Happy National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day

I wanted to start this blog with a witty and intelligent quote about eating and nutrition. Sadly, my Google search for "quotes about eating" led me down a rabbit hole of self-help, moral imperatives, and hedonism. I think we've all had enough of that. So I went old school and obvious: 

Moderation in all things.

 - Terence (Roman comic dramatist)

Leaving aside the irony of that phrase being coined by a Roman, that saying is the essence of this blog. I want to talk about balancing the things you need to eat with the things you want to eat.

I understand that many people do a great job of removing ALL the questionable foods from their lives. They forgo all processed items. They don't eat inflammatory foods like sugar and dairy. They sustain themselves on ginko leaves and the energy of the universe. But from my perspective you could get hit by a bus or struck by lightening at any time and who wants to die not knowing what the black and tan sundae at Fentons Creamery tastes like*?

 

 *It tastes like it looks. AWESOME. 

In addition to being a lover of home made caramel sauce, I'm an athlete. Which is part of how I get away with eating black and tan sundaes at 10:30pm on random Tuesday nights. I log about 10 hours a week (a combination of swimming, running, and cross training). As a result, food is both fuel, and a reward, for my hard work. This duality influences the choices I make when cooking and baking. I'm hoping to share my recipes, my experiences trying different types of nutrition while training, and lessons I've learned about the useful properties of different kinds of food.

Today is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day.  I thought about posting my recent triumph of a gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe. But I baked and then ate about a half dozen of them last night instead of going to swim practice and am feeling, understandably, a little repentant. So I'm going to talk about kale.

Try to curb that enthusiasm

I know that kale, in comparison to cookies, is not the way to win hearts and minds. But if you, like me, have a tendency to eat a half dozen cookies at a time, you should probably look into eating kale when you aren't going godzilla on baked goods. Remember the plan: moderation in all things.

I'm not going to bother extolling the virtues of kale, or try to convince you to eat bushels of it raw. I don't like raw kale. Full disclosure, I also don't like what's known as "dino kale". I like curly kale, and I like it well dressed in salads and cooked tender in soups. It's easy to find in almost all grocery stores these days but I like hitting the farmer's market because I enjoy the thrill of getting a lot of vegetables for very little money.

During my most recent trip to the market I walked away with kale, heirloom carrots, fennel and some really nice red onions. The below recipe is the soup I made on Sunday after realizing that work had sucked my upcoming work week into a vortex of doom. Every moment was committed and I wasn't going to get the opportunity to cook those vegetables separately into sexy dinner dishes. Soup is the solution to a workweek gone bad. You can put a lot of ingredients into soup. You can reheat it at work for lunch. You can freeze what you can't finish during the week. And then you have something to eat the following week when you are too tired to even bother buying groceries.

Kale Soup: 

Hardware: Large Pot, Spatula, Slotted Spoon

Ingredients:

3 cups curly kale (removed from the rib and chopped)
2 cups fennel fronds (chopped)(reserve the fennel bulb for addition to salads or whatever else you want to do with it)
1 red onion (minced fine)
2 cloves garlic (minced fine)
4-6 small heirloom carrots (cut on the diagonal)  
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1 lb loose sausage(turkey or chicken if you want, I used pork)
2 meyer lemons
Salt and Pepper to taste 

Instructions:

1. Sauté the sausage in the pot until browned and rendered. 
2. Remove the browned sausage from the pot, leaving drippings in pot, and placing the browned sausage on a plate covered in a paper towel. 
3. Add the minced onion, garlic, cut carrots, and sauté until the onion goes translucent. 
4. Add salt and pepper to taste.  
5. Add in the chicken stock and water. Bring to a boil.  
6. Reduce to a simmer, add the kale and fennel. 
7. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, skimming any gross stuff that rises to the top, until the kale is tender.  
8. Turn off the heat and juice the two lemons into the soup. Stir to mix, 
9. Makes 6 servings if you are me. Probably more servings for you.