Kale Chip Combos

Everyone’s making Kale Chips. Kids and adults alike are digging into these simple, tasty, and good-for-you snacks. That’s fortunate for kale since it’s a green that’s a little tough (pun intended) to love. And this is coming from a woman who loves her greens.

Some of you may disagree with my assessment of kale. That’s only fair and I accept it. In fact I want to know more about why you love kale and what you do with it because given a choice I’ll pick chard, spinach, or escarole instead. Maybe you can change my mind.

Having said that I’m impressed with kale’s nutritional value and would like to eat more of it. It’s high in vitamins K & C and rich in calcium. And, it’s an impressive anti-inflammatory leading to the boast it helps fight rheumatoid arthritis. Kale has been said to possess anti-cancer properties and to be a powerful antioxidant. So, despite its “tough” guy appearance it’s clearly worth it to add kale to your diet.

We had Kale Chips for the first time this week and liked them. Alone they’re crispy treats. With goat cheese on rice crackers or blended with pecorino romano (made from sheep’s milk) and baked into crisps they’re divine. Again—simple, tasty, and good-for-you.

Please, please, please, don’t forget to tell me how you best like to use kale. If you have a recipe please feel free to leave a link!

Kale Chips

Kale, about 1/4 pound

Olive Oil

Salt

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Wash and thoroughly dry the kale. Break it into pieces about half the size of the palm of your hand. Take care to remove the fibrous stems.

Spread the kale pieces on the cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of coarse salt. Place in the oven for about 10 minutes or until crisp.

Remove, cool and eat as is or use in one of the recipes below. I was able to store mine in an airtight container for about a week.

Notes:

There seem to be quite a few recipes for dehydrated kale chips on the internet so if you prefer to make them that way take a look around. Here’s one that seemed pretty simple from “We Like It Raw”.

I have it on good authority you can also make “chips” from fresh spinach or chard. Haven’t tried it yet but plan to.

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Kale Chips with Goat Cheese Appetizer

Rice crackers

Creamy goat cheese

Kale Chips

Cracked pepper

Place a tiny dollop of goat cheese on the cracker. Gently press a small piece of crispy kale chip onto the cheese. Top with a half teaspoon of goat cheese and sprinkle with freshly cracked pepper.

Serve immediately.

Try other toppings like: fresh herbs, chopped kalamata olives, or minced red onion. Lots of options!

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Kale Cheese Crisps

Kale Chips

Pecorino Romano cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Place about 1/2 cup of grated cheese into a small bowl. Take 6-8 kale chips and grind between your fingertips to create fine kale chip flakes. Add them to the bowl with the cheese. Mix together.

Spoon the cheese/kale mixture onto the lined cookie sheet. You want little piles (about 1/4 inch high in the middle and 2 1/2 inches across) of the mixture placed about an inch apart.

Bake about 5-8 minutes until the edges turn golden brown and you notice the cheese has begun to melt and slightly bubble. Watch them carefully—they can go from perfect to burned pretty quickly.

Remove from the oven and let them cool thoroughly. Gently peel the crisps from the parchment.

These are best on top of a bowl of your favorite soup. Bet they’re great topped with a dollop of something creamy—maybe hummus. Pecorino Romano is a sharp cheese so these crisps will be a bit strong in flavor.

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Mixed Berry Frozen Yogurt Sherbet

Years ago we had a huge blackberry thicket on our family farm. (Not really a “farm” farm—it was more of a hodge podge of large and small pets and a huge vegetable garden surrounded by fields and mountains.)

Blackberries become fully ripe during the dog days of summer—about the worst time to get dressed in jeans, a long shirt, and your old ankle high work boots. The worst time to wade through dense bramble while bees and bugs buzz you. The worst time to bake in the sun for a few hours while scratching your hands as they reach down into prickly bushes that are home to all manner of creepy crawlies.

And the best time for a sweet reward. The blackberries were half the size of your thumb, plump, dark purplish black—the most beautiful dark eggplant color—and fabulously juicy. We ate far more than we ever brought back up to the kitchen. There may have been enough to make blackberry preserves but mostly we just ate them the way they were—warm and sweet from the sun.

We enjoyed the blackberries from that thicket for many years.

I pucker now when eating commercially grown blackberries—they’re so tart. I was lucky recently and found some that were wonderful and sweet. We ate quite a few au naturel but decided to make a blackberry “something” with the rest. You know—a buckle or slump or crumble. Somehow I settled on a cross between a frozen yogurt and sherbet—a yobet (certainly not a shergurt!).

The inclusion of yogurt provides an interesting result adding a bit of a zing and creaminess to this sweet frozen confection. And, just look at that color!

This yobet thing definitely has promise.

Mixed Berry Frozen Yogurt Sherbet

This mixed berry frozen confection works well with any combination of blackberries, strawberries and raspberries. I used 4 cups of ripe, sweet blackberries and 1 cup of strawberries. Rinse the berries just before starting. Clean and cut the strawberries, if using them.

Ripe, sweet berries work the best. Adjust the sugar to your liking if your berries aren’t sweet enough or you prefer a sweeter end result. Add additional sugar a tablespoon at a time, carefully tasting (it may be hot!) until the sweetness is to your liking.

Add into a medium saucepan:

4-5 cups mixed berries, cleaned

¼ cup sugar (or more)

¼ cup water

1 ½ teaspoons lemon juice

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Stir the mixture well. Bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat. Simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The juices of the berries will emerge and the mixture will get thick.

Remove the berry mixture from the heat. After it cools, about 15 minutes or so, run it through a food mill to extract the juices. (If you don’t have a food mill push the mash through a sieve using a large wooden spoon.) Discard the seeds.

Stir in:

6 oz container So Delicious Plain or Vanilla Coconut Yogurt (alternatively, use soy or dairy yogurt)

Pour the mixture into a ceramic or glass bowl and refrigerate until cold—overnight is best but if you can’t wait that long a few hours will do.

Freeze according to your ice cream maker instructions.

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