Being at home alone means something different to everyone.
To me, it means absolute post-work freedom. Last night, that freedom took a variety of forms: going vegetarian for dinner, eating chickpeas and strawberries (not together) while making said meal, obsessing over episodes of my new favourite show (Girls on HBO), fantasizing about homemade Popsicle flavours, buying pasta that is shaped like tiny radiators, drinking my favourite craft beer brought back from Ottawa, and dancing to music in the kitchen while picking away parts of the roast chicken I bought at the grocery store.
Yes sir, it was a good night.
There’s nothing like a dose of might-as-well-be-Monday macaroni and cheese to chase the post-long weekend blues away. I won’t whine, but I will say that I am always a little bit sad when I return from a few days in my old home, Ottawa. This weekend was absolutely brilliant, and filled with patio word games, human-chain crowd weaving and rental bike cruising. More on that later.
My Tuesday doubts were doused by this delectable dish.
The sweetness of the potato contrasted perfectly with the sharpness of cheddar. Both were balanced by the crunch of the breadcrumbs and the tender, chewy kale. The orange hue and crumby exterior made me feel like I was eating sweet potato tempura and, let’s face it, any healthy dinner that can be compared (visually or in taste) to a sinfully marvellous deep fried appetizer deserves to be applauded.
Also: let’s talk kale for a minute.
To me, kale was an unknown variable, the “x” in the equation that has yet to be solved. Tonight, I finally manned up and solved that problem and was most happy to discover that the answer was: x = awesome. I used a bag of frozen veggies packaged up by this Canadian company called Cookin’ Greens.
Their website says things like “the new fast food” and “from farm to freezer in six hours or less” … both of which seem pretty stellar to me as we continue to live in a society that doesn’t put enough value in local food or healthy eating. God knows we could all use some more dark and leafy greens in our life. The kale was the perfect supplement to this meal and I can’t wait to use my “designer mix” (spinach, collards, rapini, yellow beans and onion) later in the week.
Oh yes, and one more perk to being home alone? So many leftovers!!! Initiate lunchtime excitement.
