Baking With Kale: For the Picky One

I am almost doing cartwheels in my kitchen. I have a very picky eater… and I worry about him. I don’t struggle with him about getting him to eat– that’s not worth it, and I gave that up a long time ago. But I worry. How many vitamins, exactly, are in that Mac and Cheese? How much Vitamin A? Magnesium?  None — the kid needs life support… I marvel, sometimes, that he can actually get up and walk to school. He refuses the Kale Chips that the rest of us love.

But, I was thinking about how great Kale is. I will not bore you with stats, but I will tell you that it contains calcium Vitamin A, Vitamin K — and lots of those vitamins.  And — have you noticed that Kale has absolutely NO FLAVOR when you mix with with berries in a smoothie?

Hummm. That got me thinking.

So I pureed a whole bunch of fresh kale this morning. Almost made myself late for a meeting this morning. But man, was that Kale pretty… vibrant green, and it pureed into almost an imperceptible mash.

Then, I put them in little ziplock baggies, one cup portions, and then in a bigger freezer proof ziplock bag. Now, when I’m baking cookies, I can just add the kale to the batter.

Cooked Kale — I learned, does not loose that much nutritional value — compared to Mac and Cheese, it’s a great improvement.

With my food processor already a mess, rather than cleaning it after processing Kale, I simply added some frozen bananas from my freezer, and proceeded to make Banana Bread with the bit of Kale leftover in the food processor.

The batter turned out to be so green. So vibrant green.

Maybe it will change when I bake it?

The bread came out — still green.

When Fun Size came home from school, I said, “Look, I made you some Banana bread… and it’s green. Your favorite color.”

He loves the GREEN banana bread. Loves it. I wish I had a picture of him eating it — but he’s so camera shy. But I got this rare moment outside today — they’re playing with their just-built paper airplanes.

So, now I have a way to incorporate Kale into the baked goods — the one thing he does love.

Can’t you see that extra pink in his cheeks?