bitter barn

You know what's funny?  Kale.  Health trends.  And kale.

It's still detox time after the gluttony and sloth that is Thanksgiving.

I've been seeing an inordinate amount of health food articles centered around the theme "Healthier than kale" (and yes, I click on every single one).  I even saw this surprising chart, ranking the "healthiest veggies."  Chinese cabbage and lettuces over kale?!?  And here I was thinking every bunch of leaves (that isn't spinach) is just edible water.  I'm going to need some cited lit, but I can now eat my Chinese cabbage with zeal.

But kale ain't so bad.  I enjoy it every so often.  I enjoy it more when Audrey brings home a large bag of it, fresh from her mama's garden.

First (and easiest) things first.  Kale chips.  Sour cream and onion kale chips.  Half vegan, half not.  They would've been all vegan had I not mysteriously lost my cashews.  Adapted from here.  So I just left out the cashews in the vegan half and because I still wanted to add a creamy element to the chips, I substituted yogurt into the non vegan half.  The yogurt drenched leaves turned out darker and chewier and not satisfactorily crispy... compounded with the fact that they were wilted to begin with... things could have been better.  But the good ones were really good.  It's like that sour grapes quote...kind of.

Second, I knew buying that 99 cent sack of Russets was a good idea (even though I really only like red roasted breakfast potatoes).  You never know when you'll be too tired to go shopping despite only have two cucumbers in the fridge (baked potatoes with curry paste from a jar anyone?)  Well, before my oh-so-sad dinner efforts, I made salt and vinegar kale mashed potato bites from here with soy instead of almond.  One third topped with red pepper flakes, one third sea salt, one third mozzarella (I can never spell this word correctly on the first try).  I did really well rationing out these bites until one night when I shamelessly ate a tupperware of about ten.

Third, there was some leftover kale I couldn't cram into the potato mixture without risking the little bites falling apart out of the muffin tin.  I also had half a grapefruit that was taking forever to eat for some reason (no, I know, it was just not very good).  And I had a couple celery hearts leftover from... snacking on celery with peanut butter.  The end result was couscous dressed with olive oil, grapefruit and lemon juice, tossed with kale, celery, grapefruit chunks, and toasted walnuts.  If you ever wanted a filling yet light dinner, here it is.

Kale really is the most Instagrammable green.
Happy Friday.  Happy Friday one week before finals.  Happy Friday two weeks before another trip back to my parents' couch.