Kale craze is the new avocado palooza. Medical News Today has an article HERE where they list a few bullet points about fiber, potassium and a few paragraphs in relation to diabetes, heart disease and cancer. As far as we’re concerned, we’re just happy we can make it taste less like eating palm tree leaves. We bought our kale from a couple of ladies at the weekly Saratoga Farmer’s Market. She suggested baking it, blending it into healthy shakes and perhaps ripping it up into anything with spinach.
My weak point when it comes to eating healthy is a bunch of rolled over potato chips, tortilla chips and a handful of crackers. First things first, let’s go to a video of a potato chip factory to see how professionals do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L09bMsShfY4
This is our first attempt at making kale chips. My father tried to make these a few times but couldn’t quite figure out the secret to keeping them crispy. There’s something in the humidity that re-hydrates kale all over. That crispy texture only stays for about a half-hour. We baked our kale at 375 degrees, Fahrenheit for 7 minutes. Any longer than that in a regular bake oven and they’ll burn to black and brown flakes.
Salty, spicy, cheesy and cinnamon churro seemed like 4 good test flavors.
Salty is your basic brand-name original flavor. Not much to it, but it provides a control one needs in all scientific endeavors. It was worth it to see how much seasoning we needed for each flavor. This proved it was possible. They were a little browner than we had liked and we needed a test to see how long they needed to bake. All and all, it was worth it.
Spicy is the hot chip that everybody eats a bunch on a dare or stains their fingers and has to suck it off holding back tears. That one’s fun!! These took second place for us. My only wish is that I held back on the cumin and smoked paprika. A little flavor, a little heat, a little too much on each chip, but we did a good job on this batch.
Every kind of snack food on the market has some kind of cheese flavor unless it’s fruity. This is essential in other words because if there’s no garlic ranch or sour cream flavor combo, my favorite tends to be the cheese coated one. Usually cheddar or Parmesan. Unfortunately, the cheese we grated on top oozed a bit and the inner moisture got into the leaves and we didn’t even take a picture these were so bad. We ate them just to get rid of them. No, we’re never grating cheese on top of kale again. We needed to find some dried out cheese if this one was going anywhere. Oh well. Better luck next time.
My mother is an autumn person. So is Jeremy. This is the sweet toothed sugary snack chip that people either love or hate. Cinnamon can be considered a spice after all. It’s easily blended in with brown sugar. You know my favorite chef Anne line: “BROWN FOOD TASTES GOOD!” But this just reminded me of a churro from Mexico. This was the all around favorite. It was crispy, VERY sweet and didn’t get a grainy texture at all. It was the most like store-bought potato chips out of all 4 batches.