Day 14 of The Greener March Challenge has been a particularly green day – mostly thanks to this almost-past-its-prime kale that I’m trying to work through before I have to surrender it to the compost bucket.
NO, this glass is NOT my compost bucket, thankyouverymuch.
(I think those tulips are going to take a trip to the compost bucket sooner than my Best By March 12th baby kale is…)
Today’s green smoothie was sponsored by a bunch of baby kale that’s been hanging out in my fridge and was “Best By” – uhhh, yesterday.
Time to get a move on here with this thrice washed kale! I found some frozen peaches in the freezer and grabbed the container of peach kefir from the fridge – a peachy green smoothie was coming together in my mind.
And then it was coming together in my blender.
Some frozen sliced peaches, a banana, maybe a 1/2 c of peach kefir and plus a little milk too – and oh yeah, that better-yesterday baby kale.
The Greener March Challenge, Day 4!
Today’s green round up started with an avocado (and spinach) smoothie that was so awesome I was forced to share.
I eventually had to get out a bib and strap him into his seat because this “sharing” of my smoothie was getting out hand.
(We’re going to revisit this smoothie more closely tomorrow because it deserves its very own post.)
Some red leaf and green leaf lettuce was seen on top of a turkey burger in the afternoon, plus the last of the roasted Brussels sprouts from yesterday, topped with a little a garlic powder.
I had a bunch of kale in my fridge that was about to be past its prime, so I decided this was the perfect excuse to try out a new dinner side and (bonus!) make myself a snack at the same time.
With a small baby man on the prowl, I do most of my cooking during the morning and afternoon hours right now – i.e., nap time. I aim to stock the fridge with prepared food so that when dinner time rolls around, all we need to do is heat and eat.
If more presidential candidates had a campaign slogan like that one…
So! Kale.
10 years ago, if you’d have told me that one day I will LOVE eating this pile of greenery, I would have laughed in your face.
“No thanks”, my 23 year old self would have said.
Or better yet, “No way.”
In fact, 10 years ago if you showed me these green leafy stems, I wouldn’t have had the faintest idea what they were.
I don’t know, some kind of… lettuce? Yes, lettuce. That’s my final answer.
Guess what?!
OK, to be fair, unless you are a food nerd who reads a lot of foodie blogs, you might not be able to guess and/or be squealing the same way I did when the UPS man dropped this guy off last week.
On the right? Our old blender. The lean mean muscle machine on the left? My Our new VITAMIX!
Thanks to the fact that my birthday was last week (33! WOOT!) AND that Zak was finally bitten by the Vitamix bug AND a 20% Off coupon from Bed, Bath and Beyond that saved us a bundle, we bit the bullet and welcomed this majestic marvel into our appliance family a few short days ago.
It’s that time of year again. Here in Zone 6A the early spring like weather is upon us and has been hanging around for a while now. It’s time get some greens and spring vegetables in the ground.
First up, I did my part in expanding one of our small, city lot beds into an ever-so-slightly bigger bed.
“my part” = moving the boarder to the edge of the tilled soil that Zak dug up a couple weeks ago.
more garden = less grass to mow. Check it.
There are plenty of good reasons to eat a salad – but I know that if I don’t make salad eating easy, it’s less likely to happen.
I went a stretch of days without eating a salad (gasp!) and it took me a second to realize it was because I’d fallen behind on food prep.
I’m all caught up now though! A bunch of greens have been torn up and washed and are ready to go – now I’ve got a couple days worth of leafy handfuls to throw into large bowls and then doll up for quick and healthy meals.
Today at CSA pick up we were told, “We have TONS of Kale – don’t be shy!”
Well you’re in luck! I am not shy.
So ummm, yeah. After I saw just how much kale I actually brought home, I then saw two options –
Option A: move through a serious amount of kale in short order or
Option B: figure out how I was going to get the fridge door shut.
I went with Option A and officially added kale to tonight’s dinner menu. One of the things that’s so awesome about kale is the same thing that’s awesome about spinach – it reduces down to practically nothing upon cooking.
When I bought my bag of flax seed over the weekend, I snagged a bag of another now-infamous pseudo-grain/seed –>
oh, Quinoa – it’s been a while!
And with quinoa in my cupboard, suddenly I had quinoa stuffed peppers on the brain. That meant digging through the blog archives to remind myself how I made Quinoa Stuffed Red Peppers in the past.
Ummm, that was like my second post. Ever.
Nostalgia rules. Stuffed peppers make me drool.
More Mama’s Weeds
