Going Bananas in a Kale Storm!

One of the great things about the new WeightWatchers program (and really, this is a great thing for folks who have been participating in the WeightWatchers program for a while now), is that all fruits and most vegetables are 0 points.  

It seems like such a small thing, really, except this change meant unlocking the door to the golden display at the grocery store that we'd stare at but rarely buy.  I speak to you today of the banana.

Little loafs of banana love...

It's funny, because I really believe I never really liked bananas.  I never really sought them out (though there is pictorial evidence that, as a child at least, I did eat them.  I'd contemplated them from time to time during the early days of my WeightWatcher journey, but I would only induldge every now and again; after all, there were fruits that I could eat that wouldn't cost as much.  And I wasn't that big a banana fan anyway.

Yup, I was wrong about that... because I eat bananas all of the time now!  They're cheap, they're yummy, and have so many wonderful applications!  I've discovered freezing them.  I threw the frozen fruit in a blender with fat free milk and a Splenda Mocha packet (yum, by the way).  

Speaking of Splenda, I spied a recipe for Nana-Nut Bread.  I decided that it would work out great to make the portions 10 (instead of 8) and bake them in muffin tins.  The experience is... strange.  It is very tasty, but I think the shape of muffin is throwing me off for it to taste more like a muffin and less like a bread.  Does that make sense?  In any case, a recommend.

Full of veggie goodness!

A tentative recommend, on the other hand, is the Whole-Grain Spaghetti with Garlicky Kale.  The verdict as it stands was that I liked it and The Husband did not care for it (though he thinks he was thrown off by the migraine he was still recovering from at the time.

I liked it, but I don't know if I liked it enough to make it again since it was a big effort.  This Real Simple recipe wasn't as simple as I thought it would be.  8 cups of Kale is... well, it's massive.  2 pints of grapes...massive!  The red onion was massive (well, this is because The Husband picked up a massive red onion, so really I just used half of that).  And this serves 4?!

This took a while to cook down!  Aw, but it was so pretty!

My only mod was... well, I won't embarrass myself by telling you the amount, but the thought behind it was "2 cloves of garlic does not a 'garlicky' make."  

Tasty and super filling, I'd recommend this to be actually 6 servings or 8.  The Husband did not care for the nuts nor the kale, but I'd imagine this made the dish seem too healthy.  Like I said, I don't know if I'd make this again only because of the effort... cooking 8 cups of kale is a lot harder than it sounds.  And to me, it doesn't sound easy to begin with!

It's your salad and your meal on one plate!