Cooked Celery

First off, I should say that I hate celery. It is one of the few vegetables that I really don't like. I've gotten to the point where I can handle raw celery if I pile enough dip on it but I will still take any other vegetable if it is available!

Over at A Veggie Venture, Alanna posted a challenge to try a new vegetable. I thought this sounded like fun and so I asked Kay about it and she was very receptive. I thought it was only fair that I let her pick the vegetable. I named off tons of vegetables but for some reason she got stuck on celery. I tried to persuade her towards something else but it was no use! I gave in since I didn't want to prejudice her against it just because I didn't like it. Also, we have tons of left over celery from her birthday party this weekend (aparently I'm not the only one who doesn't like it!)

So I pulled out several cookbooks and came up with a combination of recipes that sounded ok. I tried to keep a very open mind about it. Really!
Look how pretty it is. I reminded myself that green is my favorite color. Then I started to cook it and it got an even brighter green!!Then it came out of the oven looking really good. Everything tastes good with bread crumbs on it, right?

Um, yeah, no! Much to my surprise, cooked celery tastes like raw celery. I still didn't like it but I held my opinion until Kay tried it. And what did she think?

Yep - that is not her "yum this is great" face! I was tempted not to post the recipe but I will because someone might like it. I think we just aren't big fans of celery.

To be fair, Bill liked it (he doesn't share my aversion to celery). He thought the pieces that were smaller, and therefore more soft, tasted better.

1 1/2 pounds celery, cut into 3 in strips

2 T margarine

2 tsp olive oil

1 C vegetable broth

1/2 tsp pepper

5 oz cream cheese, cut in cubes

1/2 C bread crumbs mixed with pepper and Italian seasoning

Heat the oil and margarine in a large skillet over high heat. Add the celery and cook for 5 minutes. Add the vegetable broth and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan, and cook for 10 additional minutes.

Remove from heat and add the cream cheese. Stir to combine. Pour into a buttered casserole dish and bake covered at 350 F for 10 minutes. Uncover and top with bread crumb mixture. Bake and additional 5 minutes. Turn on the broiler for about 2-3 minutes until nicely browned.

Kay: I picked celery because I wanted to see how it tasted. If you don't like celery, then put a lot of breadcrumbs. That tasted really good to me.

Mom (Dana): Really I do think that someone who likes celery might like this. It wasn't terrible and I was able to eat it. I just prefer my celery to be more disguised! Also, when Kay says the bread crumbs were good, she isn't kidding. She didn't finish her portion but she did eat all the bread crumbs off of it!