Kale Chips, So Good You'll Forget They're Good For You Recipe
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Kale Chips, So Good You'll Forget They're Good For You
Who doesn't like snacks? After a long day of writing, working on a script, untangling story knots, what do we do? We watch movies. Nothing like watching someone else's struggle with story problems to help one relax. Since we write comedy, what do we like to watch when we're free of the office for the day? Drama, Horror, Action, Thrillers almost anything but comedy. Don't get me wrong. I loved The Hangover as much as the next guy, but for free time viewing, I want to be kept on the edge of my seat.
I also want snacks. I have a theory about snacks and movies. It's hard to eat while laughing. Laughing, the mouth is open and stuff can get in there, but if you keep laughing it's not going to go anywhere but on the floor. Ever heard of a spit take? In case you haven't.
Snacks don't go with this. Snacks go with scaryhorrorthrilling.
I've gone through my share of snacks in my day. I've been obsessed with a quite a few sweet/salty crunchy treats. There was a nasty little chiccarones habit. I used to come home from our office at the studio and gobble them by the fistful until finally they made me throw up. I was done with pork rinds. I quit cold turkey.
I had a brief flirtation with French, burnt peanuts until for some reason "they" stopped making them. There was no name on the bag so I never knew who to write to. There was the salted sesame stick fling of two years ago, the toffee peanuts, and finally my chipping around with homemade kettle corn. These snacks as good as they were, always made me feel guilty, dirty if you will. Because I always felt I was doing something wrong, bad for me. Where oh where was the ultimate healthy treat? Something that I could feel good about. Something that I could take out of my hoodie pocket and introduce to Alan without shame. Something that I could give the proud answer to the question, "What are you eating in there????" "Nuuuffffing" (big swallow). I think I have found my dream snack. Kale chips! Yes, you read that correctly, kale.
A couple of months ago, I bought the Peko Peko Cookbook which was put together by my friend La Fuji Mama and a group of fellow Food Bloggers in support of Japanese Earthquake Recovery.
It took me a while to get around to trying some of the recipes in the book and the other day, I finally decided to give it a try. I flipped open the book to Kale Chips. Hmm I thought, could this be a tasty crunchy snack that could actually be good for me? There was only one way to find out. Try making them.
Now kale chips in a bag at the market cost about 7.99. I am too cheap to go down that path. I figured homemade is the best way to go. I found some amazing organic kale at the Farmers Market for 1.99. I was already ahead of the bargain. The rest was easy, easy easy.
Kale Chips
Here's what to do:
Rinse, dry and tear the kale into bite size pieces.
For the rest, you need 3 simple ingredients.
- In a separate bowl mix together:
- 3 Tbs of toasted sesame oil
- 2 tsp of rice wine vinegar
- 1 Tbs of Seaweed Gomashio (which is seaweed, sesame and salt)
Put the shredded kale into the bowl of dressing and mix it around well.
Put the pieces of kale onto a parchment paper covered cookie sheet.
Make sure the leaves are not piled on top of each other. Put them into a preheated 350 degree oven for 15 minutes until they're nice and crispy (You may need to bake the kale in three or four shifts so the leaves don't get overcrowded) and then enjoy. It's that fast, and that good!
I'm going to be trying some of the other Peko Peko recipes soon, but for now my new main squeeze are these crispy baked kale chips.
Coming up next, I read a tweet from @DeepFoods that sent me off on a craving I had to satisfy. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori