Pumpkin, Ricotta and Kale Pasta

You will often see recipes with spinach and ricotta cannelloni, which is a lovely recipe in itself. But I wanted to try something with kale. I know that kale is a fairly strong flavour and the texture can be a bit fibrous. So finding a recipe that makes eating kale enjoyable was important. This recipe was a bit of an experiment and I used elements from Nagi at Recipe Tin Eats from her Spinach Ricotta Cannelloni recipe to make the basics of this recipe and then made my own adjustments.

So why kale? Well for one it is a very nutrient dense food. If you look up kale at the Healthline.com site you will find a long list of benefits backed by good evidence. Some of the key benefits include cholesterol lowering; it has chemicals that reduce your risk of cancer; it is extremely high in antioxidants including beta-carotene and vitamin c; it has good sources of minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium; it reduces risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease; reduces vision loss; as well as helping with weight loss [1]. I think with this long list of potential health benefits, we would do well to find ways to add it to our diet .

One extra point I noticed in my reading about kale is that steaming it may make the benefits more available to our body [2]. So this recipe is perfect for that.

One thing I will mention though, if you are currently taking Warfarin medication for blood thinning, you may have to be careful about the amount of kale you eat as it is also a very high source of Vitamin K. Vitamin K helps our blood to clot, so it counteracts the effect of Warfarin. In general, it is generally recommended to not drastically increase the amount of Vitamin K in your diet from your current level without consulting with your doctor. They may want to monitor your clotting factors more closely while you are adjusting your diet.

Another thing I want to point out is that having a variety of different plant based foods in your diet is one of the best things you can do for your health. So just because kale is full of nutrients, it is good to have variety. Include kale regularly, but remember to mix it up.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did. If you make any more changes to it, I would love to hear what you did and how it turned out.

Thanks for reading!

Michelle @MobileDietitian

References:

(1) Gunnars, K. B. (2018, June 29). 10 Health Benefits of Kale. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-proven-benefits-of-kale

(2) Kahlon, T. S., Chiu, M. C. M., & Chapman, M. H. (2008). Steam cooking significantly improves in vitro bile acid binding of collard greens, kale, mustard greens, broccoli, green bell pepper, and cabbage. Nutrition Research, 28(6), 351–357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nutres.2008.03.007