This post features the joys of collards, which are frost hardy (good to 5° F). The last green thing standing in the garden.

We have eaten a lot of collards lately.

Oura thinks highly of collards, but it defaults to spinach on its food identifier. (Michael got me an Oura ring for my birthday.) The collards and leeks were sautéed together in butter then stirred into the boiled red potatoes, mashed with a splash of milk. This is a variation on colcannon, an Irish concoction of mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale, scallions or leeks. Collards are close cousins of kale. Oura didn’t recognize colcannon, so I listed the ingredients.

Oura initially thought we were having beef. Oura will estimate what is in my food photo and then I can correct it. It can get some common foods right, like pizza (a food many of its users consume), and also can spot some more exotic dishes, like feijoada and farofa. Who eats duck regularly? We do!

I did list a bunch of vegetables, including the collards, Michael added to his soup. They didn’t show up on the summary. But they did add to the nutritional profile.

This dessert had no collards, but consisted mostly of apples, which also are frost hardy. I made this “Hidden Apple Cake” dessert with less sugar than the recipe called for. Think apples coated with a crepe batter then baked. A delicious way to use up a lot of apples. Peeling and coring took the most time in this process. Michael prefers his apples in pies. I’ll have to compare apple content. Personally, I loved this cake. My girls gave it two thumbs up as well.

Michael made potato pancakes out of the leftover colcannon. Given that we left the jackets on the potatoes and that collards were almost half the mix, “vegetable fritters” was close enough. I made ratatouille with the very last of the small eggplants. I love eggplants. Michael, however, would have felt deprived if I had served ratatouille as the main dish.

Tonight’s dinner featured gnocchi, as I needed to use up a few potatoes that were too damaged to store. I ran across my gnocchi roller while looking for something else and was inspired. Gnocchi are surprisingly easy to make. As with everything, having the ingredients and tools (like a potato ricer) at hand really helps. Who has room temperature eggs laying around? We do! Who has wild turkey kielbasa at hand? We do! Who has collards in the garden? We do! This makes the question, “What’s for dinner?” a daily adventure. Now you know why I want a big kitchen. More space to play!

A few observations about this ring. It does a good job of gently reminding me to maintain a consistent sleep schedule. It doesn’t do as good of a job at giving me options to record periods of physical activity. It doesn’t have a “gardening “ workout, only “yard work.” It has a myriad of other physical activities, such as “spinning,” “pickleball,” “tennis,” and such, but no “housework,” “construction,” or “splitting wood.” I work hard while cooking, but that isn’t a recognized activity either. This piece of health tech is mostly designed for people who live in different social circumstances than we do, as in: my stress scores are minimal. It is odd that I have one of these, but sleep is important! When Michael and I both have bad sleep scores, we change something (like starting the humidifier during heating season) and sleep better. We could probably do this without the tech, but having data feedback prompts us to make needed changes. Here’s to living well (eat more collards)!