The roasted corn and tomato pasta dish with pesto was not complete without an appetizer and dessert. Many glasses of red wine and a stomach completely full of pasta, I couldn't resist bringing out the peanut butter cookies I had made earlier that day to share with everyone and continue our lovely conversation. There was so much to talk about anyways, I didn't want anyone to leave. We had moved on to talking about the similarities between babies and older people, and then moved on to alzheimer's, and stories about my Bolivian friend's Bolivian grandfather who has alzheimer's and yet remains active and healthy. It's a weird dynamic to be around someone who can't remember you and who brings their own secret life to your reality in ways you can't understand. I gave my friend a copy of my other friend's Water for Elephants, which you should read too.
These cookies are probably the best pb cookies I have ever made, thanks again to Heidi Swanson and her peanut butter cookies recipe. They're made with olive oil, maple syrup and sea salt. I've never made them with syrup, but opt for agave nectar, though I'm sure if you have real maple syrup from vermont or maine, or even canada on hand, they will be drop-dead delicious. I've made them before with sea salt, but don't have any here so I used regular kosher salt.
For the cookies, first mix together flour, which I used whole wheat, as always, baking soda, and the kosher salt, in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, mix together the peanut butter, which I prefer to use chunky and definitely unsalted, though I ran out and had to use a small amount of creamy salted that was in the fridge and the agave nectar, olive oil and vanilla. Mix that all together and slowly add the flour mixture, mixing well with a wooden spoon until everything has been blended together just perfectly.
Grease a baking sheet and, with your hands, grab about 2 tbsp of the batter with your hands and roll into a ball. Place onto the sheet and press down to flatten it out. The first batch cooked just like this and then on the second batch, I remembered to use a fork to flatten it out even more and make the pretty criss-cross designs. They tasted the same, it's all a matter of presentation... I cook them at 350 degrees for 10 minutes until still soft, but slightly browned... after all there are no eggs in the batter and they can get too dry.
The cookies go fast so I don't know how long they can be stored for, probably 7 days in an airtight container. I gave a couple to my friends, both graduates from my school and who still live in town because of grad school and that's where one grew up. I'll talk more about them later though... My "housemate" who LOVES any and all baked goods finished them up.
Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 cup agave nectar
1 cup organic, natural, chunky unsalted peanut butter
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
KALE CHIPS
I don't always start with dessert, but will usually have an appetizer, if anything. While the oven was still going after the cookies were done, I thought I'd attempt to make some kale chips- something I had tried once before and ended up burning so that they left an awful bitter after bite, but which luckily my loving housemates from last year gobbled up in half a day and told me were delicious.
Kale chips have been all the rage in the organic/health food craze lately. Lucky for me, I hate potato chips (I think it's a potato thing that I have) so I don't have to worry too much about having to swap kale for potato. When I was in NY this summer, in a VERY posh place, I saw a teeny bag of kale chips for $12. Plus tax. That's absurd. Kale is probably one of the easiest things to grow and it keeps coming back. Not to mention all the different varieties- there's dinosaur, curly, plain, rape (kind of a weird name...), and they even grow well in cold weather!
After finding some leftover kale from the winter/spring at the farm the previous day, I looked up a recipe on Smitten Kitchen, a cooking blog that a wonderful friend from the camp where I worked this summer turned me on to when he told me about a great challah recipe. There's a lot more than challah and just like 101 cookbooks, everything I've made has been absolutely divine. I found a kale chip recipe and followed it more or less. I tore the hard stems off of the leaves and ripped the leaves into somewhat smaller pieces, knowing that they shrivel up a bit when you bake them.
I mixed them all in a bowl with a little of olive oil, just enough to coat them, but not too much to make them oily, some salt and fresh rosemary. I had to make two batches, but I cooked them at 300 degrees for 20 minutes and they were great!
I can't really give exact measurements for this recipe, but just go with it! If you mess up the first time- as I did, try again! Feel it out.
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