Last Sunday morning, Tricia Sedgwick, founder of The World In A Garden, held a free Eat More Kale workshop at Dirty Apron Cooking School. Apparently the Dirty Apron hosts free workshops periodically. Something to keep an eye out for! Tricia showed us how to prepare kale in three different but easy ways and also gave us some tips on how to grow kale.

Chef David Robertson of the Dirty Apron introduced Tricia Sedgwick to us. It was a full house and he had to bring in additional chairs! Who knew kale would be so popular?



The first snack Tricia shared with us was Kale chips made in a dehydrator instead of an oven. I've made kale chips using an oven and it almost always got burnt. Only a couple of times was I actually successful. She uses nutritional yeast which gives it a cheesy taste without having to use cheese! The type of kale used was curly kale. If you don't have a dehydrator (which Tricia recommends everyone getting because it's so convenient), you can always bake the kale in the oven at 300 degrees C.



Next she made a smoothie from baby kale with lemon juice, bananas, apple juice and fresh ginger. Not bad! It had a sort of kick to it. Not something I'd probably drink every day but once in a while, yeah.


The last recipe Tricia shared with us was a quinoa salad with kale and dried apricots.

Quinoa, kale, garlic, dried apricots, cherry and grape tomatoes, red onion, hazelnuts. Mmmm.

Wow. It tasted amazing! I don't particularly enjoy quinoa anymore (ate too much of it in the past) but this recipe has revived my interest in it!

I learned so much in this hour workshop! Here are some facts:

• Did you know that kale has the most nutritional value per calorie than any vegetable? And that the nutrition decreases from the time it is picked? So it is super important to eat local kale!
• Did you know what a kale plant can live 5+ years? You just need to keep picking the leaves and not let it go to seed!
• You can have kale almost year round! If you plant kale in February, you'll have a June harvest. Plant in July and you get a fall/winter harvest.
• Kale tastes even better after a bought of frost! The "kiss of frost" reduces the sulfur content in the leaves that could make it a little bitter.
• Kale buds (the flower just before it blooms and seeds) are also very high in nutrients and also high in protein for a vegetable. 
  
• Too much acidic foods can be bad for you so it is important to eat more alkaline foods. Lemon juice is special because though it is acidic, it gets processed in your body as an alkaline!

Book of Kale

Tricia recommended that those who are interested in kale and other kale recipes to read the Book of Kale. She also holds other workshops! Check out the schedule on the World In a Garden website.


I loved everything I learned from this workshop! My own little crop of kale is coming out nicely. Rainbow Lacinato Kale that I planted in the beginning of July (or was it June? I forget).

Red Russian Kale and Curly Kale that I planted back in May. I should have found a better spot for these ones. I realize now that they are in the shade! Still we plucked some of their leaves already though we had to supplement them with kale we bought. I want to grow more!