Kale and White Bean Stew

I absolutely love Real Simple magazine. They have great articles and really good recipes. I find myself tearing out recipes and tucking them away, with the thought "Oh, I'll totally make this...someday." Well, someday turned out to be 3 years later! I was looking through my collection and came across this recipe from their Thanksgiving 2006 issue. They had named it "Stewy White Beans" which just sounds boring, so I changed the name.

It's a good side dish, very healthy with dark green kale and hearty white beans. It called for a big can of tomatoes, and I wasn't a huge fan of that. I think that canned tomatoes have a certain metallic sweetness to them that I just don't love. I would like to make this dish again, but I'm not sure what I'll use as a replacement. In order to bulk it up a little for a main meal, I just served it over some whole-wheat pasta, which was a nice addition.

Ingredients:

2 TBS olive oil

2 small shallots, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 pound kale, stems removed and cut into small pieces. If you grab one of the ready-to-cook bags, you don't need to do anything to it!

1 lemon, juiced

2 tsp light brown sugar

1 bay leaf

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1 14-oz can vegetable broth

1 28-oz can of whole or diced tomatoes, drained

1 15-oz can of white beans, drained

1.5 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

Instructions

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and cook for about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and greens, stirring frequently until the greens begin to wilt, 3-5 minutes. Don't panic when you start to think they won't all fit in the pot. Trust me, they will once they cook down!

Add 1 TBS of lemon juice, the brown sugar, bay leaf, red pepper flakes, broth, tomatoes and their juices. Bring to a boil and then simmer gently until the greens are tender, about 15 minutes. Add the beans and cook for another 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Season with salt, pepper and remaining lemon juice.