Taste the rainbow.

Posted on July 26, 2012

Confession #1: Skittles have never been my candy of choice. Plain m&ms, sour patch kids, sno-caps. That’s where it’s at for me. But today we’re talking about a different kind of rainbow of fun flavors. Vibrant green. Bright yellow. Kale salad, people! Let’s get our lunch on.

I’m learning a lot in my nutrition class, which has been equally enlightening and overwhelming. (“Wait, there are how many micronutrients?!”) Thankfully I have also felt reassured that the eating lifestyle (I really dislike the word “diet”) I’ve adopted is in fact as relatively healthy as I have believed it to be. Phew!

I try to live by two mantras: variety and moderation. Eat a variety of foods–in different food groups and different colors–in order to reap the greatest nutritional benefits from my food intake. And, eat everything in moderation. Brownies? Um, of course! In moderation. Which some days, let’s be honest, means three. Hey. I’m human.

Confession #2: Last week was only the second time in my life that I cooked with kale. Now, I recognize that this may not strike you as much of a confession, given that there’s a good chance most of our country has probably never even seen kale. But you see, for better or for worse, I now see things from a new perspective–being surrounded by “food people” all the time really puts on the pressure to know/cook/eat every possible kind of really good for you, or simply just good, food. To know the name of every single great restaurant and the name of its chef. To constantly be ahead of the food curve, wherever that curve may be heading. So, food confessions move from those regarding candy to those regarding kale.

I think, however, that the truly ironic thing about this “confession” is that it’s a stark reminder that I’m actually doing pretty well for myself. The fact that I even consider cooking with kale in the first place puts me well ahead of most Americans. This reminder is quite saddening, and shows just how far we have to go as a country in trying to improve the overall health of our food choices and eating patterns, in order to improve our overall health in general. We simply must choose healthier foods, consume healthier foods, and demand healthier foods. We should know what kale is, because that means we’re actually consuming vegetables. A variety of vegetables. Green leafy tasty vegetables.

So along the lines of practice what you preach, I turned to kale last week thanks to the very good advice shared by a fellow classmate and friend of mine. In just two minutes she told me how to transform kale from a thick, rough, unapproachable green mass to a delicious, soft, full-of-flavor salad. You know I’ve been on a kick to try to find healthy ways to get veggies into my meals in new and interesting ways. (Read: sans typical dinner salad.) Well, this fits the bill! The trick comes in massaging the kale. That’s right, my friends. Massaging the kale.

Kale packages its wealth of nutrients (most notably antioxidants and fiber) in hearty, often tough leaves and stems. In order to make kale more enjoyable to consume, you have to give it a little TLC. Whether you buy it in the form of whole leaves or precut and prepackaged, you simply take some kale and rub it between your fingers and palms for a few minutes until you begin to feel the leaves and stems soften. Or, you can rub it with a good amount of pressure on a cutting board. You can massage the kale for as long as you’d like until it reaches your chosen level of softness. Did you know it was that easy?! (Even you can do this, dad!) And now that we all know this little trick, we can venture out and brave the world of kale together.

This salad is absolutely delicious. The lemon is really fresh and pungent, the goat cheese imparts a rich creaminess that’s just divine, and the pine nuts give it the perfect added texture. And it’s so easy to make. I promise! It comes together quickly and works well as either a side salad or as a light meal. It also saves really well for several days and even gets better with time as the lemon juice and olive oil continue to soften the kale while it sits in your fridge. Magic!

Kale Goat Cheese Salad

Yield: 4 as side salad

Ingredients

3 cups chopped kale

3 oz crumbled goat cheese

1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

4 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste

Directions

1. Massage your kale! (whole leaves or chopped)

2. Rinse kale and chop whole leaves if necessary.

3. Put kale in a large bowl and add the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Taste and add more seasonings if necessary.

4. Add the goat cheese and pine nuts to the bowl. Stir to combine.

The safety of butter, sugar, and flour.

Posted on July 21, 2012

Happy Saturday, y’all! I’m headed off to explore the coast of Maine for the day (which I will, of course, share with you later) so I’m going to leave you with a delectable recipe for something to get you baking today. These cookies are incredibly easy to throw together, and well worth it. And, this recipe was the inspiration for the last short memoir I wrote for my Food Memoirs class this summer. So I thought I’d share!

I grab the book off the shelf, having recently unpacked it after my move from northern California to Boston. The worn cover with its scratches and frayed corners still shines bright with green and pink flowers—wholly appropriate décor, I’ve always thought, for The Anne of Green Gables Treasury.

It’s been years, I can’t even begin to recall how many, since I watched the Anne of Green Gables movie with my sister. Nearly every Saturday we would pull out the thick VHS tape, protected by an even thicker plastic cover, and sit for hours being transported to another time. Girls frolicked about in long billowy dresses and daintily ate tea sandwiches at every possible occasion. They seemed to be always smiling, always laughing, always having fun. There were no mean girls, no heartless boys, no being picked last for the team, no prepubescent acne, no being the tallest girl in the class. Every Saturday morning, my own reality drifted away, even for just a few moments, and I was free to be somewhere else. Somewhere better. Somewhere safer.

