You guys, we kind of have a love affair with Mendocino Farms, the California local chain of delicious sandwiches and salads. For years, we have been ordering the Save Drake’s Farm Salad and we’ve been happy with that. But then one day, my coworker told me about the Kale Caesar Salad and I ordered in on a whim: and guys, I fell deeply in love.

This salad is so good. It is so simple and yet is so amazingly delicious. It’s half kale and half butter lettuce with grape tomatoes, red onions, avocados, toasted wheat berries, and this lemon dressing that is to die for. And, of course, we added chicken because the chicken at Mendocino is oh-so-moist.

I have had it so many times that I basically started living at Mendocino, and then my office moved and now we are nowhere near one. So of course the only choice I had was to recreate it myself so I can have it any day I want.

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

roast chicken
1 head butter lettuce
1 bunch kale
1 red onion, sliced thinly
1 avocado, diced
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 quarter cup wheat berries
Becca’s Dressing

Directions:

1. Start by roasting a chicken. You can use Jamie’s Chicken in Milk like we did. You can also buy a rotisserie chicken or deli chicken.
2. Slice your onion, dice your avocado, and quarter your cherry tomatoes.
3. Toast your wheat berries: take them and put them in a nonstick pan and toast them over medium heat until most of them pop – you will be able to smell them as well.
4. Make Becca’s dressing. While not exactly the same, this is pretty close to the original.
5. Now put it all together – add equal parts butter lettuce and kale, then layer on top onion, avocado, and cherry tomatoes. Next, sprinkle on a layer of wheat berries and add your chicken and Becca’s dressing. Mix well and serve. This amount will make 2-4 servings depending on how big you want your salads.

While I still love Mendocino and go there as often as I can, this has been a great substitute for me to have in the lulls between my trips. I suggest you make this as soon as you can so that you can have a bright and amazing salad, and a little of California where you are, too!

If you saw (and/or wept tears of inspiration and joy during, like I did) the “Like a Girl” campaign during the Super Bowl last weekend, then you now know how to run and punch like a girl. Well, come 2016 we’re also going to learn how to fight ghosts like a girl. By four of my favorite comedian juggernauts. And girls. I’m getting emotional again just thinking about it.

So I thought I’d do what I do best and bake a treat in their honor (and pull a script off the shelf of the Writers Guild Foundation Library).

Here, at Fanboy Comics and the Writers Guild Foundation blog you’ll find a glorious conglomeration of cake, photos, recipe and script pages from the original GHOSTBUSTERS draft written by Dan Aykroyd in 1983. This script has been flying off the shelf of the Foundation Library like the card catalogs in the opening scene of the original film (although the WGF Library is less haunted by ghosts than aspiring screenwriters and film scholars – although we welcome all types, dead or alive).

May this weird and wonderful mixture of food and media be my tribute to girls doing their thing everywhere and one small fist in the air for gender bending remakes.

Ingredients

1 box King Arthur Flour Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix
½ cup butter
2 tablespoons coconut oil
4 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 package green Jello (I used lime flavored)
1 carton whipping cream

Directions

1. Prepare the cake mix per the instructions from the intrepid souls at King Arthur Flour.
2. Let the cake cool for 5 minutes in its pan, then gently remove and place on a cooling rack.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the jello packet according to the instructions.
4. When the cake is completely cooled, put back into the pan and using a knife or fork, poke holes, from top to bottom, all over the cake.
5. Pour the liquid Jello over the cake, focusing especially on the holes you just poked. (pour a small bit of Jello into a cup and refrigerate if you would like to top your cake with ectoplasm like we did).
6. Refrigerate the cake for at least an hour.
7. Beat the whipping cream until it forms stiff peaks. Frost as you like. Enjoy!

Today’s post is brought to you by our friend Vanessa. She runs Garibali Goods, an amazing online store of curated California goodies. As we roll into February, we want you to remember those resolutions you made around the new year and kitchen your kitchen into shape – and Vanessa’s here to help. Check out her tips below and her delish pantry faves that you can get on her site!

Kick off February with a kitchen cleanse. Turn resolutions into reality by building a sustainable, organized pantry that will help carry you through the year – it will make make meal prep more efficient and you’ll cut down on fresh food waste. Your kitchen awaits you.

Begin by cleaning out your pantry of stale spices and expired items. Combine half-empty bags of pasta, and label and sort through canned goods placing older products toward the front (where you can actually see and hopefully USE them.) If you amass bags of alternative flours from the bulk section (as we tend to) throw them all together in a glass jar labeled “multi-grain flour” – ideal for pancakes and waffles or to bump up the flavor profile in whole grain yeast breads.

Once you’ve sorted and streamlined, it’s time to restock! California has some of the best agriculture and one of the longest growing seasons in the country. As a result, we have a vast array of high-quality produce available for fresh eating and preserving. From heirloom beans and grains, to specialty Italian olive varietals and rare citrus, finding interesting pantry goods couldn’t be easier.

