Although we didn't have an abundant kale crop like last year, we have enjoyed having some of this delicious superfood this spring. One of my new favorite ways to use kale is in a pasta dish I made up.
Kale Kielbasa Pasta
A loose recipe~
Ingredients:
1 box of pasta
8 oz smoked sausage
1/2 onion
1 bunch of kale
prepared pesto
1. Cook pasta. Drain and set aside.
2. Dice/cube sausage (I used 1/2 package of Hillshire Farms' smoked sausage).
3. Dice 1/2 onion (about 1/4-1/2 cup).
4. Saute sausage over medium heat until lightly browned. Add in onion and saute until soft.
5. Chop up one bunch of kale (as much as you want).
6. Add kale to sausage mixture and saute until softened (sometimes I cover the pan and let the steam do its magic).
7. Add cooked sausage and kale to pasta.
8. Stir in 1/2 cup prepared pesto (I make my own)--add more or less to taste. Stir all ingredients well.
Enjoy! This feeds our family of two adults and three boys (under the age of 6) with leftovers for me the next day.
The kale is sharing real estate with the cilantro (that is probably on its way out).
On my previous post I showed a picture of the raised bed side of our garden. We kept the larger half of the garden as a regular bed. Growing on this side from left to right: potatoes, green beans, okra (of course!!), cucumbers, corn and onions.
Ashley has been busy today expanding the goats' front pen. Waylon and Ziggy have been escaping lately (uh-oh....and eating MY lettuce!!) so we know they need more to eat. Ashley wants less to mow so this expansion is a win-win. The new and improved goat pen will cover the area below the grapevines and will come over to the road beside the garden.
Last weekend Ashley and I spent the weekend in Beaufort, SC, at a cousins' engagement party (that turned out to be a wedding). It was nice to have time to ourselves and talk. Being in Beaufort was a perfect location because there are so many houses of our style down there (it makes perfect sense that Moser Design Group, the architects who drew our plans, are based there). While we love our house, we also love the idea of building another house in the future. Now that we've been at Okra Hill for three years, we know a lot more about what we want and what works for us--plus, we loved building this house. Of course, there are NO plans to sell/move anytime soon, but it's fun to think about! For now, though, there's plenty of work to do!
