Get Your Green On!

So, perhaps I should be posting this in the hot summer months when greens are abundant and plentiful. However, winter seems to be when we need their nutritional benefit the most.

My Top 5 Uses for Powdered Greens

1. Add to spaghetti sauce (so sneaky!)

2. Soak and add to smoothies

3. As a last minute ingredient to baked beans (recipe to follow)

4. Add to pesto

5. Sprinkle into soup

How do I do it? Read on. 

The trick to using the nutritional benefit of the tougher greens (kale, chard, collard greens, and the like) is to masticate them really well. If you're like me, you'd rather this take place someplace other than your mouth! In this case I turn to my appliances. If you're lucky enough to have a high-power blender, making a pesto, smoothie or such stuff will be a cinch. But here's the way I do it...

I buy a whole bunch of organic greens (where I live I have to travel to a special store to do that) and I load up the trays of my dehydrator. Yes I dry them. It only takes a little while.

Once they're completely crunchy I gather them up, stuff them in my little blender, and grind them up.

What once was an armful and a half of greens to be somehow mowed through is now a small jar of powder that has lost none of the nutritional value of the original except for the water! (As long as they are not exposed to heat greater than 115 degrees Fahrenheit they will retain most if not all of their chemical structure giving you the nutrients you need.)

Crunchy Cottage "Baked" Beans

1 Can red beans or kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 Can tomato sauce

1/4 tsp. Cumin

1/4 tsp. Chili powder

Salt & Pepper to taste

Sweetner (xylitol, agave, maple syrup, or molasses) to taste

1 Tbs. Greens Powder

1/4 Cup water

Mix all but the powdered greens in a medium saucepan, cook until consistency is suited to spreading on toast. Remove from heat. Add greens. Enjoy!