IT HAPPENS every time I decide to do a bit of cooking.

It’s true, I tend to stride around the kitchen with the same relentless, purposeful determination as when I’m out in the garden — every move carefully planned and executed.

For some reason, I’m filled with a strange single-mindedness when engaged in cooking things. Nobody gets in my way because for some odd reason my entire family bolts outdoors, mystifyingly clinging together in apparent terror.

Even our normally placid cat runs frantically up and down, often climbing the curtains until she finally escapes to safety, deeply wedged under our sofa.

My wife tells me it’s because of the fanatical glint that appears in my eyes and weird, trancelike demeanour when I’m going through one of my unpredictable cooking spasms.

I was again seized with this powerful cooking urge last week while admiring several Italian kale plants.

A few weeks earlier I had thoroughly stripped off all coarse leaves so only a row of bare stems were left sticking up.

Leaf-pruning is a marvellous way to stimulate new growth when kale plants start getting a bit old, tough and exhausted.

It didn’t take long.

By last week the once naked stems had become hidden beneath masses of soft shoots and small, tender leaves with an unexpected bonus of hundreds of tasty-looking flower buds.

These kale plants were directly sown from seed last January and were clearly coming to the end of their tether.

The sight aroused deep-seated cooking instincts, so I half-filled a bucket with this final, luscious harvest and mouth already watering, headed indoors, carefully threading my way past my already stampeding family.

I crammed the lot into a large, six litre saucepan, punched it down hard so I could get the lid on and sprinkled a few teaspoons of vegetable stock powder on top.

In went four litres of water and a little pepper (no salt) and everything was left to simmer on our wood stove for an hour or two. By this time the kale had collapsed into a dark-green sludge, but a glorious smell was already drifting around the house.

The strained-off, golden-green broth, full of essential minerals and vitamins, was delicious. Even a self-confessed vegetable hater, a young bloke working nearby, had an initial, suspicious slurp, then kept asking for more.

However, I decided to go further and after cooking several chopped onions in a little oil, added diced carrots galore and an entire head of celery, finely shredded.

Everything went into the kale broth for another simmer.

Please forgive my modest boasting. With tucker like this on a regular basis, you’ll never die.

I still hadn’t finished with the remaining cooked kale. It was squeezed of the last few drops of precious broth and finely chopped.

Lots of crushed garlic was first mixed in, with four grated onions and three big potatoes, also grated, all with most liquid squeezed out. Then rolled oats were tossed in to add bulk while absorbing excess moisture. After half an hour, I added two eggs, a dollop of French mustard and a generous squirt of soy sauce with just enough flour to make a stiff mixture.

Heaped tablespoons were then rolled on a floury board into handy-sized balls. When flattened and cooked through in a pan of hot oil or just barbecued, they become transformed into a special family favourite, my unbelievably-delicious kale burgers.

The smell alone is enough to bring my family indoors while our cringing cat emerges to purr and begin beseechingly stropping my legs.

Even the young bloke working nearby who insists he doesn’t eat vegetables constantly reappears, always carrying his empty plate.

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