Holy Kale Chip Deliciousness

Behold! I give you Kale Chips!! These things are so crazy. First and foremost, they are ridiculously cheap. Give them a gold star for that. I just bought a big, and I mean BIG bunch of curly Kale for 57 cents. Not even kidding. Actually, it was way more than the picture shows. The whole bunch completely carpeted my baking sheet for 57 CENTS!! If you add in the cost of some olive oil and salt, you still get the equivalent of a big bag chips for like 75 cents. AMAZING!

Second amazing point about these guys....Kale is crazy healthy. Its one of those crazy dark leafy greens that are just disgustingly healthy for you. Kale is super low calorie (33 cal for a cup of it), contains 2 g protein, a gram of fiber and no sugar, cholesterol or fat. It is also strongly anti-inflammatory, has 206% of vitamin A, 134% vitamin C, 9% calcium, 6% iron, 684% vitamin K (684! holy crap!) and a smattering of other vitamins and minerals. So, you don't get much healthier than kale. In addition, the recipe uses olive oil, which has healthy mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids. So give kale chips another gold star for health factor.

Third, and this will be shocking, Kale chips are crazy delicious and satisfying. If you suffer from the occasional salty/crispy craving like I do, these do the job. They have a very light airy crisp to them, not soggy or chewy. And the light salting goes a long way. In addition, you can get creative and flavor them with your favorite potato chip flavors. Garlic is good, onion is good. Be creative! So give kale chips a third gold star.

What it comes down to, is that you should make these right now. They're amazing. You'll be shocked by how fast they disappear.

 

3/3 Star Baked Kale Chips

Adapted from smitten kitchen

1 bunch  kale (I used some curly looking Kale, I guess it comes in different varieties - not by me!)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Sea salt, to taste (I find a little goes a long way)

Preheat oven to 300°F. Rinse and dry the kale, then remove the stems and tough center ribs. I just kind of ripped and tore them, so they were already in pretty good bite sized pieces when I was done getting rid of the tough bits. Toss with olive oil in a bowl then sprinkle with salt. Arrange in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, or until crisp. Place baking sheet on a rack to cool. Don't cover these with seran wrap! I just store them in a bowl uncovered on the counter. They seem fine. And this makes for easy snacking :-)

Tasty Treats for my Tri Team...aka Recovery Cookies

If you give a triathlete or tri coach a cookie, word will get around. And then everyone else on the team will want some treats. Which is fine with me! I have a food blog, and I need eaters! I hope I've found some. 

So, word got out that I was a bit of a baker. ie I made some cookies for my coach and one of the other lab assistants, and some of the guys on the team found out. They were all like "where are my cookies?" and I was all like "well, I'll get you some."  So here they are.

Why hello bowls of deliciousness. These bowls hold the mix ins for my version of the Momofuku Milk Bar Compost cookie. Everyone knows this recipe, its been floating around. I got my recipe on Amateur Gourmet. I used chopped up Milky Way, Twix, Kit Kat, 3 Musketeers, Snickers, M&Ms and Resses pieces as my chosen favorite baked goods. For my snack food mix ins, I chose pretzel sticks and graham crackers.

As you can see, they spread a bit. All my cookies spread. I think its my baking sheets, or baking soda not kept in an air tight container or something. But these turned out decently thick. I thought they were a little salty, so I'll probably omit the kosher salt next time. But they were still just crazy good. And my coach said they were "really delicious" which is high praise from him. Other people were eating them, and seemed pretty excited. I missed the last two big group rides tonight, so maybe they'll be more response later this week.

I also made healthy vegan chocolate cupcakes. I made these because I know at least one of the women on the team is vegan. I was inspired by a recipe my mom makes for cupcakes using chocolate cake mix, pumpkin pie filling, and chocolate chips. These I made with chocolate cake mix and lite applesauce. They turned out AMAZING! I used cinnamon apple sauce, so they're really light, fluffy, moist, appley and cinnamony. And pretty healthy. I've calculated that they're about 108 calories a cupcake, low in sugar and fat, with some fiber and vitamins.

 

Finally, I made good ol' sugar cookies in team colors - GREEN! I got the recipe off of Cookie Madness, and they were pretty good. A little crumbly, but with a good taste. 

