Product Review: Moo Moo's Poblano Chick (Pea) Patties

As a rule of course I prefer fresh food but we always keep a few things in the freezer that we can cook up quickly in a pinch. After a long weekend in San Francisco we were home just late enough and the fridge was just empty enough that after feeding the kid, I resorted to perusing the freezer stash.

I'm a sucker for a well designed box, so I had unreasonably high hopes for this frozen entrée. It was a disappointment. I couldn't even bring myself to eat it. The corn side dish was quite tasty but the patties tasted remarkably like hummus made from a powdered mix. The taste is ok but the texture is disturbing to say the least.

I briefly considered frying them to see if it helped but I'm just too beat from our trip. My husband, who will eat just about anything will finish this off for lunch tomorrow and I'm going to throw together an egg sandwich before I head out to do some grocery shopping so I don't have to repeat this tomorrow night.

Edited to add: My husband wouldn't even eat them. That's not good.

Cook This: Crunchy Kale Chips.

I fought this one for long. Kale chips? Sounds awful delicious, right?  I'd had them before. My husband would buy them at the coop and eat them as if they were going out of style. I thought they were ok but certainly not worth $6 a bag.  Last weekend my sister came to visit and saw the piles of kale that we'd harvested (more about our garden project in another post) just sitting in the fridge. She talked me into trying kale chips. I have to admit, I'm glad she did. The recipe took a bit of tweaking but it's official: I'm a kale chip addict. I've eaten an entire head of kale a day for the last 3 days and it's not looking like I'm letting up any time soon. And by the way...my 4 year old loves them too!

1. Preheat your oven to 300. If you have a convection function it will speed things up a bit.
2. Take a head of kale, wash well, and tear into pieces about 3 x 3 inches.
3. Spin in a salad spinner or lay out on a dishtowel to dry thoroughly.
4. Once dry put in a plastic bag that you can use to shake up the kale with oil (I use the kind of bag that they provide at the supermarket for your vegetables), use about 1 TBSP+ of olive oil and 2-3 TBSP of flaked nutritional yeast. Shake shake shake.
5. Pour out onto baking sheets in a single layer and bake for 15-20 minutes. I've found that one head of kale will fill about 3 baking sheets. The kale may need to be tossed or flipped midway if it's still moist after about 10 minutes. It's done when the pieces are crisp and crunchy and not moist. Don't brown it though or it will get bitter.
6. After pulling out, sprinkle with salt to desired taste. 

 You could also add cayenne to the brewers yeast before you put on the kale, or use a different spice mix altogether. I'm going to try it this weekend without the brewers yeast and instead just use truffle salt. It may be a bit of an odd combination, I'm not sure. I'll let you know!

Health News: Trying to Lose Weight? Less Sleep = Less Success.

Picked this one up (directly) from the Endocrine Daily Briefing- a daily newsletter I get from the Endocrine Society.

The Los Angeles Times (10/4, Khan) "Booster Shots" blog reported, "For dieters who had a full night's worth" of sleep, "more than half of the weight they lost was fat." However, "when the researchers cut three hours off their bedtime, only a quarter of the weight the study participants lost was fat. That means the other 75% being burned was nonfat mass – such as protein, valuable building blocks of muscle and other body tissues," the blog entry explained.