Ew, Kale!

I have disliked kale for a long, long time.

This hatred of sorts comes from a single, slightly traumatic kale-related memory. Back when I was in girl scouts, sometime in late elementary school or early high school, my troop had the opportunity to work on a float for the Pasadena Rose Parade. For those of you who don't know what that is here is a summary:  every January 1, in honor of the Rose Bowl, Pasadena (a city in Los Angeles County near where I attended high school) has a parade that features floats made entirely out of plants and flowers; every one of the floats is designed and decorated with a variety of flora and nothing else. Our troop was assigned to work on a Dr. Seuss-themed float, which was awesome. I was pumped. At least until I got my assignment: taking the stickiest glue you can imagine and adhering bunches of kale to one another to create the top of a tree-like feature on the float. Seven or so hours later in the California sun, I was sticky from head to toe, had pieces of kale clinging all over my body, most notably in my hair, and was inundated with the smell of overripe, wilting kale.

From that moment forth, I lived a kale-less existence, by choice.

Today, thanks to Martha, I lifted my kale ban. After all, kale is extremely healthy, loaded with beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin - all good things that I could definitely use.

I decided to make Martha's Kale Slaw with Peanut Dressing. Because the kale is raw in this recipe, I wouldn't lose any nutrients by cooking. And it was easy as pie! I chopped up a big bunch of kale, some carrots, and a (green, not yellow, red or orange) pepper. I also added in some grape tomatoes, my favorite vegetable, for good measure.

For the dressing, I got to use my brand-new Cuisinart Food Processor, courtesy of my fantastic mother. I combined olive oil, apple cider vinegar, peanuts, salt and brown sugar and blended away, a process that took less than a minute.

I have to say, the salad was absolutely, positively DELICIOUS. It might be the dressing that made it, but I completely loved this salad. I have lots of leftovers and am definitely bringing this to work for lunch this week. I highly recommend this recipe: healthy, fast and beyond delicious!

Recipe (by Martha Stewart at marthastewart.com):

Ingredients

 Serves 8

• 2 large bunches curly kale, center ribs discarded, very thinly sliced crosswise (about 10 cups)
• 1 yellow, orange, or red bell pepper
• 2 carrots, thinly sliced crosswise
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup salted peanuts
• 2 tablespoons packed light-brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/4 cup salted peanuts

Directions

1. Toss 2 large bunches curly kale, center ribs discarded, very thinly sliced crosswise (about 10 cups); 1 yellow, orange, or red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, halved crosswise and thinly sliced lengthwise; and 2 carrots, thinly sliced crosswise, in a large bowl.
2. Puree 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 1/4 cup salted peanuts, 2 tablespoons packed light-brown sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt in a blender until smooth.
3. Pour dressing over vegetables just before serving. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup salted peanuts, coarsely chopped.

Read more at Marthastewart.com: Kale Slaw with Peanut Dressing - Martha Stewart Recipes

Comfort cookies

With all this wintry mix gloom and doom still lurking, I was definitely in the mood for some comfort food today. And nothing says comfort food like peanut butter, chocolate, and lots of sugar.

Today, I baked. I should have perhaps prefaced this by explaining that I don't bake. When I bake, things happen. At Thanksgiving a few years back, I dropped an entire apple pie upside-down into the open, hot oven instead of placing it gracefully in. The pie tin actually crumpled while I was carrying it and the whole thing just collapsed into the waiting oven. My mom spent hours scraping off the pie, which had become baked on.

This brings me to my current project: flourless peanut chocolate cookies. The best part of this recipe is that it is probably as easy and straightforward as recipes get... one throws a minimal number of ingredients into a bowl, stirs, and bakes.

For me, nothing is that simple. The first problem is that my apartment lacks any kind of measuring cup or measuring spoon or measuring utensil of any kind except an ancient plastic measuring cup that has the actual measurement worn off that I assumed was a one-cup and used as such. This meant some guesstimation and some crossed fingers. The second issue was that I didn't have chocolate chips and had to resort to cutting up semi-sweet chocolate into manageable pieces.

Surprisingly, I didn't screw up too badly and my roommate and I enjoyed the resulting cookies

(as did my coworkers when I brought them to work). The result was perhaps a bit too peanut-y and peanut-butter-y because there is no flour and the dough was essentially just peanut butter, sugar, an egg, and baking soda. Plus, the recipe calls for peanuts as well, so if you don't like peanuts, stay far away. I actually was a bit scared bringing them into the hospital for fear that anyone with a nut allergy within a 25 mile radius would drop dead of anaphylactic shock.

The one issue is that no matter what I do, and ho

w careful I am, I can't prevent the bottom of the cookies from burning. Even if the actual cookie isn't cooked, the bottom burns. Maybe it's the fact that I live in a Manhattan apartment with a bite-sized oven that is definitely not state-of-the-art. Or this is something I'll just have to work on... with Martha's help of course!

Here's what the result looked like: