Beans And Greens

Our garden is spilling over with beautiful, frilly dark green leaves of Russian kale. This year I decided not to plant my beloved Tuscan kale and try something new, and something new is springing out all over.
About an hour before dinner I went out and harvested an armload of fresh greens and brought my bounty in the house to braise. I started a pot with a couple glugs of olive oil and when the oil was getting warm added in a sliced onion and a couple of shallots followed by 5 or 6 cloves of garlic (sliced) and a sprinkling of red chili flakes. Next I loaded in a huge mound of stemmed, washed, and sliced kale (sort of a rough chiffonade), 1 TB of coarse salt and about 1 cup of water. I covered the pot and let everything cook down over medium-low heat for around 25 minutes. What emerged were glistening, green, savory, fresh tasting leaves that I served next to cannelini beans cooked in plenty of sage and olive oil and thin slices of delightfully salty prosciutto. I didn't even realize the Italo centric color scheme I'd created until I looked at this photo. Pretty good color for a country or for dinner.