Mixed Greens Saute'

It’s funny how your tastes change over time. A few years ago I had no idea what to do with greens. Now, I look for opportunities to incorporate them into the menu. Tonight is a great example. We had leftover red lentil curry to use up, so I made some rice. But I felt the need for green. So I made this recipe from Simply in Season.

1. Boil 1/2 C of water and add 8 sun-dried tomatoes. Stir and let stand 30 minutes. Drain (you can save the water for soup or stew).
2. Saute’ 2 C of onion (sliced vertically), 1 sweet pepper (I used green because that’s what I had on hand), and 4 cloves of minced garlic in 1 T of oil in a large frypan and add the tomatoes.
3. Add 5 C of dark greens, torn, bring to a boil and simmer until the greens are tender (about 15 minutes). I used the beautiful purple curly kale that I got at the last CSA pickup.
4. Garnish with Parmesan if desired; serve over polenta, rice, couscous, etc.

The verdict: As I was sauteing the kale, I was suddenly worried that DH would be sick of yet another kale recipe. But he and I really liked this; the onion and peppers were equal players in the dish, and the sweetness of the sun-dried tomatoes was a nice change of pace.

Update on my progress: I’ve almost finished with the autumn kale recipes. Today I realized that I leave for Uganda and Zambia in 12 days! I’m trying to schedule as many recipes into the next week and a half as possible to make up for the time that I’ll be gone. I’m having the most difficulty with desserts, because we just don’t eat them that often.

I commented to DH tonight, “it’s a good dinner if I do say so myself.” To which he responded, “we’ve had a lot of good dinners.” I’m tackling recipes that I probably wouldn’t have before, just because of the multiple steps involved. Yet I’m still enjoying the process. That’s not to say I don’t have evenings where I declare that it’s time for Thai take-out. But for the most part I like being in the kitchen. Another bonus: our grocery bills have gone way down, and so have our eating out tabs. We’ve been able to put some extra money towards bills. Not a bad side benefit to this little project.