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 :-)

I really like plantains. I know that's kind of odd for a girl from Michigan, but love them I do. This love started on a training trip to Puerto Rico. Since then, I pretty much get them whenever I can. However, I also wanted to try to cook them because they are usually stocked in any grocery store with decent produce.

So the other day, I bought two plantains (50 cents each - a pretty good deal!). I made sure to get the ones that looked all brown and beat up, as research tells me those are the sweet and ripe ones. I sliced them on a diagonal, as is traditional. This picture is from plantain #1, so my slicing technique isn't quite as developed as plantain #2. Then I fried them up in a pan. However, plantains have a pretty high calorie content to begin with, so I didn't fry them up in oil as is the traditional method, but just in a non-stick pan with some Pam.

As would be expected, frying plantains in oil makes them much tastier. I also probably should have fried them on low for longer, but I'm an impatient person. I was lucky enough to go to Bahama Breeze that same week, and got some of their plantains, which were sweeter and mushier than mine.

I am not convinced that plantains can be made into a light and healthy snack, but I'll continue to work on them. I think mine would improve with a little longer frying, and maybe a light splash of oil. Again though, they would make a pretty high calorie snack. Oh well, I still love them.

This plan may backfire

Recently, I started working as a training lab assistant for my Tri club. Its not so much working as indentured servitude, but I like it because I learn about the lab, and meet all my teammates, and hang out and do tri stuff. However, learning how to do my job was tough. I hadn't really been to the lab before, and had no idea how things worked. So, I kinda had a rough start, ie I broke an expensive piece of equipment that is a pain in the butt for my coach to fix.

I felt pretty badly about this. I'm kind of the new kid on the team, and I messed up, and caused more work for my coach. So, I decided to bake him some things to try to make up for it. Later, my friend Pam pointed out that that may be a bad idea, because now whenever my coach is hungry or jonesing for some baked deliciousness, he's going to yell at me. So my brilliant plan may backfire, but I'm going to hope not.

I decided to make him two, sort of healthy (cause he is a triathlete and tri coach after all) but also sweet and tasty treats (cause, he is a triathlete and triathletes like to EAT). The first recipe I went with was honey nut off-brand cheerio treats. I think I'm going to steal the name of said off-brand cheerios for my recipe, because its a cute name, and the box is cute.


Completely necessary marshmallow shot. Mmmmmm.

Equally necessary finished product shot. These were delicious. You need to make them. Now.
Honey Nut Spinz
6 cups marshmallows
5 cups Honey Nut Cereal
a few tablespoons butter.

Pretty much everyone knows how to make these. Melt butter, add marshmallows and melt, stir in cereal quickly, spread in greased 9x13. Let cool completely, but into squares or triangles or whatever, and ENJOY. Because lets face it, these are freaking delicious.