Kale Omelette

                                                                    

I used some of that beautiful Italian Heirloom Kale from my garden to make a beautiful omelette. I included tomatoes, as my husband loves them in omelettes, onions, a bit of left over yellow summer squash. a few spoons of left over mashed potatoes (Yukon Gold and water), and a huge mushroom. I chopped everything up and sauteed in a bit of hot water as my husband (who had a heart attack at age 49) continues on a very low fat diet, but for the fats naturally found in veggies.

Per eggs, I took the yolks of half of the eggs and saved them for another recipe, as we try not to eat too many egg yolks, the other eggs were left whole. I beat the eggs but did not add any water to them as my veggies are cooked but with so many there may be some lingering wetness.

My mother would have beaten the egg whites, but I only do that for "special" occasions!

This is a big omelett and it should feed 4, but since we are only 2, it can also be for lunch or dinner
with an arugula salad from my garden.

First, I cooked all the veggies until tender, then gently beat the egg white/egg yolk mixture and slowly, under low heat, cook the omelette. In fact, it is slowly cooking on the lowest heat as I
write this.

Omelettes are the most tender if cooked on low heat, but we have to be careful of salmonella, etc, so I cook it until the top is more than set. I do not turn this type of omelette over until I plate it as this omelette is heavy on vegetables.

                                                                     

Here is the omelette plated out, I turn it upside down on the plate to show off the veggies!

I hate to admit it, but we ate the entire omelette! Guess it will be vegetarian spaghetti  tonight! Luckily, we both love spaghetti -- I like the brands from Italy best, my middle sister Cecile
does too!

Italian Heirloom and Red Kale

The first photo above shows my Italian Heirloom kale which is doing great this summer in my garden and the photo below it shows the border of my garden with Red Kale. The Kale is doing great this summer as we have more rain than usual and I am not good about watering my garden and I rarely water my lawn.

I did not plant the beautiful flowering kale this year as I like to rotate my kale crops since I can not help but plant some in areas where I planted members of this family the year before.

We pick leaves from the bottom; the oldest leaves and new ones continue to grow and develop from the top. I put chopped kale into almost everything and we use a leaf of kale instead of a leaf of lettuce in sandwiches.

We cook it like spinach, chop it up into sauces, but our very favorite might be "kale-banana-almond milk-based smoothies."

Deer eating up your garden, flowers and plants?

It was a cold 6 months of winter and now spring is here and we are starting our gardens for the yummy vegetables or will we have some? Most probably many of us are "sharing" our flowers and vegetable plants with the local deer herds. Yes, I mean "herds" of deer.

One came to me while I was mowing my lawn, after he ate the neighbors geraniums -- yes, they were sprayed with deer repellant, but we have no sure solutions in my area and we are using much Irish Spring soap and physical barriers like herbs, and objects to try to alter the path of the deer. They love my day lilies and I had to hide my tomato plant among leeks, basil, stakes of soap.

Luckily, the deer do not eat my Italian Heirloom Kale and that is most of my garden this year as they cleaned out my tomato plants last year, right down to the ground!

Here are some photos of the soap inside cut up onion bags and pantyhose! Can you find the lonely tomato plant surrounded by leeks, basil, and small bags of Irish Spring soap?

 

The deer is headed for my day lily garden!

 

You can see my kale plants, luckily the deer leave the kale for us to eat and we love it on sandwiches instead of lettuce, in smoothies with banana and almond milk, and sauteed for a few minutes. 

Kale is also great added to any soup in the fall. Kale also freezes well. 

Watermelon Cake?

I saw a recipe where they cut the rind completely off a large piece of watermelon the size of a cake and frost it with homemade whipping cream and berries!

No bake is a wonderful idea -- the cake is an alternative to my frosted angel food cake as there is no cake in the watermelon cake, the inside is pure watermelon.

It looks wonderful, but I think I would prefer a nonfat frosting, like Betty Crocker's Fluffy Frosting, which is composed of primarily egg white and sugar. It is a light and fluffy frosting.

The white frosting is decorated with blueberries and raspberries for a red, white, and blue, July 4th design!

Details on how to cut at http://www.isavea2z.com/no-bake-watermelon-cake-recipe/

I wonder how this cake would be half watermelon on the bottom and half angel food, for a really high cake!

Pineapple, Lemon, Raspberry, Surprise Cake

I received a surprise from my beautiful niece Julie who lives in Texas. She sent me a thank you bouquet of flowers. Since it remains cold in Cleveland, Ohio, and we might have a few lingering snow flurries, the flowers are a most welcome sign of "life" after winter.

The flowers look gorgeous on the table. I doubt if Julie knew that we had our 46th wedding anniversary a week ago, but we did not have a cake. The colors of the flowers in this beautiful bouquet are the inspiration for this pineapple, lemon, raspberry, surprise angel food cake!

But the question is why did I add the word "surprise" in the name of this Pineapple, Lemon, Raspberry "Surprise" cake?

One can see the raspberries on the outside of the cake and if one cuts into the cake, there is a layer of fluffy frosting with a few raspberries as a "surprise." I had cut into, but not through the unfrosted, cooled cake and placed some frosting and a raspberry surprise in what I determined would be a generous piece of angel food cake. I did not cut completely through the cake, I went around the outside of the cake with a knife, without cutting the cake completely into two layers as this particular angel food cake is very delicate and crumbly.

The cake was made with a box of angel food cake mix, but crushed pineapple was added in lieu of the 1 1/4 cups water indicated in the directions for preparing the cake. In addition, because I love the aroma of lemon, I added 3 tablespoons of lemon juice to the cake and to the frosting.

The frosting is Betty Crocker Fluffy Frosting, which contains no fat. Since I had a large can of crushed pineapple, I had pineapple left from making the cake batter, which only required the 1 1/4 cups.

The Betty Crocker Fluffy Frosting mix is to be mixed with 1/2 cup boiling water. Instead of water I used 3 tablespoons of lemon juice plus some of the remaining crushed pineapple to bring the liquid portion to 1/2 cup and heated it to boiling in the microwave.

I beat the frosting for the required 30 seconds on low and 5-7 minutes on high, and stiff peaks formed at about 6 minutes. It was amazing that the frosting turned from a bit of yellow from the pineapple to almost a pure white.

I frosted the cake quickly as want this cake to look like a fresh, homemade cake, it need not be perfect and the frosting is delicious!

My husband suggested I turn this into a pina colada angel food cake by adding coconut to the frosted cake, but I may try this another time!

Wish I could share this wonderful and very easy-to-make, tasty angel food cake with my Texas family!
I wish I could drop it off at their door!

Please note: any crushed fruit plus liquid can be added to the batter of an angel food cake in lieu of the water indicated in the directions. When my nephew said his favorite cake was "strawberry," I substituted fresh strawberry puree in the cake. I had made the strawberry puree from fresh berries in my blender and the baked cake retained a light pink color.

If my niece has room in her new garden, I can imagine planting a real lemon tree in the backyard!

Love to Julie for inspiring me to bake a cake today for my upcoming cookbook! How I wish I could send a piece over to my great-niece, Emma Louise! I will be working on creating the healthiest cupcakes for Emma, a true cupcake lover.

You can bet that Emma's cupcakes will always have a "surprise" inside!