Kale and Potatoes

Kale must be one of the easiest vegetables to grow. It lasts from spring to fall and even into winter. We use it in recipes that call for spinach, which seems much harder to grow in our summer climate. And now that we grew potatoes for the first time, kale and potatoes are a perfect pair. Yesterday I dug up half our small patch of potatoes -- a small but terrific crop of Yukon Golds -- and picked a handful of kale.

With my in-laws from India here for an extended visit, we are preparing mostly Indian vegetarian meals. My mother-in-law cooks without recipes, but I rely on a few cookbooks. A favorite is Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking. Jaffrey has an excellent spinach-potato (Saag aloo) recipe in which I use kale instead of spinach. The coarser kale actually goes quite well with the starchy potatoes.

The recipe includes cubed potatoes, chopped kale, one onion sliced thin, a few garlic cloves minced, salt, black mustard seeds, and a pinch of ground asafetida (a common south Indian spice). Essentially you saute all of this, starting with the asafetida and mustard seeds added to a few tablespoons of vegetable oil heated in a saute pan. Add each ingredient and cook with a little water for about 20 to 30 minutes, salt to taste. Yum.