Seeking out local pantry goods is a benefit to your community. It means your money goes directly to small farmers, growers, and food artisans who work hard to maintain traditional cooking methods and preserve the season’s best; people who celebrate diversity of cuisine and produce.

Make your pantry work for you. It should be a collection of goods you’re excited to cook with – not sad bags of unknown beans you’re forced to throw into a pot of chili! Get to know what’s regional and applicable to your household palate and cooking style. Then stock items you love and look forward to using. You’ll find that creativity follows.

Pasta: We all reach for pasta mid-week when there seems to be no time, no energy and nothing fresh in the fridge. This line of hearty, semolina pasta from Los Angeles producer Semolina Artisan Pasta is made using traditional bronze die extraction and comes in long, short, and medium shapes. Use them in baked pasta dishes, with sauce, or added to quick soups and stews.

Olive Oil: A great, everyday olive oil is essential and does far more than serve as a fat for sautéing. Shorty Extra Virgin Olive Oil from San Francisco-based Other Brother Company, has a refined, green yet buttery flavor. The oil works well in vinaigrettes, brushed over pan-fried fish, or drizzled over tomato basil soup. Or think outside the box and spoon over vanilla bean ice cream.

Canned Smoked Tuna: Think of preserved fish as an accompanying ingredient, instead of the headliner. This pole and line caught albacore tuna is cleaned, smoked and processed out of Moro Bay, and distributed by Community Seafood. It’s a sustainable protein choice and can be added to pasta, leafy green or legume salads, or served over toasted bread, tartine-style.

Mustard: Never underestimate the power of a great whole grain mustard. This stout beer-infused version from Santa Cruz’s Pantry House Goods has the perfect balance of tangy, spicy, savory crunch that works well with roasted vegetables and meat. Whisk into yogurt and use to marinate fish, brush over lamb skewers, or combine with olive oil and toss with roasted cauliflower and broccoli.

Smoked Chipotle Sunflower Seed Butter: Everyone should have a few secret weapons in the kitchen for times when mulling over spice combinations is overwhelming. The mild spice and nutty backbone of this Smoked Chipotle Sunflower Seed Butter, made in Santa Barbara by Rock Rose Provisions, is our go-to flavor enhancer. Add a spoonful to browned onions and garlic for a chili base, or spread onto tortillas then top with carnitas or grilled chicken.

What about your guys? What do you keep always in your pantry? Several types of rice? Canned clams? Mac and cheese? Let us know in the comments – we’re always looking to round out our pantry!

The beet is an underrated vegetable. It’s pretty, earthy, healthy, and straight up delicious. It even has a sense of humor! So what gives, world? We think the beet should be your new veggie BFF. Show it some love this month and let it hang out on your computer, tablet, and iPhone! Will you beet my valentine?

This post comes from Nikki, Jennie’s older, wiser, and less likely to follow a recipe-r, sister. She peppers the blog off and on, but she’s been off having the cutest baby of all time. Now that he’s nearly one, she’ll be around her monthly to give us a more seasonally appropriate recipe from Chicago, and always, always a laugh.

*****

Listen, chickens. I’m coming at you from the not-so-hot-and-sunny Chicago, where unlike our sweaty, tanned LA counterparts, we’re forced to be bundled up and hunkered down. This means that it’s the season of sautéed greens, warm polenta, and meaty comfort food. Enter the Fork, Knife, Swoon’s Spanish meatballs.

My two best friends and constant kitchen and life companions joined me over large glasses of red wine (a Chicago kitchen must) and we got down to it. This recipe, slightly adapted and then added to, was exactly the kind of bright, friendly dish you need to forget all about the fact that we’ve got at least two more months of cabin fever ahead of us.

We added sautéed greens and polenta to the recipe, which I’ve outlined below, but to be honest, the more wine we drink, the more everything becomes about the most important cooking basic: do what feels right.

It’s usually delicious. For the entire Spanish-Style Meatball recipe complete with spicy sauce, check out the recipe here. (Editor’s Note: We highly recommend you check this out, if only because it includes getting to designate someone as “Meat Paws.”)

For the polenta and sautéed greens, which pretty much should be a side to all meals, let me give you the quick and dirty. We sliced garlic and toasted pine nuts (a couple of cloves of the first, a few handfuls of the second) in olive oil, and then threw in a bag of Trader Joe’s rainbow chard, but you could use spinach or arugula. We just happened to have it on hand. After sautéing it for about five minutes or so, we threw in some golden raisins, because we felt like offsetting the nuttiness of garlic and pine nuts with something sweet. My only note: go easy on the raisins, it’s easy to overdo it.

As for the polenta, we used four cups water to one cup polenta. Boil the water, throw in the polenta, and whisk as if your life depends on it for five minutes or so. Cover it and leave it alone for about ten minutes, or until it solidifies.

After that, we threw in leftover cheese from the meatballs (if you don’t have any, use parmesan- a little goes a long way) and also, leftover parsley. Parsley in polenta is life changing. Once it was done, we layered our bowls polenta, greens, meatballs, grabbed another glass of wine, and settled in for another long winter’s night.

Enjoy, chickadees!