Kale, Mushroom, and Cheddar Bake

Are you a lover of kale? Bread? Cheese? Mushrooms? Then you are likely to love this recipe from Jennie Perillo as much as I do.

It’s basically a simplified strata of sorts, a casserole layering thin slices of rustic ciabatta bread with sautéed kale, mushrooms, and onions, and cheddar cheese, soaked with milk and egg, and then baked until bubbly and browned. It’s the ultimate kale lover’s comfort food.

The recipe is from Jennie’s cookbook, Homemade with Love: Simple Scratch Cooking from In Jennie’s Kitchen, a beautiful book with photographs by Penny De Los Santos, heart warming prose, and tummy warming recipes for the home cook.

There are a dozen recipes in Jennie’s book that I can’t wait to make, but this one caught my eye first. It’s vegetarian and filling (so, perfect for Lent), and I have a hard time resisting anything with bread, mushrooms, cheddar, and kale.

I think the next time I make it I may swap out some of the cremini mushrooms for shiitake, to make it even more intensely mushroomy. And while the recipe calls for kale, you could easily make this with chard or other good braising greens.

It reminds me a bit of the panade we made here a while back, a bread soup with greens, mushrooms, and onions, just without the soup part. Enjoy!

Kale, Mushroom, and Cheddar Bake Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 bunch (7 oz or 200 g) lacinato kale (dinosaur or Tuscan kale), center ribs removed, leaves thinly sliced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 5 ounces (140 g) of cremini mushrooms, finely chopped
• 1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
• 1/2 loaf (185 grams) ciabatta bread, cut into 1/8-inch thick slices
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups (375 ml) milk
• 4 ounces (112 g) grated cheddar cheese

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