Kale with White Bean Sauce, Corn-off-the-Cob, Baked Potato

Ingredients

• Half sweet onion cut into 1/4" thick half moons
• 4 large cremini mushrooms, cut into 1/4" thick slices
• Head of kale with stems removed and leaves hand torn into approximately 1 1/2" squares
• 2T white bean dip (6g fat)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/8 cup wine
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Process

1. I put the onion into my Saladmaster stainless steel-titanium saute pan and turned the heat on to medium high. I cooked the onion, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes till the onion was partially clear but not browned
2. I added the mushroom and continued occasionally stirring. I cooked for another 3 minutes or so; the onion was gently browning and the mushroom cooked down a bit.
3. I added the kale and continued to occasionally stir. A little bit of sticking of the mushroom and, less so, onion, was happening, but it easily cleans up - or releases when a liquid is added. In this step, the little bit of water left atop the kale leaves was sufficient to clean the pan as I stirred. I cooked the kale for about 4 minutes till it cooked down, adding a pinch of salt after the first minute or so (a stainless steel pot can get scratched if coarse salt is harshly rubbed into it, so I am always careful in adding salt).
4. I found a new white bean dip from Cedar's Foods. It is tasty and made with just a few ingredients - cannellini beans, sunflower and olive oils, water, salt, citric acid, red pepper, and guar gum (made from a bean and used as a thickening agent). Its fat content isn't bad with 6g of fat per 2T; given that this is for my wife, daughter, and me, that's about 2g per serving (in fact, we had leftovers for my daughter's lunch, so it's perhaps 1.5g of fat per serving). I added the dip as well as an eight of a cup of cabernet sauvignon.
5. I cooked for another minute or so then served, along with a baked potato and corn-off-the-cob.

Results

This came out better than I expected. It turns out to have been a good idea to combine the bean dip with the wine. The combination was excellent and made a nice, rich, and surprising but very appealing sauce for the kale. I might have been able to list this as an almost-no-added-fat dish, because the bean dip added so little fat, but I did add a little bit of Earth Balance to both the corn and potato, as well.

Ideas for the future

While I like this new product, it should be easy to create my own white bean dip without oil, perhaps by blending beans and some broth. A little bit of citrus zest and perhaps black sesame seed (great source of fiber, calcium, and magnesium) would also go well. This particular batch of kale was a little bitter; if otherwise, I might have added a little tarragon instead of the parsley. A little bit of chunks of eggplant or carrot (which would then be softened as it would be cooked) would also be nice and offer a welcome chunk.