Drying washed lettuce

It’s official, we are residents of Texas!  We are all unpacked and settled in and I have a very good excuse for not blogging as of late.  While I was a bit nervous to see our duplex, sight unseen, it turned out to be fabulous!  It’s brand new construction so we are the first to live in it, which is a super plus for a germ-freak like moi.  The down side of our brand new development is there are no Internet service providers here yet.  Who knew there were even areas this still happened?  I may be in a small town, but we are definitely not living in the country, so this was quite a surprise to me.   After hours on the phone with many different providers I have come to accept I am now going to be a regular at Starbucks to use the Wi-Fi.  I always have a long list of other things to get done while I use the Internet that blogging has taken a back seat.  I finally got smart and realized I can type my blog in Word (duh!) and then just take a few minutes to post it while I have Internet access so hopefully I will be better from now on.   

My friend Kelly Jo over at The Dr. and the Mrs. gave me an awesome tutorial of ways to improve my blog before I moved from Wichita and I haven’t been able to do any of it!  I am hoping Internet access becomes available in the next few months so I can get to work on making those changes. 

My post today is a quick tip that makes a huge difference in salad preparation. I mentioned in my last post before I left Wichita I attended a great cooking class.  One of the things I picked up on was a new way to dry my lettuce.  Andrea used a dish drying mat to dry her kale.  GENIUS!  Why didn’t I ever think of that?  I sometimes do buy bagged lettuce, but whenever I can I buy it fresh and wash and prepare it myself.  However, the amount of paper towels I use to dry it thoroughly was always frustrating, not to mention it always got the counter all wet as well.  Andrea to the rescue!  A $5 drying mat from Bed, Bath, and Beyond is the perfect solution.  It is machine washable so you can toss it in the wash after a couple uses and it’s ready to go again.  Best $5 I’ve spent lately. (Actually, best $4 I've spent.  Gotta love those 20% off coupons.)

 

 

Just rinse your lettuce, kale, etc. and toss it on the drying mat, and fold over the sides a few times to squeeze off the excess water.  Did I mention, genius?!

Since we are talking about kale and salads, I woke up yesterday and my twitter feed was bombarded with Bethenny Frankel tweets about kale.  Apparently, she just learned about massaging kale as I did a few months ago.  Enjoy her tweets…