Not only did I give them to my tri team, but I made an assortment for the guys that work in the bike shop. I'm trying to butter them up, and get them to talk, or smile, or do something besides scowl silently. 

Hopefully everyone liked my baked goods, so I'll have a big group of tasters for all my future baking endeavors!!

Freakishly low caloire muffins

These are pretty tasty muffins. They're moist and healthy, and have a good banana and berry flavor. I really like them for breakfast. I mixed them up using ingredients I had, and froze all the extras. They're great for a healthy breakfast before a long hard day. I also sliced them in half, and toasted them. They're GREAT toasted with jam.


Banana Blueberry Bran Muffins
I got this recipe from chowdiva, which I haven't been able to find online since. Which sucks, because I found a couple of good recipes there. And when I say ridiculously low calorie, I mean it. about 75 calories per muffin, 1 g fat, 10mg sodium, 4 g sugar. Sooo healthy! This recipe makes 19 muffins.

1.5 c. bran
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/3 c. oats
1/3 c. ground flax
1 c. mashed ripe banana
1/2 c. milk
1 egg
3 tbs. apple sauce
1/2 c. blueberries (I used frozen cause that's what I had)
1 tbs. honey
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground cloves

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Mix moist ingredients together in mixing bowl
3. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix together until well mixed up.
4. Separate the batter into well greased muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through.

Delicious Healthy Loaded Cookies

This is a continuation of my plan to make my Tri coach like me again (see the Honey Nut Spinz entry). In addition to the Honey Nut Spinz, I made these cookies, adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Loaded Oatmeal Cookies.
These are really delicious, with sweet dried berries in them, flax and bran. They're also nice and crisp, which I really like in my cookies. Don't let the long ingredient list deter you - pretty much everything should be pantry staples.
Loaded Healthy Oatmeal Cookies
1/4 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1/3 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
-------------
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. rolled oats
1/4 c. flax
1/4 c. bran
2 oz. chopped dark chocolate
1/4 c. dried mixed berries - cranberries, blueberries, raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Cream together first 8 ingredients (those above the dashed line). Then mix in flour, oats, bran and flax gradually. Stir in chocolate and dried berries.
3. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 9-11 minutes (11 makes them nice and crisp) until lightly browned.

Makes 30 cookies

79 calories
4 g fat
2 g sat fat
1 g monounsat fat
1 g polyunsat fat
11 mg cholesterol
45 mg sodium
12 g carbs
7 g sugar
1 g fiber
2 g protein
3% Iron
1% Calcium

Anytime is cookie time

Today is a gorgeous day in Minneapolis!! I am having a lovely little stay in Minneapolis for a swim meet, and it is BEAUTIFUL outside. Which is good because I didn't rent a car. Walking is better in 60 degree sunny weather. The one raincloud in my parade is that the University of Minnesota Rec Center (where I have a pass to workout) has a "must wear sleeves" rule, which is obnoxious. After a lifetime of swimming, my body cannot thermoregulate itself properly without the aid of a pool. So, I didn't bring any sleeved workout shirts. They have shirts to loan, and I'll figure something out.

Anywho, I made these really tasty muffin/cookies about a week or so ago, and really enjoy them. I put them all in tupperware and stashed them in the basement freezer to keep them fresh. However, now I find myself making frequent trips to the basement to get these tasty treats. They're not quite a cookie, and not quite a muffin, which I take to mean that I can eat them at anytime time of day, breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, dessert, whatever. They freeze well, and make a truly delicious treat anytime of day.

ANYTIME COOKIES OR CHOCOLATE OATMEAL BERRY BRAN MUFFIN COOKIES
1 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
6 tbs. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 c. oats
3/4 c. semi sweet chocolate chips
1 c. berries (I used frozen)
1/4 c. bran
1/4 c. flax
1/4 c. unsweetened apple sauce

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix up all the ingredients. Place rounded balls of dough (like golfball sized) on parchment paper lined baking sheets
3. Bake 12-15 min (check on them at 10, but 12-15 is about right)
4. If you let these cool completely on the tray, then move them to a cooling rack, they should hold together pretty well. Careful though, all the fruit and chocolate make these cookies really fragile. Makes about 26 cookies.
5. ENJOY!

