Week 5: Peak Kale

The week five share will include: Kale, Snow Peas, a Tomato/Eggplant/Pepper choice, Herbs, Parsley, Kohlrabi, Head Lettuce or Escarole, Scallions and Mini Cabbage.

What's a mini cabbage? you may be wondering. It's exactly what it sounds like, a small cabbage. We grow a variety called gonzales, which is full size at 4 to 6 inches across. These are not sauerkraut cabbages. These are slice it up, toss it with something tasty, cook it fast (or not at all), and it eat down cabbages. They are the perfect size for a family sized batch of coleslaw or sweet and sour cabbage.

If you need additional cabbage cooking inspiration, check out the Wintergreen Farm cabbage Pinterest board.

Because this week's blog post isn't about cabbage, it's about kale.

I know the 2014 blog posts have been focused almost entirely on greens this season. I am continuing that trend.

Last week, I was specifically inspired to write about greens by Chef Arlene. This week I've been inspired by NPR. Marketplace declared Peak Kale this weekend. Check out the story. They even back up their declaration with data from Google Trends. Peak Kale happened January of this year. (As an aside, I love that Google Trends exists. Google is undeniably creepy, but it is such an awesome kind of creepy.)

While I actually have seen evidence of the truth of Peak Kale--kale love is ever so slightly diminished this market season when compared with previous seasons--I feel NPR's (lighthearted) declaration requires a (equally lighthearted) response. A response in support of kale.

In honor of Peak Kale, we have christened Kale Peak.

Planting our flag on Kale Peak.

Some winterbor about to summit.

Peak Kale peaks down from Kale Peak.

In further celebration. I'm offering a peak of our favorite quick kale dish. This is the simplest way I know of to make a meal out of kale (short of eating whole raw leaves, which we also do from time to time).

Scrambled Eggs and Kale

This is most often served as lunch at our place. Especially on busy harvest days. I'm not actually going to call it a recipe because it only has three ingredients and three steps (it also has infinite optional ingredients--onions, garlic, dried or fresh tomato, parsley, hot pepper...). The ingredients are butter, kale, and eggs. The steps are melt butter, saute kale until it is just tender, stir in beaten eggs and cook until eggs are set. I doubt anyone in the universe actually needed me to explain that :)

Peak Kale Farmer Lunch