Following a Recipe: Baked Kale Chips by LucyDelRey

This year my housemate grew some organic kale, which is awesome...except that you can't really eat kale without doing something to it.

Well, I guess you can.

I just don't know why you would want to.

It is beautiful and easy to grow out here in the Pacific Northwest.

Behold the power of kale!

I was going to bring in a few plants and sauté them, but then things went sideways. I decided to make chips, and I found this recipe for Baked Kale Chips Recipe by LucyDelRey.

I didn't really follow the thing to the letter at all.

Here is the gist:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Get some kale, and take off all of the individual leaves. Wash the kale leaves, and sort of shake them dry. 
3. Take out the tough middle stem parts, and tear into bite sized pieces.
4. Put all of the leaf pieces on some cookie sheets covered in parchment paper.
5. Drizzle with olive oil. I am not good at "drizzling", so I pour some into a tablespoon and drizzle with the spoon. It helps me keep track of how much I am using, and limits catastrophes.
6. Shake some season salt over the leaves. (I think that in the future I want to experiment with my own mixtures of spices.)
7. Bake for about 10 minutes (or until edges are brown).

I think that I probably should have baked mine for less than 10 minutes, personally. They were definitely crumbly.

Verdict:  They made the house smell bad, in my opinion. They were pretty tasty to me though, and addictive. I ate about half the kale without even thinking about it. My child, who hates all green things, voluntarily ate some and liked them. My housemate wasn't pleased by these at all, and made some wistful comments about how it might have tasted if the kale was prepared otherwise...and compared the chips to eating dry tarragon. My mom thought that they were tasty. I'm not sure if I'll do this one again or not. It is definitely fast!

This is what the process looked like:

Raw Kale

Drizzled and Salted

Baked Kale

~ Patty :)

Wikipedia Article on Kale:
"Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium. Kale, as with broccoli and other brassicas, contains sulforaphane (particularly when chopped or minced), a chemical with potent anti-cancer properties.^[1] Boiling decreases the level of sulforaphane; however, steaming, microwaving, or stir frying do not result in significant loss.^[2] Along with other brassica vegetables, kale is also a source of indole-3-carbinol, a chemical which boosts DNA repair in cells and appears to block the growth of cancer cells.^[3][4] Kale is also a good source of carotenoids.^[5]"