If you eat kale, do you remember a time when you didn’t eat kale?
I sure do. Kale was totally a “No, thank you” food as a former only-iceburg-lettuce-eating lady. But then I tried kale chips sometime in 2008 or 2009, and my love for kale began. I’m fairly sure that kale chips are the gateway drug to dark leafy greens. If kale seems dark and scary to you – try it in chip form. It’s hard to say “No Thanks” when it’s warm and crispy and delicious after being baked in a little oil and salt.
This was supposed to be post #9 of 44 into this series of Healthy Eating on a Budget. Cauliflower was on today’s agenda. Unfortuantely, it wasn’t until after I made, photographed, devoured and sat down to write this post about Red Pepper and Cauliflower Bisque that I realized cauliflower is NOT on the list of affordable healthy food items under a $1 that I’ve been working from.
Can you hear me groaning from here? Planning fail. Well guess what! I’m going make a case for cauliflower anyway, because that list of 44 healthy foods is not the boss of me. More importantly though, this soup was too delicious to not share.
We discovered kimchi about 3 years ago, thanks in part to The 4 Hour Body (a gimmicky book but some aspects were informative and entertaining nonetheless.) Kimchi is an Asian dish – it’s a spicy, sour fermented cabbage. Fermented foods like yogurt, sauerkraut, real pickles (and kimchi!) are an important part of your diet (have I convinced you read Deep Nutrition yet? Come on people!)
With that, store bought kimchi (or kim chee) seems to fall under one of two categories:
Category 1: Not that good.
Category 2: Not that cheap.
Last weekend I went out to dinner with some girlfriends, it was my first evening out on the town since Kaz was born and it was glorious.
There was wine.
There was dessert.
There were no children.
There was beet soup.
When perusing the menu for our first course, I couldn’t decide between the Beet and Ginger Soup with Scallions and the Beet Salad with arugula, feta, orange & hazelnut vinaigrette. Beet salad eventually won my favor in the battle of the beets – but fortunately a fellow beet loving friend ordered the soup and let me sample it.
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.
I’ve been waiting and waiting for eggplant to show up in the CSA share this summer so I could make Ratatouille.
Finally, the good word arrived in my inbox yesterday.
(more peaches. did ya catch that?)
Well what do you know – this week I’ll be picking up just about everything I need to make Ratatouille!
From inbox to counter top:
I think Peach and Corn Ratatouille is on the menu tomorrow.
I followed my own Ratatouille directions from last year’s premiere stewed veggie attempt – and good news! I didn’t steer me wrong.
More Mama’s Weeds
