Ah, fresh veggies. Ripe, in-season fruit. Long, warm days- Oh wait, it's winter. Everything is cold and dead. And the worst is yet to come. I'm a very optimistic person, can't you tell? Despite the cold, i'm still trying to get in the fruits and veggies that make me feel so good. Room temperature smoothies have been keeping me going through the school day, but these conspicuous green concoctions in translucent red nalgene bottles aren't quite enough. I like solid food sometimes too, you know?
Not to mention, I've been mildly addicted to some kale chips at work. However, my budget can't really handle constantly buying these little guys all of the time, along with all of the kombucha I've been enjoying. The kombucha experimentation will come later, hopefully. Maybe sometime in the summer. The kale chips are so easy, essentially make a salad and stick it in the dehydrator. So I decided to give it a try with these ingredients, and save myself a buck or two. I've made kale chips before, with different inspirations. (The first batch tasted like pizza, inspired by a bag I got from a raw food restaurant in San Diego, the second was essentially salad with a goddess-tahini dressing. This batch, however, was definately the best. It may have been the addition of the olive oil, but several of my friends at school tried them (the fact that they even agreed to try them astounds me.) I got reactions like, "These aren't actually that bad" to "It tastes like pizza!"(I have no idea why) to "Can I have another?" The proportions are not exact, because a lot of it was just throwing things together until it tasted right. But then, that leaves it up to your interpretation. If you like things a bit more lemony, go to town on the lemon juice. If you'd like the dressing to be thicker, add more nuts/seeds initially.
Kale Chips
makes 4 dehydrator sheets
Ingredients:
2 bunches of kale
1 1/2 cups of creamy nuts or seeds (I used cashews and sunflower seeds, but only because I didn't have enough cashews)
water
4-6 tbls olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
3/4 tsp granulated onion
1/4-1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp miso
1 tbls or more of apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp dill
black pepper and sea salt to taste
1.) Soak the nuts and seeds for a least a couple hours, preferable over night.
2.) Wash the kale and destem it, then tear it into medium sized pieces.
3.) Drain nuts and seeds and mix all ingredients in a food processor, adding enough water to get a consistency similar to that of a thin salad dressing.
4.) Get the biggest bowl you can find, and put all of the kale and cashew mixture into it. Prepare to get your hands dirty, and massage the cashew mixture into the kale. Make sure all of the kale has been covered.
5.) Spread the kale evenly and pretty thinly on the dehydrator trays. If the kale pieces are all lying on top of each other, they'll stick together and you may end up getting giant pieces of kale chips. (You could of course just break these apart, I just think it's easier to spread them thinly.
6.) Dehydrate at 110 degrees overnight, or for about 8-10 hours.
7.) Bring them around your friends and watch their facial expressions as you eat your wonderful greens and call them "chips".
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