Kale is the Wonder Woman of the cabbage family. Here lately, I've been trying to find ingredients that will power up our meals.  My family has never eaten kale.  I was apprehensive in trying it, to be quite honest.  I've always heard it takes an "acquired taste".  In a child's mind that's code for, "It tastes gross when you're young and better when you get old."  And yes, I still think of myself as a kid on the inside.

When I came across this simple beef recipe, I knew it would help introduce us to the nutrition-packed green.  Of course, I didn't tell my family what they were eating until they were a third of the way through the meal.  My husband and son thought they were eating spinach and didn't even question the green stuff wrapped around the meat stuff.  When I told them it was kale, they just shrugged their shoulders, said "hmph", and kept on eating.  --Score 1 for Kale!--

The Italian sausage makes it a rich meal.  I thought the healthy addition of kale helped lighten up the richness.  The cookbook that inspired this meal stated that collards work in the recipe, too.  I'll have to remember that next time.  This recipe is a new keeper for me.  It was fun to eat and everyone went back for seconds.

HERE'S ALL IT TAKES

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound Italian sausage, casings removed and meat crumbled
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Being a homeschool mom means I get to decide when we start school.  That's pretty cool in my book.  We've had such a great summer that I'm no different than the kids in my reluctance to start back.  So, I've set our start date for the first week of September.  That gives me time to get organized and plan out our hectic schedule. ( Yes, I already know it's going to be hectic.  It's part of the reason I'm putting it off.)  Anyhoo.

This school year, I'm going to TRY to implement my slow cooker at least 3 times a week.  The day dream of having a hot meal waiting for us at the end of the day is heavenly.  Of course, it takes some degree of meal planning on my part which is something I don't really do.  Typically, I wait right up to 4 o'clock to start thinking about what I'm going to make for supper.  Do you do that, too?

Anyhoo.  I'm on the lookout for slow cooker recipes.  Good ones that don't involve cream of whatever soup .  My first slow cooker book is a good one, More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow. It's loaded with 200 brand new, budget-friendly, gluten-free, slow cooker recipes.

HERE'S THE FIRST RECIPE WE CHOWED DOWN

Serves 6

• 1/2 tablespoon coarse salt
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 pounds pork shoulder
• 7 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice (1 large orange will do it)
• 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (1 large lime will do it)
• 1/2 cup beef broth
• Corn tortillas
• Sour cream, salsa, and sliced avocado (whatever you like on top)

Use a 6-quart slow cooker.  In a small bow, combine the salt and cumin.  Rub the spices all over the pork shoulder, drop it in the slow cooker.  Add the garlic cloves, no chopping necessary.  Pour on the orange juice, lime juice and beef broth.

Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours, or until the pork shreds very easily with a fork.  If the meat is still fully intact after 8 hours, remove and cut into chunks, then return to the crock and flip to high for about an hour or two.

Shred all the meat, serve on warmed tortillas with all your favorite toppings.

Got leftovers?

Get out the barbecue sauce and pour it over the leftover meat.  Slowly warm it up in a medium sauce pan.  Serve it up on toasted buns and have barbecue sandwiches the next time.  It's all good!

If you would like to learn more about More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow, read the book review I wrote up for SDR.  More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow Book Review

I know there's a thousand meatloaf recipes in the world.  Here's another one. ;D  No really, this is very tasty and surprisingly moist; made with lean grass-fed beef and pork, a few spices, one happy chicken egg, a handful of wheat crackers, and smothered with organic ketchup.  Baking it up in a old fashion cast iron skillet helped, too.  Naturally, I served it up with a side of buttery mashed potatoes, and green beans.  My family chowed down!

HERE'S ALL IT TAKES

• 1 pound grass-fed ground beef (the leanest & best tasting beef you will ever eat)
• 1 pound lean ground pork (get it from the same rancher that sold you the grass-fed beef)
• 15 whole wheat soda crackers, crushed
• 1 happy chicken egg
• 1/3 cup organic ketchup + more to spread on top
• 2 1/2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
• 2 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Heat the oven to 350ºF.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients together until well mixed.  Use your hands if you have to in order to get it well incorporated.  Transfer meat mixture into 10-inch cast iron skillet and pat into an even layer in the pan.  Spread enough ketchup on top to give it a good thick covering on top and along the edges, about 1/2 cup.

Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour. When you use the leanest meat possible, there should be very little fat to drain off.  However, if you do see a pool of fat in the pan, now's a good time to carefully drain it off before serving.

One last thing.  I don't mean to knock meatloaf recipes calling for the onion soup packet.  I have two meatloaf recipes here on SDR calling for the stuff.  I came up with my own version of meatloaf because I didn't have any onion soup packets on hand.  I have been relying more on fresh spices and less on the mixes.  This recipe is proof we don't need the onion packet to have a good meatloaf dinner.

This recipe comes out of a REALLY OLD cookbook I found on the bottom of a pile of cookbooks in an antique store.  I love shopping antique stores for books and cookware.  I find the best forgotten stuff that's still functional today.  This pork loin recipe is worth your time.  Don't skip making the sauce at the end; it's wonderful poured over the moist slices of meat with a side of creamy, mashed potatoes.

HERE'S ALL IT TAKES

Serves 4 to 6

• 1 pork loin (4 to 6 pounds)
• 4 garlic cloves
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 3 sprigs of fresh parsley
• 3 springs of fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf, crumbled
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 bottle dry white wine
• 3/4 cup water

Dry the pork with a clean towel.  Cut the garlic into thin slivers.  Make small cuts in the loin and insert garlic slivers inside.  Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and place in a baking dish.  Add the parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.  Rub the loin with the oil and pour the wine over the meat.  Cover with foil and refrigerate for 12 hours or overnight.  Turn pork a couple of times while it marinates.

HEAT OVEN 325ºF Degrees.

Roast the pork forty minutes for every pound, basting with the marinade occasionally.  When cooked, the roast should be mahogany brown (that's what the book said).  Remove the pork from the oven and keep warm about 20 minutes.

Strain the drippings in the pan into a large glass measuring cup.  Pour off or skim off most of the fat.  Return the drippings to the roasting pan and add the water.  Cook on top of the stove, stirring to dissolve the brown particles that cling to the bottom and sides of the pan.  Pour the sauce into a sauceboat and serve separately.

Everyone who's been reading SDR over the past four years, knows I don't get into making food look fashionable.  Food is about soothing souls, filling empty stomachs, and nurturing our busy bodies.  We should be making the extra effort to get our food from locally grown farms.  Knowing the person who grows or makes the food your family eats is something very special.

If you're looking to eat foods grown near you and don't know where to look, go here to find them:  LocalHarvest.org

Local Harvest is a rapidly growing resource for finding food producers in your area. Go check them out.  You may be surprised to find fresh food growing right down the road from you.

As for this dinner, it's my husband's favorite. It's so simple and quick to pull together.  I don't know why I don't cook it more often.

HERE'S ALL IT TAKES

Serves 4

• 1/2 pound sausage, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 small cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 - 1 tablespoon soy sauce

Brown sausage and onion together in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until the onions are tender.  Add in cabbage and stir-fry over low heat until cabbage is tender, about 5 minutes.  Add  soy sauce, cook another minute.  Serve with rice or oven-roasted red potatoes.

Have I got something yummy for all you meat lovers out there!  In this recipe post, I'm going to go over what I did to quickly cook up these tender pork baby back ribs.  Now for those of you that already know how to cook them on the grill, you need to scroll down and look for the words, "Smoky Sweet Rub Recipe".  Click on the text and go make yourself a batch of this rub.  It'll  make you cry out for your momma.

HERE'S WHAT I DID TO SERVE 3 MEAT LOVERS

• 2 pounds pork baby back ribs
• Smoky Sweet Rub Recipe

Lay the ribs in a shallow dish.  Massage the dry rub over the ribs, then let them sit out for at least 30 minutes, or better yet, wrap'em up tight and put'em in the icebox all night or all day.  If they're cold when you're ready to start grilling, leave them out on the counter for 30 minutes.

Heat the gas grill to about 400ºF or use a broiler.  Grill the ribs over indirect heat for about 15 minutes on each side. The last 5 minutes, slide them over the direct heat to blacken the spices.  Remove from heat and allow to stand for 10 to 15 minutes before slicing up the ribs.  That's long enough for you to set the table and get your sides ready.  Don't forget some hardy napkins.

