THE POINT OF KALE?
Most garden visitors who visit my garden go away with something — a bunch of silver beet, sorrel, eggs or perhaps kale.
There’s a fair bit of kale in the vegie patch at the moment but a recent visitor said: “no thanks I just don’t see the point of kale”. I began to list the uses for kale (great in soups, stews, add to salads, wonderful as chips …) but to no avail. After she’d left without the kale I remembered that I’d actually planted it to make pesto so I picked a bunch and headed to the kitchen. If kale in soups, stews, salads and even as chips leaves you cold, try turning it into pesto. I saw the recipe in a charming book from the UK called The Almanac: A seasonal guide to 2019, by Lia Leendertz (Mitchell Beazley, 2018).
I was so pleased with the result I planted kale to harvest now while there’s no spare basil, rocket or parsley around.
To make kale pesto, cut off the thick bits of stem before tossing the leaves in the blender with nuts (I use almonds), garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and lemon juice. Vary the quantities to match the amount of kale and to taste. We’ll be having it for dinner with pasta if there’s enough left after all the tasting on biscuits that’s going on in the kitchen right now!
Quiz answers 1. Meerkat 2. Playing for Keeps 3. Mali 4. Australia 5. Moby-Dick 6. InSight 7. Atlantic Ocean 8. The Who 9. True 10. 11. Rum 12. No one (not awarded in 2018) 13. Rugby union 14. Red 15. The Brady Bunch 16. 1960s 17. Golden carriage 18. Cambodia 19. Michael Jackson 20. A Fish Called Wanda 21. False 22. Estonia 23. Asuka 24. Gough Whitlam 25. Mozambique 26. South Australia 27. Goat 28. United States 29. Moody Blues 30. Netherlands
Target Word answers: abed, abet, abide, abri, adit, aide, airt, arid, attire, attired, bade, baht, bait, bard, bare, bate, bath, bathe, bathed, bather, batt, batter, bead, bear, beard, beat, beta, biretta, BIRTHDATE, brad, brae, braid, brat, bread, breadth, breath, dare, dart, date, dater, dear, dearth, death, debar, dita, drab, earth, habit, hade, hair, haired, hard, hare, hared, hart, hate, hated, hater, hatred, hatter, head, hear, heard, heart, heat, idea, irate, rabi, rabid, raid, rate, rated, rath, ratite, read, rehab, rhea, tahr, tare, tared, tart, tear, teat, tetrad, that, theta, thread, threat, tirade, trad, trade, trait, tread, treat, triad.