What I'm Eating Now - Kale Storm

I like vegetables just fine, but am bad about making them a regular (ha ha) part of my diet. So when I was perusing foodgawker recently and came across this recipe for Tuscan Kale Chips, I hoped that having a batch of these on hand would encourage me to eat more greens.

I started out with a couple bunches of organic dino kale (also known as Lacinato) I found at WFM:

Don't you think this kale is aptly named? When bunched together like this, the leaves look very much like some sort of prehistoric reptile claw. Plus, kale is high in vitamins A, K and C and is supposed to help prevent cancer. What better incentive do you need?

I more or less followed the recipe to a tee, except that I tore the leaves down into more bite-sized pieces. The result was not as dramatic looking as the original recipe, but much easier to manage when eating.



Despite tearing the kale into small pieces, it seemed as if it took an inordinately long time for the kale to crisp up and some of the pieces never really got crispy the way I expected. The texture of most of the batch was more akin to nori than a chip - which I ended up rather liking given the way I chose to eat it. But if you're going for a crispy, crumbly texture, you might try setting your oven at 350-400 degrees, instead. (later edit: I made a second batch with red kale baked at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes and they were MUCH more chip-like - like eating olive-oil-y, lightly salted kale air. I have a convection setting on my oven, so you'll probably need more like 15 mn in a regular oven.)

This stuff is addictive, and so light that I can very nearly eat an entire batch myself in a single sitting. When added to rice with a little butter and a fried egg on top, it becomes a delicious and incredibly easy anytime meal. Two bunches of raw kale lasted me probably 7-8 such meals; since it was more or less dehydrated, I was able to simply store the kale in a Tupperware on the counter so it was ready to go at a moment's notice. Stunningly simple, and so agreeable to my Asian-food-loving tastebuds that I can't imagine tiring of it (which is pretty amazing considering how fickle my food desires can be).

All hail the mighty kale!