Zesty & Spicy

If you like food, we'll get along *^_^*

Dino Kale & Blueberries Smoothie

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I only tasted Dino kale for the first time this year, in California, although I had kind of a “crush” on this adorable plant the second I saw a photo of it in one of the many seed nursery magazines coming to my old place.

From my past experience with the regular curled leaves version, growing kale is a lot of fun because it is easy to take care of and it will grow back years after years!   Living in colder climate? that’s all right, Kale love chilly nights and some of them will even be fully happy with a little bit of snow.  If you give it a big enough pot, you can easily grow it on your balcony, in the middle of the city.  It will add joy to your landscape and feed you deliciousness for a really big part of the year.

Dino kale, when cooked, will remain sort of crunchy and can be easily replace any other types of kale/lettuce/spinach in your favourite dishes.  Today, we’re featuring this incredible green in a morning smoothie to start your day the right way!

Bon matin!  *^_^*

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The Very Green Smoothie

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Because you haven’t be able to come up with a good enough reasons against eating spinach and kale for breakfast…

Today we are boosting your immune system, one green smoothie at the time *^_^*

Enjoy!

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Basil Lover Green Smoothie

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I love the subtile, yet noticeable taste of the basil leaves in this one…

For who isn’t super fan of the extremely sweet smoothies (like me), this mildly sweet, yet tangy drink might just be what you needed.

Good Morning!

Green Smoothie Life
 
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Recipe type: Smoothie
Cuisine: Healthy
Ingredients
  • 1 banana,
  • 1 green apple,
  • Juice of ½ lime,
  • 4 strawberries,
  • ¼ cup fresh basil,
  • 1 big curled kale leave,
  • ½ cup of almond/coconut milk
Instructions
  1. - Blend all the ingredients
  2. - Enjoy!

 

Easy & Humble Kale Soup

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“Eat your greens or you wont have any desert!”

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…probably a sentence everybody heard a few times during their childhood.  I don’t remember being over difficult to feed as a child, beside the terrifying grilled white cod filet with tomatoes my mom used to make (I still have nightmares about it, true story), so I was happy (most of the time) to eat my greens.

Kale was introduce to my diet much later in life.  I do not recall my mom or dad buying any but, back then, the trend was more to eat spinach and I clearly remember the creamed spinach side dish my mom used to make.  Let me tell you… THAT was insanely delicious and now that I think about it, I’ll have to ask her for the recipe next time I see her.

You could probably make this soup with baby spinach as well.  Why do I say baby and no regular spinach?  Only because I’m thinking the bitterness of the fully grown spinach might be a little bit too overpowering for the humble and light taste of this soup.  While you can still try, I’m thinking that by trying to cover the bitterness, you might feel the push to add more salt and we all know by now that salt is a big no no for our dear arteries.

You can rock this soup in about 1:30 maximum and that’s with the prep included.  For those busy and lazy week nights, a comforting soup made with real and a small amount of ingredients is always welcome.

Bon Appetit!

Easy & Humble Kale Soup
 
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Ingredients
  • 3 garlic cloves minced
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • ¾ to 1 cup of finely chopped (about 1 medium/big one)
  • 1½ cup of finely chopped carrot
  • 6 cup of chicken broth (no salt)
  • 4 cup of finely chopped kale leaves
  • ½ teaspoon of solar salt **
  • ¼ teaspoon of basil pepper ***
  • 1 tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce
  • ** Solar salt is something I discovered when I made my first batch of kimchi. It's basically aged sea salt and really has a nice and distinctive taste. You can obviously replace this salt by regular sea salt or table salt but I would much prefer sea salt just because of the yummy flavors.
  • *** Basil pepper is a spice blend of 3 types of peppercorns and basil leaves that I made last year and that will be on the blog this week but feel free to replace this with regular pepper. Like the salt measuring, feel free to tweak the quantity to your liking 🙂
Instructions
  1. - In a medium sauce pan, on the stove top at MEDIUM/HIGH heat. Start by gently grilling the freshly cut garlic and onion with the olive oil for 2-3 minutes.
  2. - Stir in the carrot, mix well and add the broth. Bring everything back to a gently broil, lower the heat and add the rest of the ingredients
  3. - Let simmer at low heat for 1 hour and serve!

Strawberries, Kale & Feta Salad

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I had such an AMAZING tapas night with my cousin yesterday.  Because of our night, I’m able to present you a much healthier recipe (compare to my last one) on this sunny Saturday that we invented after a day at the farmer’s market.  We walked around for hours looking at all the gorgeous flowers, organic fruit stands and biologic butcher shops at the Marché Jean-Talon that I even got a mini sunburn on my shoulders… ouch! ..but it was worth it.

After buying all the ingredients needed for the night, we went back to her place and had fun creating a few new recipes that I will be sharing in this blog in the upcoming weeks.  Stay tuned for all that deliciousness 😉 hehe

Since we are young, my cousin and I have always been cooking together.  I remember this one year, when my mom was still living in Paris and I lived one year at my grand parents house in the middle of the woods, she was often coming back home with me after school to cook and invent recipes.  I guess I can say that we have an incredible “kitchen chemistry” and we are both passionate with cooking because we always end up creating delicious meals and it’s definitely our way to socialize and have fun when we are together.

She’s been living in Montreal for a few years now but we are both extremely busy and I unfortunately don’t see her as often I would want to.  Before yesterday, our last “cook off” was a YEAR ago!!!  Pretty bad right?  I know we’re awful….

And it’s not even because we don’t like to spend time together (pretty much the opposite) but like I’ve said, I’m super busy with my business and she’s a full time student doing her master degree while working many hours a week.  I wish our schedule was more flexible so we could do this more often but at least the internet is there to keep in touch.  Last night we made the promise to see each other more often.. let’s hope we’re able to make it this time!  We always have so much fun and look at the delicious goodies we are preparing!!  Please keep your fingers crossed for me so we see each other more often. 😛

We really hope you will enjoy this simple, yet flavorful summer salad.  Are you planning a picnic or a BBQ with your friends and family?  This salad be the next hit at your next event, who knows 🙂  Try it out and let me know!

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