My favorite way to cook Greens.

Part of my (forever in progress) Bachelor's degree focuses on nutrition, specifically nutrition education. With my food knowledge and nutrition knowledge combined, I want to show people that healthy food can taste awesome. Okay, yes, half of my posts are desserts, and yes, about half of those aren't even "healthified" desserts, but that doesn't mean healthy food can't be awesome too. I also strongly believe that if you are eating lots of awesome healthy foods, you for sure deserve to indulge in the sweet side of things sometimes too.

I digress. Vegetables can taste awesome. I don't like very many kinds of vegetables raw. I don't know a lot of people who like very many kinds of vegetables raw. So, we cook them. Far too often we think of vegetables as an afterthought. Boil some frozen broccoli.  Look! We have our vegetable for dinner. That isn't very tasty, and you deserve better. I think a lot of people don't like vegetables because we don't take time to prepare them nicely. You don't just boil a chicken breast and serve it for dinner, do you? Most people wouldn't like chicken very much if that was all we did to it, so let's cook our veggies better.

Here is a good place to start: Greens, as in dark leafy. Some of these veggies make some pretty tasty salads, but if you are looking to cook them, I've got a perfect way.

Ingredients:
8 cups dark leafy greens- torn into about 2 inch pieces
2 TBS olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1 TBS lemon juice
Parmesan cheese (fresh is best, canned will work)

                              
My dad has an awesome garden this year, so I had some beet greens lying around. I also had about half a bunch of kale(the other half was used in soup, yay soup!). I decided to be a rebel and cook them together.

When I tore up all the leaves, saved the beets, and discarded the stems, I ended up with about 8 cups of greens.
                               
Place your greens in a bowl, drizzle the olive oil over the greens and toss to coat. They will be a little bit shiny, like in that picture up there. They already have their olive oil coat on in that picture.

Next you are going to want to sprinkle on the salt and pepper.

                                

Look! Action shots! Fake action shots because I wasn't really sprinkling at the time, but action shots no less. I use a bit less than half a teaspoon of each salt and pepper on my greens. Toss them around again-to distribute the salt and pepper.

Place your greens on a baking sheet (no need to grease), and slid them into a 300 degree oven.

                                   
I had to wash my baking sheet first. It had cookie remnants on it. Juliet and I were learning about letter O today. Oatmeal starts with O, so we Obviously had to make oatmeal cookies. If you have to wash yours too, make sure it is nice and dry before you stick your greens on there.

Bake your greens for 20 minutes, stir them around a bit, and then bake for another 15-20 minutes, until all the edges are nice and crispy.
                                        
                                   
Once your greens are nice and crisp. Take them out of the oven. While they are still warm, sprinkle on your lemon juice and Parmesan cheese (however much looks good to you).

The resulting greens are seriously awesome and flavorful. A little bit salty, a bit earthy, all delicious.  I have used this method with Kale, Beets Greens, and Mustard Greens. It should work on other greens (like collard), but if you try it, and it fails, don't blame me.

The quicker you serve this dish, the better it will be, since if it sits you lose some of your crispiness.
                                           
Since Daniel is still at work, and Juliet is on hour 4 of her nap, I might just have to eat it all myself. (They look a lot darker, because I moved into a different room and the lighting was different.)

If you want just the recipe, without all my ramblings, I created this nice little card for you!
                 

Some things never change...and some things change a lot.

I haven't posted a recipe in about 21 months. I admit it: I abandoned this blog. I've thought about coming back. I've thought about never coming back. I've settled on the former. I don't really know if I could explain why; I don't really know if a psychologist could explain why, but I'm here and I even have a recipe to post later.

So, 21 months is a long time- Let's talk about some things that have changed since my last post.

• I don't buy margarine or shortening anymore. Let's face it, butter tastes better anyway, and it is actually healthier for you (I'm not saying you should eat a crap ton of butter. I'm just saying it is better than eating a crap ton of shortening). I also use coconut oil, olive oil, vegetable oil, etc. for my fats, as well as substituting out for fats when appropriate.
  
  
• I've had a kitchen upgrade! Look at that cute red wall (or well, the sliver of my cute red wall)! We bought a (town)home, so I got to paint my kitchen, yay! My appliances are much better now too, but I still don't have a gas stove. Someday, I will have a gas stove.
  
