One of my favorite family-friendly cookbooks is Gwyneth Paltrow’s My Father’s Daughter. She cooks with her kids in mind, and I have been surprised more than once when I have skeptically tried one of her recipes, and found that my kids gobbled it up. She has a lot of easy recipes, with just a short list of ingredients. This is the one I have made more than any other, and it consistently pleases the whole family — one of very few dishes! Here is my (adapted slightly) version.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound kale, stems discarded, chopped very fine

1 T olive oil

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

3 green onions, finely chopped

3 cups cooked brown rice

1 1/2 T good quality soy sauce

Method:

Chop the kale very very finely. This is the secret to making the dish kid-friendly. Use a large, sharp chef’s knife and try to chop like you see chefs chop on TV! You want the green pieces to be as small as you can chop them, like the way you might chop parsley. It takes a while, but eventually you’ll have a pile of fine green kale.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large cast iron or nonstick skillet. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two on medium-low heat. Add the kale and green onions and cook for a few more minutes until the kale has wilted and reduced. Add the rice and stir to mix thoroughly, cooking for another two minutes. Finally add the soy sauce. Serve hot.

I often serve Green Rice with roasted sweet potatoes. My friend Natalya has a great recipe on her blog here.