Convince me that kale can actually be tasty

Fearing that you're vegetarian but hoping you're not: The North German way. You strip the leaves off the leaf-stems by pulling them off by hand. Discard the stems, wash the kale several times, chop coarsely. You need a lot of kale, btw. Take a big pot, the one you'd use for a week's worth of chili. Sauté a good fistful of chopped onion in pork fat within. Add the chopped kale, let sizzle for a while, turn and toss. Now add some salt (not too much), a teaspoon or so of allspice and pepper and about tablespoon of cut oats. Adjust heat down to simmer. Put on top of kale: bratwurst-type coarse-ground sausage (that means, no fennel like in italian sausage; at least one per person, smoked better than non-smoked), a chunk of smoked pork shoulder preferably with the bone, and two items of other smoked goods to taste (outside Bremen or Oldenburg, one usually doesn't get the traditional barley-onion-and-fat sausage called Pinkel, so you'll have to do without it which is truly sad); a piece of smoked pork side would be great. Cook on low for at least 2 hours, the longer the merrier; watch that it doesn't dry up. Boil some potatoes, put a bottle of vodka/aquavit/gin in the freezer. Put all the meaty goods on a platter, and a good portion of the kale into a bowl, serve and yum. The vodka is for halfway through. You must take your time with all this. French mustard at the side.

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/colcannon/ There is nothing that cream and butter and potatoes can't fix.

Two ideas: 1. Add it to soup. Anything from a hearty potato/sausage thing, to a simple broth with egg and shredded kale. It needs to cook longer than, say, spinach would in a soup. 2. Southern style greens: yes, saute them, but add vinegar, molasses or honey, hot pepper flakes, and garlic, plus bacon or smoked pork if you eat meat. It's AMAZING. I could eat it a couple times a week.

How are you doing your kale chips? I say this as someone who does not really like kale and who none the less eats a lot of the chips. Just in case you're having a technique issue: - oven at 275 - non-insulated baking sheets -check at 10 minutes but expect to go to 20 -at 17 - 20 minutes, remove all the crisped kale and spread any non-dried kale around better in the pans, then turn off the oven. Let the kale sit in the oven for...oh, I've let it sit for an hour or two as the oven cools. That seems to finish crisping it up. - Also, I use about 2 T olive oil per bunch of kale and use two regular baking sheets.

Dissent: I am of the view that there are good reasons that prior to 2006, kale was solely a disposable garnish for middling salad bars, and not considered edible. There are so many other greens that are actually delicious. Greens that do not have to be massaged and otherwise cadged and coaxed into being edible. Shred it and freeze it and add it to soups and stews and other long-cooking whatnot where it won't stand out, but I have had all sorts of oh it's so delicious! modern kale-centric whatnots and they keep being terrible. Tell your CSA you'd like a better variety of greens. Your compost will benefit from the kale, though.

I think you need to braise your kale. Cook it on LOW HEAT in a heavy, covered pot with a generous amount of olive oil, plus a chopped onion, some lemon juice, and salt and pepper. It should be silky, totally non-bitter and utterly delicious after ~25 minutes. (You may need to add a small amount of water to the pot before you turn it on and close the lid. If you don't, CHECK FREQUENTLY because this is a very easy way to scorch a pot and ruin some kale.)

I am not a huge fan of kale either, but I found marinating it and/or massaging it really helps. For example, I make an avocado and kale salad and it is much, much tastier if you really massage the avocado into the kale with you bare hands for a quite a few minutes. http://www.meatlessmonday.com/recipes/massaged-kale-salad/

Just barely wilted in a skillet with some oil, then tossed with mirin (sweetened rice wine) and sesame oil. The mirin really helps to cut the bitterness.

http://dowdycornerscookbookclub.com/2011/07/crescent-dragonwagon%E2%80%99s-gumbo-zeb/ will take a whole afternoon to make but is very, very worth it and you will be eating well for months afterward. Basically, you make the roux, stock, veggies and seasonings ahead of time, freeze it in baggies, and then you can make gumbo in less time than it takes to cook a pot of rice by thawing out a bag and adding whatever broth and meat strike your fancy. That description doesn't do it justice, though. It makes it sound like this is some barely-adequate sorta-edible last-ditch industrial food product for people with more freezer space than taste. But this stuff is good. I mean, stunningly good. And here's what matters to you: it calls for a metric fuckton of greens, it will work well with whatever type of greens you've got around, and the veggies are balanced with enough other strong flavors that even people who "hate greens" end up liking it. Though it really does come out a lot more interesting if there's at least a bit of variety in the greens you use: if I were in your shoes, I'd use mostly kale and then chuck in some mustard greens and some arugula to mix things up. (But you don't know how to make roux, you say? http://www.deepsouthdish.com/2010/03/10-minute-microwave-general-purpose.html)