Cal 122
Fat 5g
Sat Fat 2g
Cholesterol 15 mg
Carb 19g
Fiber 1g
Sugar 12g
Protein 2g

this one time, I had veggies for breakfast

Lately, I've had a little problem with breakfast food. The problem being, that I love it. Oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, eggs, muffins, cereal, fruit....Breakfast gets me out of bed. I pretty much rotate three types: egg dishes, oatmeal, yogurt parfaits. Of course there are zillions of variations of each, so my breakfast is really quite varied.

I also eat breakfast at any time of day. These days, I eat Oatmeal Squares all day long. Its starting to be a problem. Like a "hello my name is Katie, and I'm an addict" type problem.

Before I had this little Oatmeal Squares problem, I made this fantastically easy and delicious frittata. I found the inspiration on runnersworld.com in Mark Bittman's column. I doctored it up to add more variety and make it even healthier. Oh, and I changed the serving prescription from four to one :-) It is really necessary that you try it. Its a GREAT breakfast.

Yummy Easy Veggie Frittata
About a Tbs. fresh chopped onion
Salt and Black Pepper
4-6 C. Spinach and Sliced Mushrooms
5 egg whites
Pam
Basil
1/4 C. Fresh grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and Pam a pie tin. Add the 5 egg whites, plus salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Saute the onions and mushrooms until both are tender. Add spinach and basil and saute until the spinach collapses. Sprinkle into pan of egg whites, making sure the veggies are evenly distributed. Top with Parmesan cheese.
3. Bake for about 15 minutes, until eggs reach desired state of done-ness and Parmesan is melted.
4. Enjoy your healthy breakfast deliciousness!!Mmmmmm. Delicious eggy, cheesy, veggie-y fritatta. YUM!

Dangerously Good Granola Bars

These granola bars are dangerous. Bake them with extreme caution. Even on a full stomach, they are sooooooooo good, all you're going to want to do is eat them. But if you do venture forth, and make these amazing granola bars, they'll probably ruin any other granola bars for you. I have a whole bag of a variety of my favorite granola bars, but now they are dead to me. Previously, I would rejoice at eating one of my favorite Kashi, Larabar, Cliff or Fiber Plus granola bars. No longer! Now, I only want these. In fact, I loved the first batch so much, I made another batch to freeze!
Oh, yum yum yum. There they are fresh out of the oven, golden brown and calling to me.
Huh? No, I didn't taste the granola bars.....uh, that little bite? Yeah, I uh, ran short of granola....

So, you're probably going to want to know how to make these granola bars. Well, its quite easy, and involves a lot of freedom of choice. For example, you can use any nut butter you like. You can also use your favorite granola, dried fruits, and/or nuts. I chose not to add nuts, because I don't really like nuts. I eat them, and I like Larabars, but I like dried fruit much better in my granola bars (probably why I like the Larabars, you can't really taste the nuts. Here is the recipe I used, adapted from 101 Cookbooks.

Dangerously Good Granola Bars
1 2/3 c. Granola (first batch I used Whole Foods 5 Grain, second batch - Low Fat Kroger Brand)
1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
2-3 c. dried fruit or nuts (I used 2 cups mixed berry mix, which was AMAZING)
1/3 c. Nut Butter (I used Peanut Butter & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams)
3.5 Tbs. Melted Butter
1/4 c. honey
1 Tbs. water

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line a 8"x8" pan with parchment paper, so that it covers the bottom, two sides, and hangs over the sides (rectangle paper in square pan-the paper will be longer). Grease the paper and exposed sides of the pan.
2. Pour your globby granola-y "dough" into the pan, and press down so its smashed in there and pretty level.
3. Bake for 30-40 min, it should get a little tan on top :-)
4. Cool completely in the pan. I also chilled them in the fridge for a few hours, because if you cut them warm (I know, I know, they look so delicious, but be patient!) they will crumble everywhere. However, cutting them after they've chilled is like trying to cut a brick. It worked best when I chilled the pan, then let it "thaw" for like an hour or so at room temp. If anyone tries these out and gets really nicely cut, un-crumbly bars with minimum pain and suffering, let me know!

Wa-la! Yummy yummy granola bars! You can store them on the counter, in the fridge, or in the freezer (but let cold ones thaw a little bit before you eat them or you'll break a tooth!).
I wish I had a picture of a cut granola bar to show you, but I have a little problem with self control when it comes to these bars :-)