In Your SELF Interest: "Can We Stop With the Kale Propaganda?"

(Jim Gaffigan quote)

Well folks, it's happened. We've joined the kale-lover-fad train. Okay, I wouldn't say that we are kale "lovers" but we bought some kale for the first time last week and are pretty dang happy with it.

I bought the kale to try out in this recipe that everyone kept raving about on facebook and pinterest. It was delicious. We'll definitely be eating it again. Of course after making the soup we had a bunch of kale leftover that we had to find a way to use up (I hate hate hate throwing away/wasting food). We made a few easy smoothies (frozen strawberries, a banana and apple juice) and threw some kale in and they were wonderful and Shae LOVED it which is an added plus since he's already turned into such a picky eater and won't eat anything green (so annoying!).

Last night I was trying to decide what to make for dinner and I wanted to make something that I could stick some more of the kale in. I decided on quiche. It's one of those meals that I love (like a pizza, frittata, pasta salad, fried rice) because you can just throw in whatever you have. It was really really good. I'm usually such a food critic and always find things wrong with dishes that I make. This one was perfect, so perfect that I want to notate it so that I can make it again:

Ingredients I used:

Pie crust

1/4 of an onion

1/2 red pepper

1/2 green pepper

a couple handfuls of kale

5 strips of bacon, cooked and chopped up

4 eggs

1 1/4 C milk (I used whole)

A cup or so of cheese

salt

pepper

basil

Chop onion, red pepper, green pepper and kale and then saute in pan with a little bit of oil. Saute until veggies are somewhat soft. While sauteing the veggies I baked my bacon (why have I not been baking bacon my entire life? So easy, little clean up, don't have to stand and watch it and flip it. So great).

Place pie crust in 9" pie pan. Add the veggies, then sprinkle bacon on top.

Mix the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and a few shakes of basil. Poor on top of veggies and bacon. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake 375 for 40 minutes.

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Something else we love. Chocolate chip cookies! It took me a long time and many batches of cookies to find my favorite recipe but it has been found and it is a keeper (recipe). I've been really good as of late to not bake as much since Darin and I both have some extra pounds to lose. Also, now that we have an eating, drinking, slurping, sucking machine running around our legs we want to try and keep sweets to a minimum. With that said, we had a rainy, yucky day last week and I just couldn't resist making cookies. Not only did I make cookies but I sat on the living room floor and ate them with Shae. We've been pretty strict with no-sweets for Shae up to this point (like I said, already picky! I don't think sweets will help him be any less picky). But I couldn't resist sharing with him so I did. This is what happened:

I think he liked it.

The kid hasn't figured out how to take a bite out of something, chew, swallow and THEN continue on with the next bite. Just too complicated of an eating principle for him right now. So instead, he stuffs. His hands don't move away from his mouth and he pushes whatever he is eating into his mouth little by little as he continues to find space. Hence the puffy cheeks full of cookie. Watching him eat a banana is something else. It just keeeeps going in.