Kale Chips

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you enjoyed your holidays.  We had a nice Christmas and New Years with the boys.  They got a play kitchen from Grandma and Grandpa.  So far, though, there is about zero pretend cooking going on.  They use it as a jungle gym instead.  Sigh.  Maybe someday they will want to cook like their mamma!  And maybe by then I will be able to have kitchen chairs again (I had to move them out because the boys push them to climb to the counters, stove, etc.)

One of my New Years resolutions this year is to post more often in my blog, so hopefully you will be seeing more of me in 2012!  My other main resolution is to be more organized.  I feel like I am super organized in some areas, but very unorganized in others.  Mainly, I want to de-clutter and organize my house!  So if you have any tips or good blogs on that, toss them my way!

I did not make a specific resolution on dieting or eating, because realistically I would never keep it!  But after eating so many rich, delicious foods over the holidays, I do feel like I just need some simple, healthy foods for awhile.  I keep hearing about Kale Chips so I decided to give them a try this week.  I am absolutely a potato chip girl, and not a huge kale fan, so I was a little skeptical of Kale Chips.  I used this recipe with very little changes.  They came out good (not potato chip good, but still pretty good)!  They remind me of my brussel sprout recipe I posted here last March .  And my husband and I both agreed it made the kale taste more edible than any other recipe I have tried.

Kale Chips
1 bunch kale
Olive Oil Spray (or olive oil in a Misto type sprayer)
Seasonings of your choice.  I used a Ranchers Steak Rub seasoning from my sister's Wildtree Store but you can use any seasonings you wish, i.e. sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, paprika, cumin, etc.

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Spray baking sheet with cooking spray.
2.  Rinse and dry kale (I used a salad spinner, but you can also blot it dry).  Cut the leafy parts from the stems, discarding tough stems, and tear leaves into bite-sized peices. 

3.  Arrange kale in single layer on baking sheet.  Spray with cooking spray.  Sprinkle with seasonings.  Toss lightly, and spray again with cooking spray and sprinkle with seasonings.
4.  Bake 10-15 minutes, or until crisp (I think it actually took 17 minutes in my oven).  Lightly toss a few times while baking.  Enjoy!

They look a little greasy in the photo above, but I promise they were not!  I served them with baked chicken tenders, using a healthy chicken nuggets recipe I adapted from www.skinnytaste.com.  The only changes I made to the recipe, were that I used chicken tenders instead of cutting them into nuggets, and I did not have seasoned whole wheat bread crumbs, so I used regular seasoned bread crumbs and substituted half wheat germ.  They were not as good as my favorite Secret Chef breaded chicken, however, they have a fraction of the olive oil and parmesan cheese that my recipe has, so these fit the bill and were also pretty tasty!