pandemic will ever let up enough for us to get our party on. So after some trial and error in the kitchen, I came up with a delicious healthy spinach artichoke dip that capitalizes on the crunch, fiber, and nutritional boost of added kale stalks… and saves your spinach artichoke dip from being a smooshy mess.
Let’s get started.
