Talya Tate Boerner - grace grits and gardening

Stir-fried Kale and Rice

September 20, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

rice and kale, grace grits and gardening

Did you know Arkansas is the nation’s NUMBER ONE rice producer and processor?

Numero Uno.

Impressive.

Arkansas Rice, Riceland Foods, Stuttgart, Ar

The USA Rice Federation is promoting National Rice Month by sponsoring a rice recipe and photo contest. Here’s my contribution!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups cooked rice
1/2 lb kale
1 1/2 tablespoon coconut oil
3 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 cup diced orange bell pepper (or yellow or red)

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce

Method

Chop the kale and steam for 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the coconut oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for two minutes. Be careful not to brown the garlic.

Raise heat to medium.

Add steamed kale, bell pepper, scallions and ginger. Cook for two minutes stirring continuously.

Add soy and cook 30 seconds more. Mix with rice.

Delicious and oh so healthy. Kale is a superfood you know!

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Pinterest FAIL!

September 19, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

My life is not a Pinterest board.

Last night as I re-arranged bacon-wrapped dates on a platter oh-so-carefully so that I could snap a blog picture AND pin it to my Recipe and Food Pinterest Board, I thought has my life really come to this? Was I really passing off toothpicked appetizers as supper so I could re-test a recipe?Apparently so.

Bacon wrapped dates

I was slow to jump on the Pinterest bandwagon. A virtual bulletin board, what? But now I rearrange thirty-nine skillfully crafted boards in my sleep. Now I understand Pinterest drives blog pageviews and buying decisions more than any other media with over one million visitors per day…See, I’m even spouting off Pinterest figures like an infomercial…(I’m smart like that because I watched two webinars about it yesterday…)

The thing is, Pinterest doesn’t always portray real life, not mine anyway. My food isn’t always pin-able. My garden isn’t always pin-worthy, especially at the end of another Texas summer.

pitiful

Today I’m pinning real pins. Being transparent is all the rage now, right?

Last April when life was full of promise and the nurseries were crammed with spring flowers and veggies, I eagerly planted a variety of lettuces and radishes in my cute little red wagon and promptly pinned pics to my Garden Board. We would have a bounty of fresh produce to last us to fall.

Yeah, right.

I did harvest lettuce for three or four salads until an overnight flood flattened the plants and a scorching hot day vaporized what remained into dust.

Here’s the wagon today…

How about my kitchen?Today it is home tour ready. Yesterday, not so much.

Don’t even get me started on the third floor of our house. On Monday,we had a flood caused by a clogged AC line. I could pin soggy carpet or a wavy, saturated section of drywall. But the best (worst) thing in that space is the huge pee stain I discovered near the air conditioner. So far no one has taken responsibility for this stain. I think it should be pinned, don’t you?