kale

You are currently browsing articles tagged kale.

Fifty Shades of Kale Giveaway

September 13, 2013 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 3 comments

Thanks to everyone who entered the Fifty Shades of Kale giveaway! The winner of the book is Amanda. Please email me with your contact info so I can have your book mailed.

 

Happy Friday! It is definitely my favorite day of the week, especially after a great week. I nailed all of my NYC Marathon workouts, ate well, and did my best at getting more sleep. Little by little I hope to get back into healthier living as the norm, rather than as an occasional afterthought.

Inspiring cook books are definitely going to be a part of my journey back to health. Earlier this summer, I received a copy of Fifty Shades of Kale by Drew Ramsey, M.D. and Jennifer Iserloh. You may remember how much I loved Jennifer Iserloh’s Secrets of a Skinny Chef ( Which reminds me, I NEED to make her Mac and Cheese with Shredded Chicken and Cauliflower), so I was excited to receive this new book. Add in the fact that I adore kale in just about anything; I dove into this book as soon as it arrived.

Fifty Shades of Kale

And then I barely cooked all summer long. However, I DID make the first recipe that stood out to me and looked super simple, Cream of Kale Soup. Obviously in the middle of summer, a creamy soup is the best choice, right? Well, this soup is incredible. I have made it a half dozen times, and I love it more and more each time.

Cream of Kale Soup

Just a handful of ingredients make this soup simple, kale makes it healthy, and a little touch of cream makes it velvety and slightly indulgent. It may seem a little naughty, but as the book says, kale’s vitamin K and beta-carotene are fat-soluble; the cream helps your body absorb these important nutrients!

In addition to the soup, I made an un-pictured Kale Pesto with Toasted Walnuts. I love kale in pesto; it’s such a simple way to pack in nutrition and flavor. This goes well with pasta but would also be amazing on a bruschetta or as a topping for fish.

I love that the book, which is named with a nod to Fifty Shades of Gray, is a bit cheeky in it’s descriptions while also being clear about the health benefits of each recipe. It makes for fun and entertaining reading, and I have spent quite a bit of time just reading through. With recipes like Lox Me Up and Throw Away the Key and Thai’d Up Shrimp the book definitely gave me a little chuckle. . . and made me hungry. I’m looking forward to making Linguine with Sausage and Kale for a hearty, cool-weather dish, and I am pretty curious about the kale cocktails like the Green Bloody Mary and the Kalejito.

Interested? Luckily, I have a copy of Fifty Shades of Kale to give away! All you have to do is to leave a comment on why you want to win. Maybe you love kale, are looking to get healthy, are interested in the fun writing style. . . just let me know!

I will choose a winner on Wednesday, September 18. Good luck!

Tags: cookbooks, giveaways, kale, recipes

Craving the Green

November 16, 2012 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 6 comments

The past week has left me feeling slightly better. I don’t know where this cold came from, but it really wants to hang out with me. The good news is that my appetite has slowly returned, and I have gone from wanting to eat nothing but bread, soup, and tortilla chips to having major cravings for all things green. I’ve munched on kale chips, roasted dozens of Brussels sprouts, and added fists full of cilantro to the last bowls of hot and sour soup. Tonight we’ll be dining at Van Shabu, and I am already planning on multiple orders of seaweed salad.

Bring on the green!

This week I also thoroughly enjoyed our first visit to The Regal Beagle in Brookline. We joined Lin and Jon Saturday night for a truly delicious dinner, where I was, unsurprisingly, all about the green (and cocktails, of course).

kale salad

The Regal Beagle stole my heart with a simple, crispy kale salad special. I wanted this dish times ten. I usually don’t order a veggie starter and entrée, but I couldn’t resist. I was a vegetarian for about 10 years in the days when vegetarian food at restaurants often meant an iceberg salad with some carrots and cucumbers and maybe a pasta primavera, so I continue to be impressed with restaurants that offer creative food for veggies.

acorn squash, lentils, greens, cider cream

Though the photo is horrific, this dish of grilled acorn squash, warm mixed grains, dried fruit, greens, and cider cream was absolutely amazing. There was so much flavor, from the soft and sweet squash, to the crunchy hazelnuts that topped the whole thing off.  And cider cream should just be on everything, I am convinced. This dish epitomizes fall/winter comfort with lots of healthy elements. It just felt good.

broccoli and Brussels sprouts

Also enjoyed this week was a broccoli pesto inspired by my review copy of Carla Hall’s Cooking with Love: Comfort Food that Hugs You. I plan on doing a complete review soon, but I love the writing style in the book, the fun stories, and most of all, the homey, tasty-looking recipes. The vibrant green pesto was a fun twist on a classic and something that can be made all winter.

Broccoli Pesto

And while my palate is definitely craving green still, I think it’s my heart and soul that might be craving it the most, which is handy, since we are off to 40 shades of green tomorrow. It’s been a year since our last visit to Ireland, and it’s time to go home. The excitement on my husband’s face this week just says it all. We get to see my in-laws, my husband’s sister and brother, and our nephew who was just a couple of months old the last time we saw him. I can’t wait.

The Burren

I have some guest posts coming up, and I will be checking in from time-to-time, especially before Thanksgiving with a recipe roundup.

What do you have planned for the holiday week? What have you been craving?

Tags: brussels sprouts, Food, green food, greens, Ireland, kale, squash

Greens and Beans Soup

October 4, 2012 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 7 comments

With the New York City Marathon officially one month away, I’m starting to hope that eating really well will be able to help make up for lack of training, even if ever so slightly. It works that way, right? Maybe if I believe it enough, it will be so.

We’ve been trying to eat less meat in general, and I’ve been trying to cook on the cheap, and since it feels like winter out, a simple soup came out of a few pantry ingredients along with some fresh additions.

onion

I started this soup by adding a chopped onion, a bunch of garlic, and a big bowl of beautiful kale to some olive oil in my treasured Le Creuset French oven which will soon be two years old. I love how kitchen memories sometimes spark life memories. Two years ago, I had quit my full time job, was really, really, sick, and was cooking up this delicious pork dish in my new cookware. It’s been quite the two years. . . and I having a really good memory is a blessing a curse.

Back to the soup!

kale

I let the kale cook down a little bit before adding a can of stewed tomatoes, using my vegetable scissors to chop the tomatoes into smaller pieces.

stewed tomatoes

I drained a can of white beans and added them in.

cannelini beans

Then I poured in enough veggie broth to cover everything.

vegetable stock

To season the soup, I added two heaping tablespoons of Pastene pesto. I am not generally a fan of jarred pesto; fresh pesto is SO good. But Pastene makes great products and I thought I would give this one a try. It’s quite good, especially on toast with olive oil, which we had alongside the soup. I am embracing my emerging carb monster!

Pastene pesto

I let the soup simmer for about 20 minutes, then turned the heat off until we were ready to eat. At that point all of the flavors had combined nicely, and the kale was perfectly soft but not mushy.

kale and white beans soup

The soup, along with pesto toast, made for a delicious and simple dinner. My favorite thing about a soup like this is how versatile it is. Add some chicken sausage, small pasta, rice, other veggies, really whatever you have on hand. Recipes like this make for great leftovers and take some of the thought out of lunches during the week.

Is it the weekend yet?

Tags: healthy, kale, recipe, soup, vegan, Vegetarian, white beans

« Older entries

new restaurant
WordPress SEO fine-tune by Meta SEO Pack from Poradnik Webmastera