A little bit of green, leafy delish!

A few weeks ago I picked up The Kind Diet from the library.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not making the switch to vegan...as of now.  Heck, I'm not even vegetarian, but I definitely find myself continuing to move more to that end of the spectrum, if ya know what I mean.  While I still love a good burger or buffalo chicken wrap, I'm finding myself more and more intrigued at how I can incorporate a (mainly) plant based diet, rich with whole grains and beans/legumes into our family lifestyle.

At the beginning of the new year I made a goal of trying to eat organic whenever possible, beef up the amount of veggies we were eating, and to try and increase the number of times each week when we had fish/seafood or a meatless meal.  This coincided with the fact that I felt in a rut with my typical meal rota and also wanted to get a better handle on menu prep a week at a time--since going back to teaching was fast approaching!

Quite honestly, some weeks are easier than others.  I'm slowly beginning to develop a wider range of menu options, and while some are definitely winners, others are MAJOR misses!  Thankfully J is a good sport and willing to go along with my ideas...most of the time!  It also is a big help that the Noodle digs a variety of types of beans, usually can be bribed talked into trying something new and is relatively willing to eat veggies.

All that being said, I tried a recipe from The Kind Diet and all 3 of us gobbled it up:  Sicilian Collards with raisins and pinenuts.  Instead of the greens, I used kale and it tasted great...next time I'm going to try it with the collards.

Here's the recipe...give it a try!  You won't be disappointed :)

Ingredients:
a bunch of greens (collards, kale, swiss chard?, spinach?)
EVOO
minced garlic
pinenuts
raisins
balsamic vinegar
Prep time:  maybe 10 minutes

Saute garlic in EVOO

Wash and pat dry kale (collards) and rip leaves away from stem.  Often the stem can be tough, but extra roughage is never a bad thing...

 Saute the greens in the garlic and EVOO until nice and bright green (only a minute or 2).

Throw in the pinenuts and raisins and cook for about 2 more minutes.  Splash on some balsamic vinegar and give one or two more stirs.  Quite honestly, I think that the recipe said to do something fancy with the pinenuts like roast them or something...but I just threw them in.  Let's be real.  Tummies are hungry.

We had ours tonight with some warm, homemade whole wheat bread (from our CSA flour) and some mahi mahi that was sprinkled with some seasonings and then grilled.  Some major delish!!

The only thing the Noodle wasn't crazy about were the pinenuts, but at least she tried and tasted one before refusing to eat them.  I told her to just eat around them and she was a happy camper.

If you give the recipe a try, I'd love to hear what you think of it.  You just may look at greens in a whole new way!