Smoky Sweet Rub Recipe

This beefy, spoon slurpin' recipe really hits the spot on a cold night.  It's not one of those quick dinner recipes that you can produce in the middle of a busy week.  It's one of those you cook up when have time and you're in the mood for creating a pleasing meal for the ones you love.  While this French beef recipe was slowly cooking on the stove, my husband said, "It sure smells like home."

HERE'S ALL IT TAKES

Serves 6

• 3 pounds lean beef, cut into 2-inch cubes
• 2 teaspoons table salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 2 tablespoon frying oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, scraped and chopped
• 2 celery ribs, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

• 2 cups beef stock or water, warmed up
• 2 cups dry red wine
• 1 cup canned plum tomatoes
• 4 sprigs parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 6 carrots, scraped and halved
• 12 small potatoes, peeled
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper.  Heat the oil and butter in a skillet and brown the meat on all sides over high heat, adding more oil if necessary.  Lower the heat to medium.  Add the chopped onion, chopped carrot, celery, and garlic and cook until the onion is lightly browned.

Stir in the flour and cook until the flour is blended.  Gradually stir in the beef stock and wine and bring to a boil.  Add the tomatoes, parsley sprigs, bay leaves, and thyme. Cover and cook over low heat for one and one-half hours.

Add the carrots, and potatoes, cover again, and continue cooking for one hour longer.  Before serving, sprinkle with remaining chopped parsley for extra color.  Serve with fresh baked bread.

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Nutritional Analysis per serving: 785 calories | 31g total fat | 10g sat fat | 255mg cholesterol | 944mg sodium | 32g carbs | 4g dietary fiber | 6g sugars | 77g protein | Vitamin A 243% | Vitamin C 27% | Vitamin E 14% | Vitamin K 33% | Thiamin 21% | Riboflavin 31% | Niacin 77% | Vitamin B6 76% | Folate 16% | Vitamin B12 74% | Calcium 8% | Iron 43% | Potassium 40% | Zinc 85% | Selenium 112%

It's not very common to run across venison recipes, either in cookbooks or online.  It's certainly not on the fashionable foods list, like Bison is these days.  But I'll tell you this, it's definitely leaner and healthier for you than any meats offered in the grocery stores.  Anyone who cooks venison knows right away they've got something good to eat.

My very good friends, the Jarvis family, love to hunt for wild game.  They're very health conscious people with their own standard of country style foodiness.  I've been working with them on their website, JarvisFarm.com, and in return they give me all the fresh fruits, vegetables and venison my family can eat.  We keep joking that I need a shirt that reads,"I work for food."

All this cold weather is great for spinach and I have been given 10-pounds of it, maybe more.  I don't have a scale large enough to weigh it all.  Along with the spinach, I have several pounds of Venison.  Steve and Lynn Jarvis have their own blend for making Venison sausage, but not in the typical breakfast sausage way.  They add ground fennel and other secret spices to make their venison taste like Italian sausage.  So good.  So hard to stop eating.  I could eat it and never buy beef again.

So the other morning, I cooked up about two pounds of venison sausage then divided it up into meal portions and put 3/4 of it back in the freezer for quick meals later on.  I had some baby portebello mushrooms and half of a yellow onion waiting for a purpose in the frig, along with a whole lotta spinach.  I decided to make myself a small, hearty brunch out of them to keep me full for the busy day ahead.

I started by cooking the onion and mushrooms in butter until they were soft and brown.  I tossed in two handfuls spinach.  Seasoned it with a pinch of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper.  Then, I sprinkled the cooked venison sausage on top to warm it back up.  When I saw the spinach had wilted, I tossed everybody together and moved them off and onto my plate.

I'm probably not going to paint a flattering picture of myself when I say what I'm about to say, but here goes.   I took that first bite to check my seasonings; got it just right.  Then, I literally, wolfed it down.  I got so involved in stabbing different variations and orders of the onion, mushroom, spinach, and venison onto my fork that it was gone before I was ready to stop eating it.  Have you ever done that?

