Going Green.

As much as I love Christmas, I really love it when it is over.

I am not a Grinch, I swear.  In fact, we had a great Christmas.  It was fun to see our families, give great gifts, celebrate with friends and one of my favorite things this season was our tree.

We had a beautiful tree this year.  

Adam and I had such a great time decorating it together earlier this month.  It was fun digging through our boxes of ornaments, smiling as we placed different memories on the branches and admiring the beauty all the very different pieces make when put together.

I loved relaxing next to it every evening.

I loved it’s scent.  

And, I absolutely loved taking it down yesterday.

That and all the other Christmas decor.

My sister-in-law and I were talking yesterday and we agreed: It’s fun and exciting to put everything up for Christmas, but it is great to put it all away.

Relegating everything and anything red, green and glittery to the basement makes my home much more bare and beige, but it’s welcome.  

Looking at my living room, where the tree stood just yesterday, I feel clean and refreshed.

Which is exactly how I like every element in my life to feel this time of year.

I don’t think it’s ironic that the start of a new year comes just a week after Christmas.  Christmastime is the height of over indulgence, opulence, excitement while New Years is a fresh “reboot” back to simplicity, calm, routine… and veggies.

Thanks to all the resolutionists, this time of year you tend to hear a lot about juicing and “green” drinks.  I am by no means a green drink aficionado, but I do like them when I just feel like I need to bring my body a little balance or “reboot” after traveling or, say, sugar and cream filled holidays…?

Green Drinks get their name from their predominate dark, leafy green ingredients, like kale.

However, they also get their bad reputation from their predominate dark leafing green ingredients, like kale.

And, if you don’t know any better it is easy to understand why… Liquefied kale? Liquefied, uber healthy, RAW, kale?

Despite their reputation, these drinks can be delicious. I promise.

When flavors like pineapple, ginger, apples, and lemon are added they are actually pretty good. But, I also know another little trick to make liquefied kale more tolerable: Freeze it.

This whole summer and far into the fall our garden’s kale did so well. It was so easy to grow and produced tons of leaves. We were even enjoying the kale in the garden after the first few frosts and a small November snow squall. Weather like this would completely damage many other garden greens but it made the kale even better.

The natural sugars in kale’s cell structure acts like an anti-freeze preventing any damage and making the sweetness in it’s taste much more predominate.

The same thing can happen in your own freezer making green drinks more delicious and colder (a really good thing…). It also is a great way for storing kale from the farmer’s market or garden for use throughout the winter. Kale is good for about twelve months in a freezer.

Freezing kale is a cinch.

Wash the kale leaves thoroughly, being sure to remove any dirt or bugs.

Remove the very tough center stem of the kale. Easy ways to do this is to either fold the leaf down the center or lay it flat and run the blade of a knife along the stem.

Chop the leaves to smaller pieces and dry them completely. I use a salad spinner and paper towels.

Then, in a single layer, place kale pieces on a cookie sheet and freeze for twenty four hours. Once completely frozen I put the kale into dated freezer bags for easier storage.

Frozen kale is great to have to winter pastas, soups, and, of course, refreshing Green Drinks.

I like this Green Drink Recipe, but I like just about anything Giada… Except not her recent news about her divorce from Todd!

… Thank goodness we still have Ina and Jeffrey.

Happy New Year!