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Going Green.

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As much as I love Christmas, I really love it when it is over.

I am not a Grinch, I swear.  In fact, we had a great Christmas.  It was fun to see our families, give great gifts, celebrate with friends and one of my favorite things this season was our tree.

We had a beautiful tree this year.  

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Adam and I had such a great time decorating it together earlier this month.  It was fun digging through our boxes of ornaments, smiling as we placed different memories on the branches and admiring the beauty all the very different pieces make when put together.

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I loved relaxing next to it every evening.

I loved it’s scent.  

And, I absolutely loved taking it down yesterday.

That and all the other Christmas decor.

My sister-in-law and I were talking yesterday and we agreed: It’s fun and exciting to put everything up for Christmas, but it is great to put it all away.

Relegating everything and anything red, green and glittery to the basement makes my home much more bare and beige, but it’s welcome.  

Looking at my living room, where the tree stood just yesterday, I feel clean and refreshed.

Which is exactly how I like every element in my life to feel this time of year.

I don’t think it’s ironic that the start of a new year comes just a week after Christmas.  Christmastime is the height of over indulgence, opulence, excitement while New Years is a fresh “reboot” back to simplicity, calm, routine… and veggies.

Thanks to all the resolutionists, this time of year you tend to hear a lot about juicing and “green” drinks.  I am by no means a green drink aficionado, but I do like them when I just feel like I need to bring my body a little balance or “reboot” after traveling or, say, sugar and cream filled holidays…?

Green Drinks get their name from their predominate dark, leafy green ingredients, like kale.

However, they also get their bad reputation from their predominate dark leafing green ingredients, like kale.

And, if you don’t know any better it is easy to understand why… Liquefied kale? Liquefied, uber healthy, RAW, kale?

Despite their reputation, these drinks can be delicious. I promise.

When flavors like pineapple, ginger, apples, and lemon are added they are actually pretty good. But, I also know another little trick to make liquefied kale more tolerable: Freeze it.

This whole summer and far into the fall our garden’s kale did so well. It was so easy to grow and produced tons of leaves. We were even enjoying the kale in the garden after the first few frosts and a small November snow squall. Weather like this would completely damage many other garden greens but it made the kale even better.

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The natural sugars in kale’s cell structure acts like an anti-freeze preventing any damage and making the sweetness in it’s taste much more predominate.

The same thing can happen in your own freezer making green drinks more delicious and colder (a really good thing…). It also is a great way for storing kale from the farmer’s market or garden for use throughout the winter. Kale is good for about twelve months in a freezer.

Freezing kale is a cinch.

Wash the kale leaves thoroughly, being sure to remove any dirt or bugs.

Remove the very tough center stem of the kale. Easy ways to do this is to either fold the leaf down the center or lay it flat and run the blade of a knife along the stem.

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Chop the leaves to smaller pieces and dry them completely. I use a salad spinner and paper towels.

Then, in a single layer, place kale pieces on a cookie sheet and freeze for twenty four hours. Once completely frozen I put the kale into dated freezer bags for easier storage.

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Frozen kale is great to have to winter pastas, soups, and, of course, refreshing Green Drinks.

I like this Green Drink Recipe, but I like just about anything Giada… Except not her recent news about her divorce from Todd!

… Thank goodness we still have Ina and Jeffrey.

Happy New Year!

 

Summer in December

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This weekend I took on Operation Holiday Cookies.

The amount of butter in my kitchen was at an all time high and my mixer found a new temporary home on the counter top.

I baked a handful of treats that my mom always had for the Holidays like oatmeal candy canes, spritz cookies and almond crescents.

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While in the middle of my baking marathon Adam poked his head into the kitchen.

“I know you are making things that your mom used to make, but those are not cookies,” he told me.

Um, have you seen the amount of sugar I have gone through? These definitely are not crackers….? I was confused and really curious why he thought this way.

“They aren’t circles. Cookies are circles,” he stated.

For those of you who might be new… Hi! Thanks for reading. And just so you know, Adam is my husband… Not a toddler. I thought it would be best to clear that up after this preschool observation.

Okay then…!

Cookies are circles. Only.

-Weirdo.-

Hmm.

Well, that ruled out my plans for gingerbread men or frosted sugar cookies in the shape of trees and bells.

So, instead, to appease my husband’s wishes for round cookies, I made one of his (and my) summertime favorites: Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cookies.

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By the middle of the summer, we have zucchini’s covering every surface of the kitchen. We saute them, grill them, bake them. We have so many that I even make special trips to Indianapolis to pawn them off give them away to my friends.

But, even with all this, there are still tons of zucchini’s that come out of the garden everyday in the middle of the summer. To help make the most of our plentiful zucchini’s I like to freeze them either grated or sliced so that Adam and I can enjoy them throughout the winter months.

This cookie recipe calls for grated zucchini, either fresh or frozen. However, if frozen, be sure to squeeze out all the liquid.

Now, I know what you might be thinking… Zucchini in a cookie?!

It’s actually really good.

So good, that I think the flavors would make a really good ice cream too. Maybe I will play with that next…

The taste of the grated zucchini isn’t strong by any means and is complimented by the ground cinnamon. It’s also a fun way to sneak in vegetables in a picky kid’s diet.

Or husbands.

… And they are circles.

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Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cookies
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Ingredients
  1. 1 cup (2 Sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  2. 1 cup granulated sugar
  3. 1 cup brown sugar
  4. 2 eggs
  5. 2 teaspoons vanilla
  6. 2 cups all purpose flour
  7. 2 cups whole wheat flour
  8. 2 teaspoons baking soda
  9. 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  10. 1 teaspoon salt
  11. 2 cups grated zucchini (about one large zucchini or two medium sized zucchini's)
  12. 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Using a stand mixer, beat together butter, sugar, brown sugar, until combined and fluffy.
  3. Add eggs one at a time until combined and mix in vanilla.
  4. In a medium bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.
  5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and beat on low until they are just incorporated.
  6. Add the zucchini and chocolate chips and mix until they are just incorporated.
  7. Scoop the cookies onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.
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