This September we're harvesting lots of kale. In addition to my usual favorite: the dark-green spear-leafed lacinato kale, this year we also started growing Delaway kale and it's excellent. This kale stands out for its beautiful soft-green coloring, purple stems and slightly curled leaves. The leaves are tender and not too fibrous like some other kale varieties, yet they are very flavorful and even get spicy especially in the new leaflets.
Delaway is also cold tolerant and plentiful. Two or three plants is enough to eat all summer and still have some for storage. We like to freeze our kale. First you blanch it then put it in freezer bags. Good for soup in the middle of the winter!
Of course, you can also store it in cans or jars and that's better if you want to ensure you have food in the event that there is not electricity. But for us it's just less work now to freeze much of our produce because we have a large freezer to store food in. Another good way to preserve kale is to dehydrate it, then crush it and mix with salt and other seasonings. That makes a nice salt mix with the additional nutrients, proteins and antioxidants.
Enjoy!
