Eating Greens

This week I have been trying out a new recipe almost every day from this great book that was recommended by IIN. 

Greens Glorious Greens! By Johnna Albi and CatherineWalthers is everything you ever wanted to know about greens and how to cook them. I for one am very surprised at how wonderful they actually are.

I was not a vegetable eater six years ago. I didn’t know how to cook anything that didn’t come in a box with directions. I grew up only enjoying canned green beans, corn, carrots and potatoes in every form. I also enjoyed the typical iceberg lettuce salad drenched in creamy dressing. I was offered other vegetables but vowed that I hated all of them. After joining a weight loss program six years ago, I realized that if I was going to be serious about following their plan I had to learn how to cook and how to enjoy vegetables. I wouldn’t be eating much if I didn’t start eating vegetables! At about the same time I read that in order to enjoy vegetables you have to train your palette to get used to the taste. This means you have to eat vegetables every day and the more often you eat the same ones the quicker you will like them. I decided to start with broccoli (a common, yet long hated vegetable for me), after some notable failed attempts a cooking in general and also at cooking broccoli, I began to figure out how to cook it in such a way that I could tolerate it. Over time I really started to enjoy it and now I love it!

I  have since broadened my horizons and now enjoy other “exotic” vegetables such as; onions, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, summer squash, peppers, romaine lettuce, green leaf lettuce, sprouts, garlic and many others.

Leafy Greens are an area of the vegetable kingdom that I have not explored much, mostly because I would see them in the store and think: “Wow, those look great and I know they are so good for me… but what the hell am I going to do with them?” As synchronicity would have it IIN recommends the Greens Glorious Greens book as a give-away to our clients. I am not about to recommend or give away anything I haven’t researched and tried myself so I decided to purchase this book on greens and then after reading it I was so excited I decided to design a cooking class around it. Seven day ago I started to try the recipes so that I could compile the ones I thought would be best for my cooking class.

I was surprised to find that after three days of eating greens, I was really enjoying them and looking forward to eating more every day. One afternoon I chose to be hungry for 3 hours and wait for greens instead of ordering at a pizza place :-) Feeling tired and overly hungry is usually my trigger for not cooking and then ordering out something greasy and heavy. But on this afternoon I wanted my next helping of leafy greens more than anything else!

Another great side effect is I have rediscovered my joy of cooking! The greens recipes in this book are easy and quick so I can make a different one each night and only spend 30 minutes doing it. This really gets my creative juices flowing and energizes me to want to do more for my own health and the health of my business.

My family is really enjoying the new recipes as well. I am so happy to have finally delved into this great new world of leafy greens, yummm!

Here are my thoughts on the greens I have tried this week: The Arugula was surprisingly yummy, the collards and Kale were mild greens that took on the flavor of what they were cooked in and were delicious. I found the broccoli rabe to be bitter and hard to enjoy in the recipe I chose. I put fresh shredded parmesan and baked chicken on mine and was able to mostly enjoy eating it. I’ll keep trying until I find the right recipe to make it tasty.

Here is a PDF of the recipes I have tried and enjoyed this week, I encourage you to broaden your horizons and try them too!

Alicia's Top Five Greens Recipes

Happy leafy green eating!