Kale Chips - Yum!
I heard about Kale chips a while back - touted as a healthy alternative to crunchy snacks - and I tried a recipe I found online. They were disgusting, crumbly and tasted bitter.
So a couple of weeks abck, I painfully spent 7 bucks at a health food store for two ounces of the packaged variety in "chipotle cheese" flavour to see if made properly they were good. Yum! OK, there was something worth pursuing here.
So I've finally found a method and process that works. Thought I'd share.
Chipotle Cheese Kale Chips
You will need a dehydrator to do this recipe.
Some folks have methods that use the oven, but I couldn't make them work.
3 big bunches very fresh curly kale
2 cups raw cashews
1 red bell pepper
8 TBSP nutritional yeast
1 lemon
1-2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
1-2 TBSP Chipotle Powder (I used a mixture of chipotle and ancho spice mix)
1/2 cup water
Salt (I used Himalayan pink salt)
De-seed and rough chop the pepper, throw it into a food processor with: the raw cashews, the the juice of the lemon, the vinegar, the nutritional yeas****er and the salt and spices. Blend on high until the consistency of hummous. Just like this, it tastes great, and would make an awesome dip for crackers or veggies.
Tear the leaves of the kale off the spine, into largish chip type pieces. Don't worry of they don't lie flat, they're better if they clump up anyway. Throw away the thick parts of the spines, if there are smaller tender spines in them, don't worry about it.
You probably will have to do them in batches. Throw half of the leaf pieces into a giant bowl, put in half of the cashew spice mixture and use your hands (yes, actually your hands, or it will not distribute well) to smoosh the paste on and in and around the leaves.
At this point eat one raw leaf to see how the paste would also make an awesome salad dressing!
Put the leaves into the trays of a dehydrator. Don't overcrowd, but don't worry about having too much excess space, they shrink as they dry. You don't need a fancy dehydrator for this. I have an old Mr Chef cheapo dehydrator from the late eighties (like the Ronco one!). It just has five trays and an on/off switch, not fancy temperature settings... and it does just fine. Leave it overnight or for 10-12 hours. If you notice, shuffle the trays from top to bottom half way through, and you might be able to do them faster.
Check to make sure that they are absolutely dry (they break, not bend, and the coating is crunchy, and once totally allowed to cool, put in an airtaight container, preferably with a silica pack (reuse the ones from your many bottles of vitamines).
Delicious! Crunchy snacks which have a bit of protein, healthy raw veggies, and an awesome taste. Like all things, do them in moderation though because the cashews are still calorie rich.
I'm in love. :)
This might very well be the first thing I make.
Thanks
