[food] the kale thing

[kaberett]

I have introduced my mother to this, I have introduced the Child's household to this, I am writing it down because clearly It Is Time for me to do so.

Ingredients (adjust proportions to taste)
kale*
onions
garlic
chilli
vegetable stock (choose your own form factor)
lemon (choose your own form factor)
A Tin Of Beans (probably white)
potatoes

* This is the only non-negotiable ingredient, because this whole thing started out as a desperate attempt to Use Up The Damn Kale.

Method

1. Gently warm some oil in a large frying pan, ideally with lid, and let it make friends with whichever of garlic, chilli, and lemon zest (as strips or Tiny Bits, whichever) you feel like using.
2. If you are me, grab a puck of caramelised onion out of the freezer and dump into the pan to defrost. If you are not me and you want this to contain onion: slice some onion, dump it into the pan, and cook it for as long as you can be bothered with ("none" is acceptable)/it takes you to chop the next thing.
3. If using potatoes, you want them chopped into A Useful Size Of Cube. The smaller you chop them, the faster they will cook; I tend to like them as about 2cm cubes. Add to pan, ideally in a layer that is no more than 2 cubes deep; top up with liquid (veg stock, or water + veg stock cube/powder/etc...) until the potatoes are juuuust covered. Bring to the boil, stick on a lid, reduce to a simmer, and you can now ignore it for half an hour while the potatoes do. After half an hour, when the potatoes are mostly tender, remove lid and turn up heat so that the liquid cooks off while you are Organising The Kale. Hopefully this results in some amount of crispy bits but it's fine if it doesn't.
4. Organise The Kale (Or Other Brassica oleracea): strip the leaves off the ribs (the magic trick for this is Hold Base Of Stem In One Hand, Pinch With Other, Tug), cut the stems into short lengths, and add them to the pan to think about their life and their choices while you make the leafy bits Smaller.
5. Add the beans (if using) In Their Liquid, and optionally stock powder (if you're not using potatoes and thus have not already applied vegetable stock). Stir.
6. Dump the frilly kale bits on top of the Other Ingredients; add a splash of water if you're not using beans; stick the lid on the pan; let the kale steam until it reaches a state you consider palatable.
7. Optionally add: salt; pepper; a splash of lemon juice.

This goes pretty well with halloumi or indeed other cheese if you want additional non-bean protein, can be served with bread or other pre-cooked carbohydrate instead of potatoes if you want it to be quicker, and as you can probably tell from all the "if using" is very forgiving of adaptation. Let the record also state that, should you be feeding someone who is Suspicious Of Beans but also people who Like Beans, your options include "heat the contents of a tin of beans separately" and "butter beans are big and relatively easy to pick out".