Try These 3 Simple, Healthy Recipes

As promised, here are three easy recipes that work in our busy household. In order to make the cut for the Folsom house they have to be: affordable, plentiful, healthy, nutritious and most importantly---DELICIOUS! I promise you each of my boys (including my husband) eats all of these. Give them a try!

• White Bean Dip. Take a can or two of white northern or cannelloni beans, rinse and drain. Toss in the food processor or blender with olive oil and kosher salt, add in garlic and chopped rosemary to taste and wwwwrrrrrrr. Rosemary is a cheap, easy and hardy perennial to grow. Even the brownest of thumbs can pick one up at Lowe's garden center and plop it in a sunny spot in the garden. Excellent for dipping veggies and pita chips.

• Roasted Chick Peas. Blot rinsed and drained garbanzo beans with a paper towel, toss in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and kosher salt, and add garlic and cayenne pepper to taste. Roast at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. Using parchment paper means they crisp up really nicely and there's no clean up, I sometimes sort of fold the paper into a clever, disposable serving dish.

• Kale. Forget what you think you know about this giant bag of leafy greens in the far corner of the produce aisle, I promise you my crew loves this. The wok works best for this but you can use a cast iron skillet or big saute pan, as it starts out HUGE and shrinks down (the boys love to watch this kitchen magic trick). Saute 1-2 anchovy fillets in olive oil, add kale and stir stir stir till it cooks down to desired level, you might need to add some water to help it steam down depending on cooking method. When you remove from heat, toss with kosher salt and a dash of balsamic vinegar. You can saute/steam fish on the next burner or grill up some chicken while this cooks and I swear you have a really yummy dinner in 15 mins.