Kale chips!

At a ridiculous hour on a late night stuck in the office during fashion week, one of my co-worker's then chef boyfriend prepared some food for us. He did not like the fact that we were being rationed string cheese and honey wheat pretzels. He brought in the fanciest food I think the office had ever seen. One thing on the menu was kale chips. I really liked these and he explained to me how easy they were to make. I waited quite sometime to try them myself.

I mad a couple batches and am really into them. The one thing is that they don't seem to keep very crispy, so you must eat them all….or share!

(This pic looks like nothing, but I don't like not providing a visual!)

Ingredients:
-bunch of kale
-1 tablespoon of olive oil
-salt and pepper

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Wash kale and dry.
3. Remove stems and tear into chip size pieces.
4. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper on top
5. Bake for about 12 minutes or until leafs get crunchy.

Lemon-Buttermilk Popsicles

After returning from my trip to Nashville last summer and ODing on las Paletas, I went on a kick of trying to make a good popsicle.

I made numerous attempt of making mediocre unsatisfying popsicles until I found this gem of a recipe. Basically I feel that when popsicles are made they flash freeze them because the consistency is quite different. Using a standard freezer, popsicles come out with an icicle. As you lick them the juice comes out and you are left with a plain ice cube. This creamy lemon popsicle has a way better consistency. The recipe calls for buttermilk which when frozen doesn't get quite as hard allowing for great popsicles!

Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons grated lemon peel
- Pinch of salt
- 1 2/3 cups buttermilk

Directions:
- Whisk sugar, lemon juice, lemon peel, and salt until sugar dissolves.
- Add in buttermilk.
- Pour mixture into 8 ice pop molds
- Cover and freeze until firm
(It is best to have dessert already planned for that night because you will have to wait until the next day or at least 4 hours to enjoy!)

This recipe comes from Bon Appetit and the original can be found here.

Madison, Wisconsin: Scrumptious Weekend

A paid a visit to my aunt and uncle out in Madison, Wisconsin last weekend. I ate some amazing food while there and most importantly paid a visit to a cheese factory!

This was my big request for the weekend and Tom made sure I got my dream! We drove to Cedar Grove outside of the city, which was a lovely drive through the country. I was basically enjoy every minute of being out in farm land away from the craziness of the city!

Making cheese is a lengthy process. We got to see them at the point when cheese curds have formed and were being mixed in a big vat. They had just added salt to slow down the acid from breaking it down any further.

From there, the curds will be smooshed down, formed into blocks, cut up, and packaged! In the store, I sampled cheese curds for the first time. They are very rubbery and squeaky as they described them. They tasted fine, but I really didn't like the rubberiness. I'm going to stick to regular old cheese.


Also this weekend, I got to go to the largest producer only farmer's market in the country. Every Saturday local vendors line the square around the Capital. Everyone walks counter clockwise. It is the rule and I'm pretty bad things will happen to you if you don't oblige!

Like my love for grocery stores, I could just walk around this place for hours. I just wished I could have traveled some delectable goodies home. They had huge bunches of basil for dirt cheap I wanted to get super badly.

Here are some images from the market:

Beautiful tomatoes.

Radishes.

Fun shaped squash.

Kohlrabi? I'm unfamiliar with this vegetable!