I remember the day I saw The Anne of Green Gables Treasury for the very first time, shiny and promising with pages full of another place. I begged mom for that book of recipes and tips for hosting and instructions on proper etiquette. I just knew it was special. Grasping the book in my hands, flipping slowly through the pages, I would no longer be stuck just watching that world—I could join it.

I sit down in front of my bookshelf and open up the worn beloved book. Flipping through the pages I quickly make my way to the one and only page I ever really read and used—the recipe titled “Jelly-Tart Cookies.” Greasy finger smudges still trail up the side of the page. I can nearly taste the sweet, buttery ball of dough that accidentally left a stain in the middle of the recipe—a permanent reminder of my earliest days in the kitchen, standing at the white tiled counter looking lovingly at my brand-new cookbook. On that first auspicious day nearly twenty years ago, my ravenous sweet tooth, inherited from my dad, dictated that I would start with the Jelly-Tart Cookies.

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F.

Seeing as I was, indeed, the tallest one in my class that year, it wasn’t hard for me to reach the row of four worn black knobs keeping watch over the double oven in our kitchen. “Mom, I set it for ‘bake,’ right?” I asked. I opened the door and pulled out the heavy stack of pans and cookie sheets that mom always stored in the oven. Having positioned the stack safely on the counter, I reached for the first knob in the row and turned it so that the faded white line sat just under the number “350.”

2. Spoon the jelly into a small bowl and stir until it is smooth. Set aside.

I reached into the cupboard, second one to the left of the oven, and grabbed a small cereal bowl on my way to the fridge. The jar of Knott’s Berry Farm raspberry jam sat patiently waiting for me in the door of the fridge. The illustration on the recipe page displayed tiny cookies with red and yellow tops. Raspberry jam is red! I thought. Perfect. Setting the jar on the counter, I pulled open the drawer below and grabbed a small spoon. Measuring cup, measuring cup, where’s the measuring cup? I wondered. All of a sudden I could picture mom cooking last year’s Thanksgiving dinner and I wandered over to a cupboard on the other side of the sink. Yes! I stood on my toes and reached up to the second shelf, carefully taking the glass measuring cup by its thick handle. One, two, three heaping spoonfuls of jam did the trick, and I spooned the jam from the measuring cup into the bowl, stirring until the jam was shiny and as smooth as yogurt.

3. In a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, blend together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.

I snatched a long wooden spoon, cracked slightly at the tip, from the canister painted in pastel flowers that sat on the counter next to the stove. Unpeeling the paper wrapper from the soft stick of butter, my fingers became shiny and smooth with grease. The butter fell clumsily into the bowl now sitting on the counter. Having not yet fully developed my controlling Type A kitchen tendencies, I used my unwashed greasy fingers to pull the top off the pastel-flowered canister that held the white sugar. I tipped the canister toward me so that I could see inside, peering at the worn white plastic scoop that mom always used to collect her sugar. I carefully moved sugar from scoop to measuring cup to bowl, fine grains building a beautiful white pile on top of the butter. I hugged the bowl to my body with my left arm, holding tightly as I stirred and stirred with my right. I watched in awe as sugar blended into butter and white and yellow came together to form little fluffy balls.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and blend until a dough is formed.

Next to the sugar canister sat the one that held the flour. I pulled off the top and poured flour straight from the canister into the measuring cup that was already lightly coated with grains of sugar. I patted the top of the flour down with the back of a silver spoon so that I could see the line that read “1 ¾ cups.” It would be years before I would learn how to lightly spoon flour into measuring cups, leveling the cup with a knife, or how to weigh flour in a bowl on a kitchen scale. Even baking, a science as much as an art, can work when a youthful love and excitement is added to the ingredient list.

5. Pinch off bits of dough and roll into 1-inch balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Press your fingertip into the centre of each cookie to make a deep little “well” (the dough may crack around the edges—you can pinch it back together if you wish). Fill each well with about ¼ tsp jelly.

My hands worked automatically, as if they already knew exactly what to do. I picked up a small piece of dough and it fell carelessly onto the recipe page. I grabbed it quickly and rolled it slowly, carefully between my hands. The dough started to stick softly to my palms. I held the newly formed ball in the center of my left palm and used my right thumb to gingerly press a little well in the center of the ball. The edges around the divot began to crack so I placed the cookie on the counter to pinch the cracks back together, smoothing out the cookie’s creamy surface. One by one, little ball by little ball of dough, my mind slowed and the movement of my hands, shaping, rolling, pressing, transported me to another place. Calm. Safe. Serene. No mean girls, no heartless boys, no being picked last for the team, no prepubescent acne, no being the tallest girl in the class.

6. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. Remove them to a wire rack to cool. (The jelly will be very hot when you take the cookies out of the oven, so handle them carefully and cool them completely before serving.)

After filling each well with a small dollop of ruby-red jam, I clumsily slid the cookie sheet into the oven, hindered by oven mitts several sizes too large for my hands. I flipped up the switch on the oven and the light flickered on inside. I could see my beautiful cookies, lined up on the sheet in a perfect grid. I stood and stared, watching patiently as the cream discs began to brown and the jam began to bubble around the edges. I jumped as the buzzer went off just above my head. I slid the oven mitts back on my hands and slowly, slowly, slowly pulled the cookie sheet out of the oven and set it on the counter. I was counting on the chill of the tiles to cool the cookies since mom didn’t have a wire rack. I was able to wait only minutes before I plucked a cookie off the pan and, blowing lightly to make sure it was cool enough, took a small bite of dough and jam. The dough instantly crumbled as it hit the moist warmth of my mouth allowing the sweet jam to ooze onto my tongue. For the first time I began to understand what that phrase I often heard adults use meant, as the cookie actually melted in my mouth.

Minutes later the dishes were washed, the oven turned off, and the cookies sat serenely on a white oval platter. My hands were clean but I could still sense the feel of the dough, ready to be molded and shaped with just the right amount of tender loving care. I bent my head down and sniffed lightly at my shirt. The faint scent of butter, sugar, and flour still lingered. And in that moment I knew I would come back to that safe place again and again, forever and ever. I was hooked.

Jelly-Tart Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1/4 cup raspberry jelly or preserves

1 cup salted butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F.

2. Spoon the jelly into a small bowl and stir until it is smooth. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, blend together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and blend until a dough is formed.

6. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. Remove them to a wire rack to cool. (The jelly will be very hot when you take the cookies out of the oven, so handle them carefully and cool them completely before serving.)

Enjoy!

Easy peasy breezy. I mean lunch, of course.

Posted on July 14, 2012

I find that a common debate among my classmates and friends is how much is too much? How busy is too busy? If you’re like me, you prefer to be on the busy side, feeling productive and needed. I’m not sure if this is a product of the society in which we live or a fact of life for humans. Either way, we struggle to find a balance of time spent working to make money, working to further our careers and passions, studying for class, building friendships, having fun, and simply relaxing with some solo time. Do you guys struggle with this, too?

A friend of mine recently decided to get in over her head by working full-time and taking classes four nights a week. Don’t worry, she gave me permission to describe her situation this way. Plus, I’m like the ultimate best supportive friend ever so I make up for blogging about her craziness by feeding her. Obviously. We have class together twice a week right now and her lack of time to eat any substantial form of a meal inspired the creation of this salad.

Easy to make and easy to transport, I now rely on this salad as a healthy lunch option and, of course, as a way to feed my friend! The cilantro and green onion add a really wonderful freshness to this salad, and the creaminess of the dressing and avocado pair deliciously with salty, crunchy corn chips. It saves well for 3-4 days without the flavors changing or diminishing, and I’m sure this would be a hit at a summer bbq or party. And, as you can see, this meal is vibrantly chock full of red, green, and yellow whole foods — always a good sign that you’re consuming a meal that will not only please your taste buds, but your body, too.

If you’re a vegetarian, this would be equally delicious without the chicken, but consider adding more beans for substance. The wonderful thing about this recipe is how flexible it is — add or subtract ingredients as you see fit, based on your tastes or what you have available to you. This salad is delicious served with a heaping pile of your favorite corn chips, or for a slightly healthier option you could put it over a bed of lettuce. Either way, enjoy every bite!

Avocado Chicken Salad

Yield: 3-4 meal size servings

Ingredients

Extra virgin olive oil

1 medium chicken breast, baked and shredded

1 large avocado, chopped

1/2 cup whole black beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered

1/4 cup corn, fresh or frozen

1/4 cup green onions, chopped

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

3 tablespoons white vinegar

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Fresh cracked pepper and salt to taste

Directions

Heat the oven to 425° F. Line a baking sheet with tin foil. Pour a small amount of extra virgin olive oil on the tin foil and add a sprinkling of salt and a generous amount of freshly cracked pepper.

Rub both sides of the chicken breast in the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Bake the chicken for 15 minutes or until cooked through.

When the chicken is cooked, put it on a plate and allow to cool while you prep the rest of the salad.

In a large bowl, combine the avocado, black beans, tomatoes, corn, green onions, and cilantro.

Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, shred it into small pieces with your hands. Add the chicken to the bowl of other ingredients.

Add the white vinegar and mayonnaise to the bowl. Add a small amount of salt and a generous amount of freshly cracked pepper.

Taste the salad and add additional vinegar, mayonnaise, salt, or pepper as needed.

Taste the rainbow.

Posted on July 26, 2012

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The safety of butter, sugar, and flour.

Posted on July 21, 2012

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Easy peasy breezy. I mean lunch, of course.

Posted on July 14, 2012

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