Maybe Kale Isn't So Bad

Until this year, I only had one memory of kale: I was at my aunts house and she made kale for dinner. I was excited because I love spinach and I figured they'd taste pretty much the same.
They did not. The kale was crunchy and weird and took forever to finish chewing. I was definitely okay with never having kale again.

This year, my mom made soup that had kale in it. I tried it and liked it, so I decided maybe I'd open my mind up to kale one more time - every food deserves a second chance, right?

So, since we had a crisper drawer of kale left in the fridge, I decided that now was the time. That same night, I was making orange chicken for my family, so I decided to go with a more Asian flavor. That, and I had no idea what else I should do with it.

Can you believe I disliked something so pretty?

Here's what I did:
1. Put some butter and garlic (preferably fresh, of course) in a pan to melt and simmer.
2. Chop up some onion and toss it in the pan. Cover and let them cook for a few minutes while you wash the kale. The goal is for the onions to be clear and pretty. (I like onions).
3. Wash and chop up the kale. I chopped the stems off because I was already nervous I wouldn't like the kale and didn't want to bother with stems, too. I think they'd taste fine, though, if you want to eat them.
4. Toss the kale in the pan, add a teaspoon or two of soy sauce, cover, and let simmer.
5. Every couple of minutes, check on the kale and stir it around some. It's ready whenever it's as steamed as you want it. I left some of mine a little crunchy and I thought it was delicious.
6. Eat!

Love,
Scout

Easy Snack

This is one of my favorite snacks. It's super easy and, of course, delicious.

Toast with cream cheese and strawberries. It's also great with

• cream cheese and cinnamon
• cream cheese and cucumber slices (to go with your tea, of course)
• cream cheese, peaches, and cinnamon

Love,
Scout

Weird Pizzas

I've mentioned before, I've decided to eat a vegetarian diet for this month. Because of this, I've spent extra time online looking for recipes. One of the things I got hung up on was making pizza. This one, in particular, caught my eye:

Source

Oh. Man. It still makes my mouth water to look at it. Mine looked nothing like that, though. I think the main difference was that I didn't add half as much cheese. The recipe calls for feta, provolone, and parmesan. I only used feta - we didn't even have provolone, which actually made me pretty sad. I mean, look at that pizza. The cheese is what makes it look so amazing.

Anyway, the sauce, found here, was really good. It included two surprising ingredients: carrotsh and cinnamon. I was making two different pizzas, so I left the cinnamon out of the sauce, which still ended up being delicious. When I made the apple pizza, I just sprinkled some cinnamon on the dough.

Last tip: Prebake your crust! I did not, because whatever random recipe I found online did not tell me to. In the end, the top of the dough was...doughy. It was definitely thoroughly cooked, but you couldn't tell because the top of the crust was mushy under the sauce. Trust me, you don't want to suffer through that.


Love,
Scout

Bean Burgers

Oh man, you guys.
I made black bean burgers today.
I know what you're thinking. Just give me a chance.

I found this recipe a while back and was interested in trying it - the list of ingredients definitely sounded appealing. However, it's still a bean burger, and I'd still have to cook beans (my family doesn't usually have canned beans because of the salt content). I hate cooking beans. It takes so. freaking. long.

Anyway, I recently decided that I would try to not eat meat, at least for this month. I've been reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and decided it might be healther. And besides, it can't hurt to eat more veggies. So, given my recent decision, I figured that now was the time to try the bean burgers.

They are so good.
They don't taste like meat, so don't be expecting that, but they are so delicious and rich in flavor.
I followed the recipe almost exactly - I added some extra veggies, because I chopped more than 1/4 c. and didn't know what else to do with them, and I didn't add the bread crumbs because we didn't have any. I also forgot to add the salt because my mind doesn't really work that way anymore - I've been training for almost a year to cook without salt.
You know what, though? It totally doesn't need it. The "burgers" are so flavorful already. Maybe salt is more important if you have bread crumbs.

Ingredients waiting to be mixed.

Okay. Now it's your turn. Don't think of it as a replacement burger, because it's not. Just think of it as a delicious sandwich that you need to try.
Click me for the recipe!


Love,
Scout

Almost Spinach Alfredo

This isn't exactly alfredo, but I don't know quite what it is. I guess we'll just call it spinach and chicken in a creamy white sauce. I'm really creative when it comes to names - can't you tell?

Ingredients:
Chicken
Noodles
Chicken broth
Half & Half or heavy cream - even milk would work
Garlic
Onions - fresh or dried
Cayenne pepper
Parmesan cheese
Spinach

1. Cut up some chicken into bite size pieces and cook in a pan with olive oil and pepper (or another kind of oil, if you'd prefer). Start cooking your pasta while you are cooking your chicken.
2. When chicken is done cooking, remove it from the pan.
3. Pour in 3 c. chicken broth, 1 c. half & half or heavy cream, whichever you have on hand. Stir.
4. Stir some cornstarch into a bit of cold water and add it to the broth/cream mixture as a thickener.
5. Toss in some seasonings - I used a smidgen of cayenne pepper, garlic, and dried minced onions (I was too lazy to cut up an onion). Add 1/4 Parmesan cheese, or more if you'd prefer. Stir.
6. Add spinach. We had frozen on hand, but of course fresh would be delicious. Depending on how much time you have, you might want to cook the spinach before adding it to the sauce.
7. Let sauce sit until spinach is cooked. Stir occasionally.
8. Add chicken to sauce, add some sauce to your noodles, and enjoy.


Love,
Scout

Pancakes

How to eat no more than three pancakes:

Pile them high with cream cheese icing and fresh fruit or fruit topping.

Cream cheese icing: mix cream cheese and powdered sugar to taste.

Love,
Scout

Pierogies.

Somehow or other this idea popped into my head last semester at college. I bought some pierogies for something simple to cook when I didn't want to eat in the cafeteria (which was actually all the time).
I was cooking in a dorm kitchen, which was really nice, but not well stocked. So, I was looking through the cabinets to see if there was anything I wanted to toss on my pierogies and onions (you can't have pierogies without onions), then I spotted the cinnamon.
Yes, I put cinnamon on my onions and pierogies.
Yes, it's a weird idea.
But it tasted good.
So here's how you do it.

1. Buy pierogies.

2. Sautee onions in butter and cinnamon.

3. While you're sauteeing the onions, place a pot of hot water on the stove to boil. Place frozen pierogies in the water and leave them there until they float to the top.

4. Remove onions from pan. Move pierogies from pot of water to frying pan and cook to brown. I tend to almost burn things, usually on purpose. You don't have to make them as dark as mine are. You have my permission.

Love,
Scout

PS. In case you didn't know, a pierogie is basically some pasta stuffed with mashed potatoes and cheese. I can never taste the cheese, though, so if you'd prefer not to have the cheese in it, don't worry. You can't tell it's there.