Friday, 5 July 2013

Adventures with Kale

Morning ladies!

So a week or so ago I chickened out of buying kale. But when I went to the grocery store last night, I sucked it up and told myself I would learn how to deal with kale. I hear too many awesome things about it to not at least try it once. So I bought a bundle.



Then came the preparation. The reason I'm not putting this in the recipes section is because I didn't really have a recipe... I just kind of winged it, with inspiration from this recipe : http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/sauteed-kale-recipe/index.html
With a lot of trial and error, and definitely more than 15 minutes later, Bobby Flay, I produced this:

The flash doesn't really do it justice...


And to be honest, it wasn't that bad. I chopped up a couple tomatoes, some ham and made a dressing with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, rosemary and cumin. Then tossed all of it with some gluten-free past and bam: pasta salad lunches for me n the bf. I was surprised to find out that the kale was actually the best and most flavourful part of it. 10/10 will eat kale again. Do you ladies have a preparation suggestion apart from sautéing it?



Now for the exercise portion of this post.

Tuesday  was a little bit of good and bad. I did an 8 km track but I had SUCH a hard time with it. Between eating a lot of red meat on the weekend and not exercising for three days my body was toast. It was a pretty scenic run though down Queenspark.

5.19 Miles or 8.33 km
Wednesday I had intended to do a long run but only ended up doing 4 km… I think my body was telling me no haha.

Thursday I think I had a really good day. Did a short fast run and did 3.5 km in 30 minutes, according to the treadmill (4+km according to my app), and then did a lengthy upper body workout. I felt pretty good about it considering I had no motivation whatsoever to work out.

Today I have leg destruction day planned after a 30 minute run.

Saturday and Sunday off!


It’s alarming how long my posts are getting. I’ll work on that.

Keep at it ladies!

xx Jess

4 comments:

  1. I want to know what you're doing for your upper body workout!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My upper body workout (all exercises are 3 sets of 12-15):
      (shoulder) shrug or lateral raise (shoulders)
      bench press (chest)
      Hammer Curl (biceps)
      Tricep Kickback (triceps... obvi)

      (all previous done with dumbbells)

      pull-down (back)
      back extension (lower back)
      side extension(?) (abs-ish)

      (all previous done on gym machines, which are at nautilus too)

      I've been meaning to add in some more abs and back stuff like planks, bicycle crunches, n leg raises but what I have already is basically an hour workout considering resting between sets and all that.

      Delete
  2. Kale is a wonderful thing! I usually put it in salads in a mixture with lettuce or spinach, since the taste/texture is a bit overpowering sometimes...I love it, the boyf not so much ;)

    In terms of sauteeing it, I usually do it like I would spinach - put it in a pan with a little bit of water and steam it. It goes faster if you put a lid on it.

    Dannie also makes these DELISH kale chips - tear it up in chunks (like you would for a salad, but maybe a bit larger) spray it with some pam or use one of those handy olive oil spray bottle things or just massage some oil into the bowl of cut kale with some seasoning (spicy = wonderful, just sayin) and put it in the oven at 350F for about 10mins (depending on your oven - mine is typically lava hot in seconds haha gotta love old and slightly unreliable appliances) or until crispy. Then enjoy!!

    When in doubt, throw it into a stirfry - I love throwing it in to my lentil stirfry near the end so it soaks up the juices and serve it on quinoa or brown rice

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. yeah I had a piece of it raw by itself - it's pretty strong tasting.

      I tried making kale chips! They turned out a lot better than expecting, but a little too spicy for me. :( I refuse to believe that I can't handle cayenne pepper, haha. I did mine 275F for 20-25 mins turning halfway. Maybe I'll try the different temp and time on them. I also put way too much oil on them the first time. They shrink SO much it's cray-cray.

      Thank you so much for your suggestions love. I will definitely try them out :)

      Delete