Mike Small

The Fife Diet was started by Mike and Karen Small, whose tireless efforts have inspired hundreds of people to eat more local produce. They developed a simple concept, called it The Fife Diet and started a revolution!

We are delighted to welcome Mikle to our team of regular columnists.

Each month he will share a seasonal recipe to get you starting to “think globally and eat locally.”

I’m going to sound like a terrible old hippy but eating seasonally reconnects us with the natural cycles of life. The good news is it tastes delicious, can be easy on the pocket when everyones skint after Christmas and by eating locally your cutting your food miles. For more recipe ideas and to join the project go here: http://fifediet.co.uk/ It’s free to join and you can become a friend if you live outside Fife.

Are you struggling to know what to do with kale?

Not sure how to transform Winter Greens into something beautiful? This is a great dinner that’s cheap and easy and nutritious and works either way with kale or winter greens.

Potato, Bacon & Kale Bake
This is a hearty winter dish. It’s NOT on the low-fat New Years Resolution list, but surely that’s all abandoned now anyway?! For a vegetarian version discard the bacon.

You will need:
10 medium Potatoes
A head of Winter Greens or Kale
Bacon
300 ml Full-fat milk
Small carton of cream
Nutmeg
Salt
Pepper
Garlic

1. Peel and slice potatoes (slightly thicker than a pound coin), set aside.

2. Pour a jug of (blue) milk into a large pan and add generous sprinkling of salt, pepper & nutmeg. Turn to a very low simmer. Add two or three crushed cloves of garlic. Do not let it boil over.

3. Add sliced potatoes and simmer for 5 minutes.

4. Put on about six rashers of bacon to grill till crispy (but not burnt).

5. Chop / shred a head of winter greens or kale – de-stalk if you find them too tough – this debate raged in our house. Then flash-boil for about 1 -2 minutes.

6. Taking a deep casserole dish layer up the ingredients starting (and topping) with the potatoes and with the bacon in the middle. Depending on the depth of the dish and the amount of greens you could end up with two, but even better three layers of greens.

7. The milk / cream mixture should just about cover the other ingredients.

8. Bake for about 35 minutes.