Eat Your Greens

I am having one of those weeks that is going by both at a snail's pace and in a blur.  On the snail's pace side we have wasting one of the most beautiful mornings of the week inside waiting for an auto glass repairman to arrive (don't you just hate stuff like that?).  On the blur side we have the fact that it is already Wednesday afternoon.  I've picked up some part-time freelance work (yay!) and am once again doing the WAHM juggle, which has a unique way of making time fly by in a most whiplash-inducing fashion.  I'm also still the Chief Executive of All Things Homefront, which means that in preparing meal plans and shopping lists, in addition to having an eye on the budget and the health factor of our weekly food picks, I'm now especially keen on things that are exceptionally easy to prepare, as weeknights are again finding me juggling spreadsheets, an arsenic hour toddler, and a frying pan. Mama needs all the help she can get.  Which is why I am loving my newest Whole Foods find:

Okay, listen.  I'm all for fresh and I'm all for local and I'm all for the slow food movement.  But when you're having the kind of night where you're moments away from calling for pizza anyway, these Leafy Greens are a great alternative.  Put on a pot of rice, open a can of beans, simmer these greens for 10 minutes, and you have a fiber-riffic dinner prepped for pennies.  I adore collards, kale and mustard greens, but the prep of all of those is time consuming, and if you buy a bunch on Sunday and can't deal with it till Thursday, you're going to have some ugly wilty-ness on your hands.  I love that for $1.99 these suckers are cleaned, prepped and ready to provide you with two or three side dishes any old time (including 2 weeks from now if need be).  The flavor is fantastic, as is the texture.  You'd have to cook fresh kale near to death to give it the silkiness this mix provides in a ten minute simmer.  Win, win, win.

In an ideal world, I'd live in a Parisian fashion and walk to a farm stall 'round dinner every night to pluck fresh greens from an artisan purveyor.  In my real world, I appreciate good quality shortcuts when they come my way.  Whole Foods, I'm not ashamed to proclaim my love for you.