— Jane Barnett

Well, I probably wouldn't use them in stock, but you could, depending on the stock. Um, you know, when I was working with the Sarno brothers at Whole Foods, Derek used to use the, um, the kale stems and put 'em in Pico de Gao, which I thought was a clever idea. So Pico Deo just as you know, a tomato, jalapeno cilantro, a little bit of garlic, um, and some onion, but he would put the kale stems in that too, just to add a little bit more nutrient to it. Um, and just a little crunch to it, which is actually a great idea for those as well. Um, as far as kale stems go, like that's, that's a great use for them. You can use them on other things, but stock is probably not something I would use them for. Um, you know, but adding them to other things, just like Derek did in that pika de guy is great. You know, having an acid like the tomato in there to help break them down a little bit or lime juice to help break down that bitterness works well too. So just like if you're massaging kale, um, with a, a bitter ingredient helps to kind of get rid of that bitterness. The same thing actually happens with the, um, the stems. So, um, yeah, just be inventive with them. Think about what you could do, how you can add them to other things. You can actually absolutely add 'em to the top of, you know, dice 'em up and um, put 'em to the top of things. The thinner, the slice on the stem, the, I think the better you'll get unless you want that real kind of big crunchy uh, boost of like kind of bitterness in them.