A dinner of Ooops, It's lunch.

Dinner was to be this lovely steamed Kale over a mix of brown and wild rice and a side of the blended veggie soup.  But silly me, was rushing out the door for the girl child's Krav Maga lessons and hit the keep warm button instead of the brown rice button on my rice cooker.

The mistake was noticed before I arrived home, by my darling husband.  But as he worked late, he did not arrive home early enough to fix it in time for dinner to actually be prepared in a timely fashion.  So we ate at Taco Bell - yeah bean burritos, no cheese?  Then packed the kale and rice for lunches.

The kale was cooked in the steam basket above the rice in the rice cooker with some crushed garlic cloves and some sea salt.  A nice easy meal, provided you actually push the right button.

Kale, Potatoes and Carrots

 Back to using Salad plates, since I didn't mind this food touching each other.  We had a very simple meal, as usual.  Steamed purple kale, rosemary roasted potatoes and carrots and bread.

I did not make home made bread this time, because I was feeling rather lazy and I treated myself to a day at the Dallas Museum of Art.  It was a wheat bread from the co-op that has been in the freezer for awhile and really needed to be eaten anyway.  The girl child was happy to have it unfrozen for a sandwich for lunch to go with the leftover potatoes and carrots, which she packed in a thermos.

So the Kale was steamed in the steam basket of my rice cooker.  I included a photo of it just before it was steamed.  To be honest, it is prettier before cooking.  I just washed it, cut it up and put it in the basket and then cut up a half onion on top of that and a stalk of celery and a heaping spoonful of minced garlic and some sea salt and steamed until it looked wilted.

The potatoes and carrots were peeled and cut, as well as the other half of the onion and another stalk of celery and drizzled with olive oil and I added salt and pepper and tossed until nicely coated and put in a baking dish and then layered 4 long stems of fresh rosemary.   I really don't like the rosemary leaves in my food, but I like the flavor, which is why I layer the whole stems and then remove after cooking.

I didn't make as much of the potato and carrot mix as I had of the roasted carrots last week and I was concerned that there would not be enough  for everyone.  But the husband's office is now putting out fruit baskets in order to encourage folks to eat healthier, probably in hopes of reducing their insurance costs and the husband partook of the bounty just before coming home.  So we actually had leftovers.  The girl getting the potatoes and carrots for her lunch and the husband getting the last of the kale.  I of course will get the last of the chard.    I will never make so much chard at one time again, I don't care if it is filling all of my vegetable drawer. 

Steamed Greens and the Small Kitchen Appliance

Tonight was a simple meal of steamed greens, sauteed squash and brown rice.  What made this really easy is the rice and greens cooked together.  Originally it was supposed to be steamed Kale, but I had a small amount of spinach and a small amount of baby broccoli left and I just added it to the steam basket too.

I cooked my rice in my rice cooker, because if I actually try and cook rice on the stove, I always manage to ruin it.  I am just not that attentive of a cook to handle something like that and I hate boxed instant rice.  A brown rice has a nice nutty flavor that makes it something interesting to eat instead of just filler fluff that instant white rice is.

In the steam basket on top of the rice cooker I had all the green stuff I mentioned coarsely chopped as well as a quarter of an onion diced and a couple spoonfuls of minced garlic (I would have just used a couple whole cloves if I had them) and some sea salt.  On the right is a photo of what my steam basket of greens looked like before it steamed.

Once again I had to be away from the home to pick my daughter up from an activity, so I had the squash and onion sliced for the squash and asked my husband to saute it when he got in.  He used coconut oil for the saute.

I guess with me showing me using my rice cooker, I should probably confess something.  I really like kitchen appliances.  My rice cooker, my crock pots (yes I have 2) and my Vitamix are the coolest toys ever.  My husband is just as bad with his waffle iron and bread maker (although I make most of the bread in the oven and it never sees the bread maker).  I also have a Kitchaid mixer we got when we married nearly 14 years ago, that is still going strong and it has been put through the wringer.  Especially in those early days when I was still making breads that needed to be kneaded and we didn't have a bread maker.
Not all of our appliance purchases were a great idea.  I hate the George Foreman Grill with the multiple plates.  We were killing blenders about every 9-12 months until we finally broke down and got a Vitamix.  Okay to be fair, we inherited our first Vitamix and managed to kill it in a year's time, but it was a 30 year old Vitamix.  And sometimes the old fashioned cooking tools are the best.  Our favorite skillet is an iron skillet that belonged to my great grandmother.