  
• My skills have gotten much more refined. I admit it, I'm a better cook than I was 21 months ago. I have a larger skill set and I do things better than I did then. I practice, a lot, and I take on more challenging recipes. It's really pretty awesome. I hope to continue to get better and better.
• I've learned to laugh at my failures. About a year ago, I made this amazing chocolate cake for a family party. It was four layers of cake (four!), filled with one layer of ganache, and two layers of beautiful (hand whipped) mousse. It was also frosted with a rich chocolate butter-cream, and it looked amazing! On the way to my in-laws house, my mousse layers started to melt, and the cake was sliding apart. I cried the entire 40 minute drive, and for about 20 minutes after we arrived. It tasted amazing, and once it cooled enough I was able to stack it back on properly, but I was still so devastated.
  
  Fast forward to last week. I was making a cake for my mom's birthday. Chocolate, because that is her favorite. My plan was to make a semi-sweet cake, fill it with dark chocolate ganache, top it with some milk chocolate butter-cream and finish it off with a bit more (thinner) ganache. My frosting turned out well, my ganache turned out great, and my cakes stuck not only to the pan, but also to the cooling rack. As I was trying to assemble my crumble cake, a large chunk flew off the cooling rack and into the trash can. My sister rushed to find the piece and help me salvage the cake.When she found out part of it was in the trash can, I just started laughing. I laughed the entire time I was putting the mess together. My cake was a huge mess, but it was okay, it was hilarious even. Good bakers have bad days, and I've learned that is okay. We ended up throwing some lion and dinosaur sprinkles on top and calling it good. Sprinkles make everything better.
• I have got some cool new kitchen gadgets! A knifty knife rack (see what I did there?), a food processor,  and adorable chalk board label canisters. I'm sure I have gotten other things too, but I don't have pictures of them.
• I won a cupcake contest! It was a small town contest, and I wasn't competing against that many other people, but hey, I won. I feel a bit more legit saying that I am a good cook when I have won a contest. Though this doesn't mean I support the cupcake craze (which happily seems to be dying down). If you are going to have a bakery, sell me more than cupcakes, the end.
  
• This:
  
  
  
  Has grown into this:
  
  
  I honestly don't know when this happened. She can actually do somethings in the kitchen that resemble help now.  She is a really awesome kid and she loves "being a maker in the kitchen" with mommy.
  
  The blog, overall, will probably be getting a few changes in the near future as well. I've been gone 21 months- it's probably time for an update. Some things will stay the same. The food will definitely still be tasty.

Sweet Honey Rolls

Some people *coughprobablyonlymysiblingscough* may have noticed that I haven't posted a recipe for awhile. School started, I'm busy, lame excuse, lame excuse, lame excuse, but I'm back now. Besides this recipe, there are two others just today, yay! There should be a few more coming soon too, but I don't make any guarantees. For now, let's just focus on this recipe, alright?

I like making breads. They are my favorite things to make. There is no better feeling than pulling out a perfect loaf or a tray of rolls from the oven; I absolutely love it. I have been wanting to do a sweet dessert roll for awhile, but something not cinnamon roll-esque. These sweet honey rolls were the creation I came up with, and I am quite pleased with the results.

Ingredients:

For the rolls:
1/2 cup warm water
2 tsp yeast
1 TBS sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup warm milk
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup honey
3 cups flour (I use 2 cups all-purpose, and 1 cup whole wheat, mix and match as you see fit.)
1 tsp salt

For the glaze:
1/8 cup honey
1 cup powdered sugar
1-4 tsp milk

We are going to start these rolls like all the other breads we have made in the past. Mix the water, yeast, and sugar together and wait for it get nice and foamy. Oh, yeah, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

After the mixture gets nice and foamy, add the rest of wet ingredients into it. The wet ingredients would be the egg, milk, oil, and honey. I have used mango honey, and tangerine honey, but normal regular clover honey will work just fine.

Wet Ingredients.

Set the wet ingredients aside, and mix the dry ingredients together. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix until a soft dough forms. Knead the dough until it is nice and smooth. Now comes the waiting game. Put your dough aside and let it rise until double, it will take about an hour. Once your dough has raised, dump it out onto a floured surface.

Ready to Roll.

Roll the dough out into a large circle.

Rolled Out.

Cut the dough into strips, try the strips into cut little knots and place the rolls on a greased cookie sheet.

Ready to Bake.

Place the rolls in your preheated oven, and bake for 15-20 minutes.

While the rolls are baking, it's high time to make the glaze for these beauties. Mix the honey, and powdered sugar together with a whisk.

Honey and Powdered Sugar

Add enough milk to the mixture to form a thin glaze.

Glaze.

Once you take the rolls out of the oven,

Baked Rolls.

Spoon the glaze over the rolls, while they are still warm.

Glazing the rolls.

Ready to Eat.

Serve the rolls while still warm, and dip them in any extra glaze, if you wish.

These are intended as a sweet dessert roll, but I totally wouldn't knock on you having them for breakfast.