Brown Butter, Kale Chips, and Jesus

I've been finding a lot of joy in cooking and baking these days. It's fun for me to try out new recipes and techniques, and sometimes the process is just as rewarding as the end product. 

Recently, I made Nutella Stuffed Brown Butter Sea Salt Cookies (I actually didn't add the sea salt because they were so good without it). You guys. These cookies are incredible. Like, SO GOOD. But they are quite time consuming to make and a little frustrating. It's definitely not a oh-I'm-in-the-mood-for-cookies-let-me-whip-something-up type cookie. The whole process probably takes about 3-4 hours (but two of those hours is just letting the dough chill). Anyway, they will blow your mind. One of the ingredients is brown butter, something I'd never made before. You essentially heat and whisk butter over medium heat until it turns a light amber color and gives off a nutty aroma. It is DELICIOUS in these cookies. I think it's rather easy to burn, but I thankfully had success both times I tried. 

There's a little of what the process looks like. If you decide to make the cookies or want to try brown butter, the link I posted to the cookie recipe also has really easy to follow instructions. 

The next thing I tried that I fell in love with was kale chips. I was a little late to the kale bandwagon. I mean, it's super popular recently, but I had no memory of ever having kale and not much interest in trying it. And then my friend Laura made me kale pesto pasta. Oh my gosh, so good. And I kept hearing about kale chips so I figured I'd give them a try - kale is really cheap, by the way, and super nutritious.

Anyway, kale chips are the easiest thing in the world. Just wash and dry your kale (I used two big leaves for this batch), rip it off the big stem and into bite size pieces, put it on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and season how you like (I used salt, pepper, and garlic powder - duh.), and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 min until the edges are brown but not burnt. They taste like potato chips. I'm not kidding. I used a little too much oil on my first batch so I'll scale that down next time - I might even try just using my olive oil cooking spray to cut down on the calories. 

Voila! Kale chips!

K, one last thing. Jesus is just good. Really. I know that sounds obvious, especially if you are a believer, but the depth of that truth has been hitting home lately. I've been reading the Gospel of John for a few months now and the way that Jesus loves and who He shows His love to is incredible. He was so counter-cultural, so unconcerned with the stigmas associated with certain people. I'm trying to love like that. I'm trying to give myself away. I'm trying to love the people that make me uncomfortable and the people that are driving me crazy. I'm not doing the best. My selfishness is deep and my pride is ever-constant. But Jesus is better. His grace is enough. It is. I mostly believe that. And the more I live into it, the less my own sin gets in the way and the more He shines through. He's good, you guys.

Peace, 

Emily