Welcome & Kale Chips

Greetings ALL and welcome to my newest blog!  I am a full-time, 6th grade teacher in Upstate New York.  Between life, family, career, boyfriend, apartment, I always feel like I have little to no time for ANYTHING.  But in January, I decided to start making changes to my diet.  That does NOT mean that I am "dieting."  In fact, I am doing far from that.  I simply, or not so simply, am slowly making changes to what I eat to incorporate more natural, organic, whole foods and to cut out processed, well, junk.  It's a slow transformation, but I am starting this blog as a way to begin to chronicle new and interesting, and delicious I might add, recipes, along with any other cute DIY/random ideas that I might find fun.  I have to thank my blog-friend, Mor over at A Teacher's Treasure for her post on eating healthy.  She inspired and re-reminded me that I wanted to share my ideas online.  So world, here they are!

Let's start off with my new addiction: Kale Chips

Meet Kale:

Up until, well, January I have never eaten this stuff.  It looks weird, sounds weird, but I saw so many people posting about kale, I decided to give it a try.  IT'S DELICIOUS when cooked into chip-form (what isn't?), and kale chips are the best substitute I've come up with for eating as a potato chip substitute.  Believe me, I love my potato chips.  This bag is great, I can get it at my local wholesale food store for around $2.

olive oil, kale, garlic salt

These are the only things you need to make kale chips!  Line a pan with aluminum foil.  Lay the kale in an even layer (you will have to do several "batches").  I like to remove the harder "spines" of the kale but that's just my preference.  Lightly add olive oil.  You do NOT want them to be dripping or the chips are soggy!  Then, sprinkle and shake with some garlic salt.  All of the other recipes I found used some form of regular salt.  I tried it and didn't like the spinach-y flavor leftover.  The garlic salt works WONDERS!  Heat in a 350-400 degree oven for around 10 minutes and then check.  Sometimes it takes awhile but sometimes it doesn't.  The trick is to catch them when they are a deep green...right BEFORE they turn this odd, brownish, purpleish color, which makes them gross and bitter.  It has taken me a lot of trial and error, and I'm not perfect at it yet but they taste SO DELICIOUS.  So go ahead, give kale a chance. :-)

Eat Right, Be Happy.