My kale stem pesto

 

My friend S dropped of some fresh kale from her sister's farm recently. I always make kale chips with the leaves but she told me I should use the stems somehow.

So I found a pesto recipe I can make from kale stems and was very happy with it! I would not add the extra salt to the recipe as the parmesan cheese has enough. But basically you just blanche the kale stems for about 3 minutes. Then I used a food processor (a blender would work too) to blend the kale with olive oil, parmesan cheese, chopped garlic, roasted sunflower seeds, pepper and some lemon juice. It is good with crackers or even mixed into pasta.  The pesto can be frozen portion size in freezer bags.

My sister teased that I am becoming quite the chef, the person who hates cleaning her food processor.  Also I had some newly expired, roasted sunflower seeds so I did cheat.