Spinach & Pesto Wheatberry Salad

Today was my first day back in the kitchen after a two-week accidental cooking hiatus. It wasn’t that I was purposely trying not to cook, just that I haven’t really been home. And I have to say, picking up my chef’s knife felt great.

One of the dishes I made was a long time coming. The inspiration of making a spinach and pesto salad stemmed from one I’d had at Protein Bar a few weeks back (Protein Bar is a fairly new fast food chain in Chicago and a brilliant concept at that). That dish came with quinoa, but I wanted to change it up a bit to incorporate a different whole grain I haven’t used before – wheat berries.

I started by cooking the wheat berries (which I got for about 65 cents from the bulk foods section at Whole Foods), then moved on to the pesto, which was a bit different from a traditional basil pesto. While it does include basil, I also added spinach and arugula to give it a light and super fresh taste, which went wonderfully with the slightly earthy taste of the wheat berries. When the wheat berries were done, I mixed in the pesto, a handful of baby spinach, quartered cherry tomatoes and toasted pine nuts to round out the dish. You can also easily bulk this up into a main dish by adding chicken, which is exactly what I’m going to do for lunch tomorrow.

So, about those wheat berries: 1) They come in different varieties, but for this recipe look for hard red winter wheat berries if available; 2) A general ratio for cooking wheat berries is 1:3 (1 cup wheat berries to 3 cups water), but if there’s water leftover at the end simply drain the wheat berries through a strainer; 3) The cooked texture should be chewy but not too firm; 4) Wheat berries are a whole grain – you can read about why they’re good for you here.

Here’s the recipe. Give wheat berries a try and tell me what you think.

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I first heard about these brownies a few weeks ago when a very pregnant Jessica Simpson raved about them on The Tonight Show. She talked about how these decadent brownies were, like, the best thing ever. Slutty Brownies are essentially a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough topped with Oreos (I used double-stuffed) topped with brownie batter, and then it’s all baked together.

And why are they called “Slutty” brownies? She said it was because of how rich and over-the-top they are, and probably because you feel a little naughty after eating one, but I’d rather call them Poncho Brownies because after I eat one, all I wanted to do is cover up. But damn, they really are worth it.

You’ll find a ton of recipes and interpretations of Slutty Brownies if you Google it, and most call for using store-bought cookie dough and brownie mix. This is totally fine, but me being me I like to make it all myself. Well, not the Oreos, but the rest. You get the point.

The recipes I used were the standard Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (a classic and always a hit) and a standard chocolate brownie recipe from Gourmet Magazine/Epicurious that I halved.

This was actually my second attempt at making Slutty Brownies – the first was a comedy of errors with everything that could go wrong actually going wrong (I used pan that was too small so the batter never baked, somehow punctured a hole in the bottom of the aluminum baking pan and would up with a major spill and smoke billowing from the oven, and I slightly burned by finger). With a new brownie recipe, bigger pan and a calm head, this time things turned out much better.

Here’s the recipe:

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Vegan creamed kale is delicious! Huh? Say what?

Yup, that was my reaction when a co-worker excitedly told me about this pre-packaged dish she had bought at Whole Foods. Now I do love me some greens but I was a little confused by the concept of something being both vegan and creamed – I mean, that statement alone is more than a little contradictory – but also intrigued. I had to try this for myself.

Fast forward a week and I found myself at Whole Foods where I tracked down this product in the refrigerated section. I took it home, heated it up and had to agree – this kale, miso, onion and cashew concoction was amazing. A quick search of the Whole Foods website and I found the recipe, or at least one similar to it.

Today I finally made the recipe for myself and had to share it with you. It’s really quite simple – simmer a chopped onion in vegetable broth, purée it with all the other ingredients except the kale, then simmer the kale in the blended mixture until tender. I made very few changes to the original recipe (swapped the amounts for vegetable broth and soy milk, which was almond milk, and set aside a spoonful of onions before pureeing to add texture to the final dish).

Definitely give this a try next time you’re up for something hearty, nutritious, interesting and really tasty.

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I know I’ve posted my fair share of soups and stews over the past few years, but it’s for a good reason – I love cooking these types of foods! Along with sauces, soups are fun. You can change the flavors as you go – add a bit more of this, a dash of that. It’s the type of cooking that allows you to be truly creative and experimental. It’s just fun. Well, that and delicious.

My latest is a new turkey chili recipe that I made a few times this winter. It’s really simple – I mean, half the ingredients come from cans – but has tremendous flavor that you can make as strong or as mild as you like. The main spices in this version are garlic, cumin, curry powder and smoked Paprika, but the overall flavor is actually a little on the sweeter side which comes from the vegetables – onion, carrot and red pepper. Oh, and did I mention that I top it with avocado? Seriously this is a keeper.

If you like your chili to be spicier, definitely kick up the paprika or use a spicier chili powder (I personally like the smoked flavor of the Hungarian smoked paprika). Here’s the recipe.

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Chocolate chip cookies are classic, something we all grew up eating and my family was no exception. They’re the cookie my mom would whip up for bake sales and make as a “cake” for my birthday parties with frosting. There was even a year in junior high when all I ate for lunch each day was a chocolate chip cookie and carton of chocolate milk (sorry, mom, that’s what I was really doing with my lunch money).

And don’t even get me started on chocolate chip cookie dough! I’d eat the individually frozen dough balls from Market Days right out of the freezer as an after school snack, and in high school my friends and I would share a roll of store-bought chocolate chip cookie dough and eat it with spoons.

While ubiquitous, to me chocolate chip cookies are also conventional. And although I wouldn’t call myself cutting edge in pretty much anything (I mean, come on, look at my shoes), I don’t usually make this cookie because there’s no challenge to it.

This takes me to a few years back when a recipe from The New York Times was making the rounds in the blogosphere. I wasn’t interested. After all, they’re just chocolate chip cookies, right?

Luckily, my friend Jenn paid attention and began making these cookies, which turned out to be absolutely freaking delicious. I’d even go so far as to call them a game-changer.

Whenever we’d talk about these cookies – and, oddly enough, they came up in conversation quite often – I always referred to this recipe as “aged chocolate chip cookies,” because that was really the trick, letting the batter rest (or age) in the fridge for 24 to 72 hours. But I never made them myself. They were her thing, not to mention waiting for the dough to age required patience and planning, two things that don’t really suit me.

I finally had a wake up call a few weeks ago after visiting Jenn in San Francisco. The first thing she gave me when I got off the BART was one of her aged chocolate chip cookies. It had been a while since I’d had one and I forgot just how freaking good these cookies were. That’s when I made the decision: I need to start making these myself – they’re just too good not to have on a regular basis. Or semi-regular basis, given this is the time of year for fruitless resolutions.

And did I mention these cookies are huge? But don’t try to make them smaller – it’s part of their charm. Also, the ingredients are kind of specific but once you have them, just think of all the cookies you can make!

So here’s my advice: make a batch. Freeze them for portion control. And then eat them whenever you need a delicious bite of comfort food or as a reward for making it through spin class. That’s my plan, anyways.

Happy New Year!

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