I'm a ding dong!

That's right. I am a Grade-A, first-class ding dong. All of my life I have been running away from anything that could possibly be referred to as greens, because of this odd phobia I allowed myself to develop when my mother would try to get me to eat healthy things like spinach and oatmeal (by the way, thank you, Mom, for making the three of us eat good things, for refusing to turn the kitchen into a short-order restaurant, and instilling in us a sense of responsibility about our diets). I didn't like spinach when I was 14, and so avoided it like the plague, or at least a less-contagious cousin of the plague, until a couple of months ago (19 years later-you see where the ding-dong thing is coming in?). Now I eat it all the time. I had been denying myself a wonderful, plant-based source of iron, calcium, etc., etc., etc. Spinach, however, was where I stopped. It is easy to eat raw spinach tossed into my usual salad, but what about greens that really should be cooked?

I was still afraid things like kale, collard, beet greens, mustard greens. You know the stuff that looks like the part that gets thrown away or composted once the real vegetable has been removed. But when I decided to become a vegetarian I realized that I would need to add a greater variety of foods in order to get enough iron and calcium in my diet (more on calcium in a post further down the line), and that my more varied diet should probably include greens. But, the thought of eating a pile of soggy, smooshy, green stuff just make me want to go "Blech!" Vegetarian Times to the rescue!

While perusing their web site I saw a listing for a recipe called "Crispy Kale Leaves." Hmmmmm. I e-mailed it to myself, wrote it out in my little recipe notebook I keep (once again, thanks, Mom!), and promised myself I would try kale. As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up a bunch of kale at Whole Foods on Tuesday. And I mean bunch in every sense of the word. This bag of kale I had was enormous! Now it is slightly less enormous, since I ate roughly 1/3 of it last night.

I was nervous about the crispy kale leaves, I'm not going to lie. What if I hated it? Can you be a vegetarian and NOT eat kale? Would the experienced vegetarians think I was a sham? All of these thoughts ran through my head while the kale got, well, crispy in the oven last night. I followed the recipe precisely (except for the amount of oil they recommended, which I cut in half), the timer went off and I pulled my baking sheet from the oven. I sprinkled a little sea salt on the leaves (which had shrunk quite a bit), picked one up and popped it in my mouth. Oh my . . . It was crispy, it was green-y (and I mean that in a good way). It was like eating an ultra-healthy potato chip. I'm not ashamed to say I stood there and ate about five right off the baking sheet, though gobbling might be closer to what I was doing, before I realized my gnocchi needed attention (I was supposed to be watching for them to turn "pillowy." No joke.)

So there you have it. Fear had kept me from experience some truly amazing foods. Foods created by God for me to use. I am a ding dong.

P.S. Check out my new recipe links to the right! The list will grow as I try new things.