Kale Taboulleh Yahooey!

One of our new lines and future shirts, etc. at Herbivore is "Only Kale Can Save Us Now" because if you haven't heard, kale is like, REALLY good for you!

Anyway, months ago I thought about making this taboulleh - and I had either just used my kale or didn't have any bulgur. Or the dog ate my bulgar, you know how it is.

There was some coffee bit into, but barely spilled. whew.

Bulgar and nutritional yeast mixing it up ON THE FLOOR.

Yeah, Sassy ate the damn bulgar! ARGHHHH!!!!! And funny thing is I think she used the step stool to get up to the counter.

Anyway - KALE!!!
Kale is something of a darling these days, which is a really fun thing to type. It seems like every vegan I know is always eating kale, there are bars that serve kale now (probably just in Portland, but still!) and people are munching away on kale chips and sipping kale smoothies....and I felt like my boring steamed kale or sauteed kale was just getting OLD.
Hello, Mr. Taboulleh!

Step aside Mr. Parsley, Ms. Kale is in town.

I have had a love affair with the middle east for years now, and have been to Beirut, Lebanon a couple times (not the Oregon town of Lebanon, though. hmmm....). I admit I've got a snooty palate for typical middle eastern food. Thankfully, Portland is home to some seriously good traditional homestyle Lebanese food, but I don't partake as often as I probably should. So I make do with trips to Barbur World Foods and make my own crazy versions, which now I will share with you.

Kale Taboulleh
1/2 cup bulgar
1 bunch curly kale, deveined & torn into smaller pieces
2 small (like in a plastic container but avoid this b/c it's a ripoff!) or 1 regular bunch fresh mint, leaves only
1/3 cup onion, finely chopped (green, white, red, whatever you have!)
2 small or 1 big clove garlic, finely chopped
1 cup chopped tomatoes
1/4 to 1/3 cup lemon juice (to taste, about 2 lemons)
1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil (your choice, really)
1 teaspoon salt

Measure bulgar into a bowl or cup and pour boiling water to cover about an inch above grains. It will be absorbed & ready in about 20 minutes. Put some kale leaves into the bowl of your food processor, and pulse a few times. Add leaves until all the kale is chopped super fine, like the picture above. Add in the mint and pulse a bit more. You want this all chopped super fine! Scrape greens into a large bowl, and add fluffed bulgar on top. Add remaining ingredients (start with lesser amounts of lemon and oil) and taste for adjustments. You might like more salt, more lemon, etc. Stir it up really well, making sure to get everything all mushed up together. You can eat it now, but honestly, it's best if you wait a while, and it's even better the next day!

This is so easy it's obvious why people have made it for centuries.

Stir it up, stir it up!

The more kale you eat, the more vegan you are.

We ate this in a bowl after it was finished. We ate some the next day, with leftover falafel and just by itself. It obviously could play a lovely part in a mezze spread, with hummus, olives, eggplant, etc. You could put it in a sandwich! Add it to a greens salad, or, if you really want to be adventurous and eat like a true Beiruter -- put some of this lovely taboulleh in a bowl and top it with lentil soup. Usually that is done with fattoush (bread salad) but it works beautifully with a hearty salad like this, too.