Monday, May 20, 2013

Kale yeah.

Ignore the cheesy title, I'm still new at this!

One of the refreshing things about summer is how much easier it is to eat ice cream and grilled burgers and s'mores light, nutritious foods. Kale became the newest health craze last summer, and I quickly hopped on the bandwagon. It wasn't an immediate love though- by itself, kale has a very strong and rather bitter taste. Luckily there's a trick to making it taste delicious: baking it!

Now before I jump into divulging the recipe, I'm going to do some edumacatin'. I knew kale was good- no, kinda fantastic- for you, but I didn't know why. So in case you don't either, here's what I found from some good old-fashioned googling:

-It's low-cal. A cup of these greens contains a mere 36 calories!

-But it's chock full of the good stuff. Kale packs in 5 grams of fiber, 15% of your daily calcium and B6 needs, 40% of magnesium, 180% of Vitamin A, 200% of Vitamin C, and 1020-freakin-percent of Vitamin K. And the list goes on with minerals I didn't even know were good for you. 

-More about that Vitamin K... Research shows that eating a diet with lots of that special K can reduce the overall risk of getting cancer.  It's vital for basic body stuff like bone health and blood clotting.


Pretty convincing stuff.

Okay, now that we're through with the health lesson of the day, here's how to make it taste as good as it is for you.

Courtney's Kale Chips
Prep time: 5 minutes
Bake time: 20 minutes

Step one: preheat your oven to 300 degrees; grab lots of baby kales and rinse them off with cool water.


Step two: pat them dry (or at least so they're not still sopping wet).


Step three: put kale in a bowl and drizzle a little olive oil over them; mix with your hands; optional: really feel yourself connected to nature as you do so.



Step four: line a baking sheet with foil for easy clean-up; spread out the kale.


Step five: add your seasonings! I like sea salt, nutritional yeast (which tastes a bit like cheese), and this cajun seasoning to spice things up a little.


Step six (optional): take a few artsy photos while waiting for the oven to be ready. Once ready, pop it in and set timer for 20 minutes.




Step seven: when they're ready, pull them out and place them in a bowl. They're ready to be eaten immediately!

I had to stop myself from eating them all before I took the picture.

My mom and I couldn't get enough of the crispy, savorysalty taste, and my dad (who is a pretty conservative carnivorous type) didn't think they were awful! Progress, people.

These made the perfect little appetizer for our Sunday evening dinner of tilapia and rice. My body probably has me on goddess status the way I've been nourishing it.

xo
Courtney

2 comments:

  1. this looks sooo tasty! have never actually tried this, but i will, definitely:)
    lots and lots of love from switzerland and thanks for the idea!
    xxx
    http://fromarmanitozurich.blogspot.ch

    ReplyDelete
  2. I need to just suck it up and try this! I've tried a few kale recipes, but for some odd reason, never the chips - project!

    ReplyDelete

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