Ever since the start of 2011, we’ve been eating (mostly) wheat-free at our house. The girls and I still eat sandwiches made with regular bread, and we still have macaroni and cheese for lunch on Saturdays, and the girls eat cereals with wheat in them, but most of the foods that I cook are wheat-free.
Recently, I’ve been trying to add kale to our diet. The February edition of Real Simple magazine had an article about 30 Superfoods to add to your diet, and the Editor’s Note at the beginning of the magazine talked about the author’s experience with all the kale she received as part of her weekly allotment from her local CSA (community-supported agriculture). The author said she was a bit lost at first as to how to use up that kale weekly, but she made a commitment to discovering ways to eat kale.
After reading that, I thought to myself, “If she could do it, why can’t I give kale a try?”
So, I did. I bought a small bunch of kale at my local Farmer’s Market about two weeks ago, and ever since then I had to come up with new ways to eat kale. Because you can’t just eat kale; it has to go into something in some way. Plus, I’m hesitant to try new foods, so I was wondering if I’d have the gumption to go through with it at all.
First, I put kale into chili, and it turned out great! My husband noticed that there were green things in his chili, but didn’t say anything. However, the girls never even seemed to notice that there were green things in their chili; amazingly, Lyd told me that it was my best batch of chili ever. JJ said that while he noticed the green things, he did not notice a difference in taste. Happily, neither did I. Score one for kale!
Next, I put kale into tuna casserole. I chopped it up and sauteed it first, and in it went. Again, no one said a thing, and my kids gobbled it down. Again, my husband noticed the strange green things in his casserole (as did I) but neither of us noticed a difference in taste. Score two for kale!
Finally, I tried adding kale to my mother’s tried and true chicken and rice recipe. I sauteed it first (along with a little garlic, which is NOT in my mother’s recipe, but I thought I’d give it a try), and added it in. I also substituted brown basmati rice rather than the standard white rice which my mom always used in that recipe. Well, this dish did not turn out as well as the others. It just didn’t taste right. Although, I am pretty sure it was NOT the kale’s fault; I’m pretty sure the brown basmati rice was to blame.
The last of the kale got chopped up and added to the homemade chicken soup I made. It went down very easy that way, as I knew it would. And, for the record, since I had bought a whole chicken, I added the chicken liver to my chicken soup. When you cut it up into teeny tiny pieces, no one notices it and it goes down real easy. In fact, amazingly, again, Lyd said it was my best chicken soup ever. Wow!
Now, just to mix things up and because I’m getting wild here, I picked up a bunch of swiss chard from the Farmer’s Market. I’m trying to find ways to sneak that into foods as well. I tried that in tuna casserole over the weekend, and it worked great. Yesterday, I added finely chopped chard to my honey pork and carrots, and that also turned out great. So, maybe I’ll get the hang of it yet!
Last week, for the first time ever, I made my husband a loaf of wheat-free bread in my bread machine. It didn’t turn out like “regular” bread does, but my husband tried it, and he said it was the best wheat-free bread he’d ever tasted. Not that it tasted just like “regular” bread, but he said that for wheat-free bread, it was pretty good. He had a number of slices over two days, and the rest he turned into french toast. I’ll have to try that for him again sometime.
Not Finished Yet 