What to do about Kale

Beginning with a little fitness fun:  If you are a runner, here is a great post on speed work at Runners Lounge. 

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Now a little Green:  For more info on the following, follow this link.

What would happen if the entire planet turned off its lights for one hour?

This Saturday, March 28, from 8:30 – 9:30pm, we’ll have a chance to find out.

EDF is proud to join tens of millions of people throughout the world for Earth Hour 2009. We’re turning out our lights for one hour to make a statement about the future of our planet.

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Now for the subject: Kale

There is a very large bag of kale in our refrigerator.  It is taking up way too much space and is just screaming to be used.   What to do with it.  After some thought, it seemed that onions and garlic needed to be included in the resulting dish. 

The dish also had to include some protein so it could not only serve as a side dish, but also hold its own as a main feature.  Add beans!  Soy protein could not be added because Ted wouldn’t eat it and there was just WAY too much green there for one person. 

Here is the recipe of the evening:

Sauteed Kale with Onion, Garlic and White Kidney Beans (serves 8 as a side dish and about 4 as a main).

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 Large onion, sliced but smaller e.g. slice then 1/2 the slice.
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 (16 oz) Bag Chopped Kale, rinsed and dried well
• 1 (14 oz) can Vegetable (or chicken) stock
• 1 (19 oz) can White Kidney Beans (Cannellini) Beans – drained and rinsed
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2  tsp pepper
• pinch red pepper flakes or more (optional)

Heat the oil in a large pan (large enough to hold all that kale while it cooks down) over medium high heat.  Add the onion and cook about 4 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook 1 minute.  Reduce heat to medium low and let cook for another 12 – 15 minutes.*We are cooking the onion until it is deep brown. This must be done at reduced heat and stirred frequently. The result is the extraction of the onion’s natural sugars.  If your heat is too high, you will burn those sugars which will result in a bitter taste.  Sometimes, depending on your patience, it might take up to 45 minutes to get those onions good and caramelized.

Add the kale. Increase heat back up to medium high. Stir it around then add the stock, salt, peppers.  Cook about 5 minutes and keep stirring as your kale cooks down.  Add the beans.  You want the kale nice and tender so you may have to cook approximately 5 minutes more.  Top with grated cheese if you like.

 

 I have a secret to tell (hee hee hee     ) and it’s about Ted…. (more laughing   )…

Ted helped me decorate birthday cookies last night!  It was too cute, although he wouldn’t describe it that way.  I was decorating some “Happy Birthday” cookies and he said “that looks like fun”.  I said “it is but you have to work fast because the glace’ icing hardens very quickly”.  So he picked up a brush and started painting cookies!                         What a Guy!!!!!

Not quite sure if Apple Crumbles customers will appreciate our talents, but hey…it’s the effort, right?

 

Everyone who paid me a visit tonight, have a super evening and good health!

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Gadgets

Some of us are gadget people and others could care less. This blogger is a gadget fanatic.  This is only a few of the items found around this house:  food dehydrator, flat bread maker, regular bread maker, food processor, 4 blenders, coffee press, coffee pots, coffee bean grinder, orange peeler, various style graters, meat thermometers, candy thermometers, funky styled pots and pans that are for all different cooking variations….the list continues.  

This morning, while putting in the miles on the tread mill, a commercial appeared advertising some type of egg cooker.  “Ah Ha! I have one of those!”  The egg cooker was dug out from way, way back in the cupboards.  It has been so long since it was used and was originally purchased by my mother.  It seems that egg cooker may have made several location moves with us from Massachusetts to Texas to New York (here we are talking over 30 years.  Jeesh! Hope I’m wrong!   ).

Getting on with it and to make this already long story shorter…. it worked!  Using our dear Shane as a test subject, 3 eggs were boiled and the result was beautiful!  So our future egg timing woes have ended.  Alas! An old gadget resurrected!

Oster Egg Cooker

Before all this egg-citement  😉 ……

I had a good leg workout, preceded by a 30 minute run, followed by a 3 + mile walk will Shane. 

Breakfast was 1/2 a grapefruit, a Tropical Fruit Spiru Tein Shake (still trying to figure out if I enjoy this brand or not), 1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats, 1 TBS Buckwheat Groats, 1 tsp raisins and a pinch of apple pie spice.

My day doesn’t look too challenging, how about yours? Hope it’s a good one!

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