Man, this was a great breakfast/brunch.  I was full the whole day.  I only needed a Pumpkin Apple muffin at snack time to hold me over til dinner.

HERE'S ALL IT TAKES

Serves 1 very hungry person

• 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 slices yellow onion
• 2 to 3 small baby portebello mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 1/3 cup cooked venison sausage
• season with a pinch of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat.  Add in onions and mushrooms and cook until they're soft and brown.  Lay spinach on top, season with salt and pepper.  Then, sprinkle cooked sausage on top of spinach.  Cover and cook until spinach has wilted, 4 to 6 minutes.  Toss the spinach into the vegetables and meat, then serve it all hot on a plate.

So, last night about 5:25 p.m.,  I was standing in my kitchen with no clue of what I was going to make for dinner.  I found myself just staring into my open frig and freezer.  My brain was numbed out after the long work day.  You know how I'm feeling right?  Hungry.  Not really in the mood to cook.  Tempted to jump in the van to go pick something up, but can't without feeling guilty because there's a whole frig and freezer full of perfectly healthy food.

My eyes fixed upon some ground beef,  half an onion, some leftover baked potatoes, and fresh broccoli.  These ingredients I can work with, they're ones EVERYONE in my house likes, well except for my youngest.  She only likes black beans, pinto beans and oh, black beans.  Yeah, I repeated myself.  I've given up asking her to try new things in order to hold my sanity together.  Anyhoo.  I've gotten way off topic.  Let's get down to cooking a quick and easy ground beef dinner.

HERE'S ALL IT TAKES

Serves 4 to 6

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1/2 small onion, small dice
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup organic ketchup
• 1 to 1 1/2 cup cooked potato, cut into small chunks

In a regular skillet over medium high heat, brown ground beef.  Add onion, salt, and pepper,  continue to cook until onion is translucent.  Stir in  ketchup. Cook until heated through.

Push seasoned beef to one side of the skillet.  Add cooked potato to cleared area and heat through.  Season potato with salt and pepper if you like.  Right before serving, toss the ground beef and potatoes together.  This keeps the potato from absorbing too much of the ketchup.

Oh! I almost forgot about the broccoli I mentioned.  I ended up cooking it on it's own.

• 3 cups broccoli, cut into 2-inch pieces
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Fill a medium sauce pan with 1-inch of water, toss in 1/2 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil.  Add in broccoli and cook for up to 5 minutes, until tender.  Drain broccoli, top with shredded cheddar cheese and serve it up hot!

I normally photograph everything I cook, but honestly, it's hard to make ground beef dishes look appetizing.  We all know it tastes and smells good, but it doesn't always look pretty.  Trust me, this ended up being a husband-pleasing, the-kid-cleaned-his-plate, kind of meal.  Give a whirl and let me know what your family thought about it.

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Nutrition analysis: 197 calories| 10 g fat, Sat 4, Trans 1g| 46 mg Cholesterol | 544 mg sodium | 12 g Total Carbs| 1 g Dietary fiber | 4 g sugar| 15 g protein

This is one of those meals born out of haste.  Only equipped with a bag of tortilla chips, a can of black beans, frozen leftover chili, a little green onion, a little green bell pepper and just enough cheese, I had a hot dinner on the table in under 37.4 minutes.

I didn't measure out my ingredients.  Like I said, this recipe was created on the fly.  I was using up all the ingredients I had on hand to make it come together.  So, just read this one for inspiration and create your own version, and don't forget to let me know what you did.

HERE'S ALL I DID

• Leftover frozen Fresh Beef Chili, thawed and warmed through
• 1 (15-ounce) can cooked black beans, partially drained
• 1 small bell pepper, chopped
• 2 to 3 green onions, chopped
• Cheddar cheese
• 1 (14-ounce) bag tortilla chips
• your favorite salsa or my favorite salsa

Heat the oven to 400ºF.

In a 13-inch by 9-inch casserole dish, start with a layer of chips.  Add a layer of black beans, then chili, bell pepper, and green onions.

(I have a picky eater that only likes black beans, so I left one side for beans only.)

Cover all that goodness with a layer of grated cheddar cheese.  As much as you like or have on hand.  Drizzle your favorite salsa over the top.  BAKE in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until heated through and the cheese is fully melted.