When your close friend and co-worker asks you to guest post on her cooking blog, you pretty much say yes. One reason is that Jenny is not the kind of person to whom you can give a “sure, maybe! someday!” answer and hope that she’ll forget to bring it up again. Because she won’t forget. Ever.

Another reason is that, when you’re friends with someone who kicks ass at a full time job, works out constantly, runs her own cooking blog, and manages to be a happy, fun, interesting person all the time, saying no to one tiny little blog post will make you feel like a weenie.

The last reason is that it means you get to talk about your friend on the internet. So, 3 things I love about Jenny:

1. Jenny will make you believe that you are the funniest person in the room. Because she laughs at everything. Not necessarily because you’re funny, but because Jenny just laughs when she’s happy. And that girl is always happy. I tell myself that I am the exception to this rule, and that I am actually as hilarious as she makes me think I am. You should tell yourself that, too, but we should never discuss our theories together.
2. Jenny will try anything once. Like the time I made her try eating Paleo for a month. I think she quit after 11 days because there was too much cooking involved. And now she writes a cooking blog. I’m sure they’re related somehow. Or the time I made her eat horse meat sashimi in Japan. Ok fine, that wasn’t Jenny. It was her husband, Jason, but I needed another example. Really, though, Jenny is very adventurous and a great person to drag along to try something new.
3. Jenny will analyze the shit out of any topic with you. Need to quantify the exact ratio of your work-life balance? Jenny will find an equation. Need to evaluate whether it’s the right time for you, your loved one, or a perfect stranger to have a baby? Go look for Jenny. Need to stack rank all of your coworkers in order of people you’d least want to be arranged married to? Jenny’s your girl.

Anyhoo. Cooking. Like I said, Jenny rejected my Paleo lifestyle choices many years ago, but she still manages to eat everything that I make for her. Including this chicken salad, which is a fun twist on a classic, inspired by a dish at Whole Foods. I agree with everything that Whole Foods does. Same with NPR. This recipe requires you to make your own mayo. Which you should do anyway, because store-bought mayo contains vegetable oils and other weird things. Plus it’s super easy to make. But if you’re a big cheater (or if you don’t have the immersion blender required to make this a breeze), you can use store-bought mayo and add in the chipotle sauce. Ya cheater.

Instructions: For the salad:
~4 cups shredded or cubed chicken meat (If you’re smart or lazy or both, consider pulling apart a rotisserie chicken.)
1 apple, chopped (I used an organic Honeycrisp, because I think they’re the best.)
1 cup dried cranberries or dried cherries (Keep it sugar-free to make it Paleo!)
1 cup fennel, chopped (You can use either the stalks, which look like celery, or the bulb. I prefer the bulb, but this time I used the stalks so that I could roast the bulb for a separate recipe.)
chopped walnuts

Chop/shred up and combine all ingredients in a big bowl.

Instructions: For the mayo:
1 egg yolk
1 cup healthy oil (Good options are avocado oil or macadamia nut oil, but they’re pricey. To keep it more affordable, find a light-tasting olive oil at any standard grocery store. It will literally say “light tasting” on the bottle. Bertolli makes one.)
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1-4 Tbsp. sauce from 1 can of chipotles in adobo sauce, to taste (add some peppers if you like it real spicy)
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
Salt
Pepper

Place the egg yolk, apple cider vinegar, and oil in a tall container suitable for an immersion blender. Turn the blender on, and watch in amazement as your ingredients become mayo in ~30 seconds. Stop the blender, add in the adobo sauce, garlic powder, salt, and pepper (all to taste), and blend again. Keep adjusting until you like the flavor, then pour mayo over salad and mix well. (Mayo will firm up a little in the fridge.) Add more salt and pepper to taste. Serve on a bed of greens, by itself, or as a sandwich or wrap (if grains are your thing). Eat up!