2 new recipies...

So I've been wanting to improve a few aspects of my cooking with the motivations for each below...

1. learn to use some new ingredients / branch out
           a. keep things interesting
           b. more complete proteins
           c. explore other healthy foods
2. Cook using more and new kinds of greens (other than spinach, broccoli and Brussel sprouts) 
           a. we obviously use a lot of veggies, but actually not that many greens...
3. Cook more from the bulk isle as Edge of the Woods, less from canned/prepared ingredients
           a. cheaper
           b. less processed
           c. less sodium
           d. less packaging waste
4. Cook with less sodium
           a. I have high blood pressure that is just on the edge of needing medication. Clearly fitness, weight and macro diet aren't the issue. The high BP is there even in times when I'm not stressed, ie now. The thing I have not addressed (other than by not eating out much) is Na. And it turns out that there's more Na in EVERYTHING than I expected... even milk and veggies, let alone packaged and canned goods...  but I'm going to do a whole set of blog posts about that.


With this in mind, I picked some new ingredients and decided to figure out what to do with them:

• Kale (from farmer's market at Edgewood Park)
• Lentils (from bulk at Edge of the Woods)
• Eggplant (from farmer's market at Edgewood Park)

So obviously I've eaten all of these many, many times. They aren't exotic, but I've never bought them myself and prepared them from scratch.


Dish #1: Ratatouille with Kale over Quinoa



Dish #2: Sweet Potatoes, Lentil and Kale Pra Ram over Quinoa