Crispy Kale Chips - I Was a Non-Believer Too

Have you seen these around? Kale seems to be "the new spinach" as Iowa Girl pointed out recently, and although I love spinach, the BS-meter of the picky kid inside me kept ringing alarm bells whenever I would hear/read someone raving about kale.

I like to think that as my tastes have expanded and matured over the years, that I am willing to try just about anything. While I still believe this is true, I am certainly much more likely to try something that just sounds delicious to start with. Like red wine braised parsnips, or Mexican black beans with cornbread, or raspberry coconut macaroons (hated coconut macaroons as a kid, and raspberries. And anything with dried coconut. But have you tried the coconut pieces from Costco?! They discontinued them from the Halifax Costco and I nearly fainted right in the store when I found out. But I digress...)

Green things are very suspicious to a picky child. They look too much like... plants. Most other colourful veggies appear mildly artificial, and dare I say fun? So despite my now favourite vegetable being brussels sprouts (admittedly with copious amounts of chevre, pecans, and a healthy glug of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup), I retain a healthy distrust of anyone claiming that a very green vegetable is delicious all on its own. Stir-fried in rice, sure. But all by itself?

Right now you might be thinking "well of course you didn't believe that kale could replace delicious potato chips!" Well, I'm going to tell you something that might make us not friends anymore:

I don't care about potato chips.

Now before you freak out, I don't dislike them. I eat them when they're there, at parties and BBQs, or when Hubby unwisely buys a bag on a road trip. But I don't choose them. I see chips as merely dip carriers, and my least favourite at that. I much prefer a tortilla chip, or pita, something extremely neutral and not-so-salty.

Long story long, I don't really care if the kale tastes like chips exactly.

What finally won me over and made me want to try this was first the half-bunch of rapidly wilting kale in my fridge, leftover from various juicing recipes and that stir-fried rice I mentioned. Second, I do love nori, which is really just the same sort of thing, right?

Well I now humbly submit, crispy kale is pretty damn good, although much like when vegetarians try to make "fake-out" meat dishes and convince you they taste just as good, you are not going to love these as a replacement for potato chips, if you have a love on for potato chips. My friend Mike has a potato chip twitter-blog, and I think it extremely unlikely that kale chips will ever make an appearance. But they are a delicious and virtually guilt-free snack, despite the fact that I'm already planning ways to trash them up in my head, like brown butter and cheese...

Crispy Kale Chips

I make my own seasoned salt (recipe below), which I tend to use in (savoury) recipes as if it was table salt. If you don't have seasoned salt or prefer not to use it, reduce the salt by at least half and add 1/4 tsp of seasonings of your choice (paprika, garlic, and chili would be my choices).

Yield: 2-3 servings

Ingredients:

4 gently packed cups trimmed kale (remove stems and tear roughly)

about 2 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp seasoned salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F; toss kale leaves with olive oil and seasoned salt until well coated (an oil sprayer would help tremendously with this, and probably reduce the already minimal fat content even more. If you care about that kind of thing. I don't. The meaning of life is food.)
2. Lay kale leaves on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Try not to overlap or crowd them, you want good air circulation. If you have a baking rack, use it in place of the parchment.
3. Bake for 12-15 minutes until crispy but not browning. If your oven has hot spots, make sure you rotate the sheet halfway through to prevent burning. It's a fine line friends...
4. Allow to cool completely before transferring to a bowl. Snack away!

Seasoned Salt

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Sea Salt

1 ½ teaspoons Paprika

¾ teaspoons Turmeric

¾ teaspoons Onion Powder

¾ teaspoons Garlic Powder

½ teaspoon curry

¾ teaspoon mustard

¾ tsp coriander

½ teaspoons Arrowroot Powder or cornstarch

Directions:

Stir everything together in a small bowl and transfer to spice jar (preferably airtight) for storage. 

 

Buttermilk Biscuits

When I was a kid, there was this book my mom used to read me sometimes called Grover's Bad Awful Day.


Basically Grover has a day where nothing goes his way (full plot description here). Although it's a children's book, it really does amazingly capture that hopeless feeling when you have one of those days (luckily Grover's mom is there to turn his mood around at the end).












I'm having one of those days today.
A little back story: Hubby is posted on a ship in the Canadian navy. Said ship is away for ten weeks (argh) and was meant to be making port on a lovely Caribbean island, where I was going to meet him next week. Sun, sand, R&R with my husband... I was so looking forward to it. Then yesterday I get word that the port visit is no longer happening. Insert multiple expletives here.

SO on top of the fact that I now won't get to see Hubby until after both our birthdays and our anniversary (grumble, grumble), I had the lovely task of trying to cancel all the bookings that I made in preparation for this journey. And of course because no one gives a damn about the plight of the little people, and despite having travel insurance on our credit card, I'm left with $475 worth of cancellation fees. This is the most expensive non-vacation I've ever taken.

Oh, and did I mention hurricane Gabrielle rolled in today?

I'm seriously contemplating solo day-drinking...

I bet you're so happy you came to see me today! In my world a bad day = baking. And baking comfort food most importantly. So there was nothing to be done today but make some buttermilk biscuits.

I've been making biscuits for years, but I was never really happy with them. The ones made with buttermilk had great flavour, but always ended up a little dry as they often had no butter at all. Other biscuits would be filled with butter and cream and while amazingly flaky and melt-in-your-mouth, I always felt just a teensy bit guilty (but only a little).

So what is a girl to do but come up with her own recipe? The first time I made these, Hubby raved and ate like four, so I named them Steffan's biscuits (the astute readers will also notice that I changed the address of this blog, at his suggestion. Apparently I'll do anything for that man...)

Ed note: please excuse the photos in this post. Since the last time we talked my computer has been having continued blue-screen-related issues, and refuses to open any photo editing program, so they're all SOOC.

Steffan's Buttermilk Biscuits

These are the biscuits that I had with my Lemon Garlic Shrimps

Yield: 6-8 biscuits, depending on size

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour (I usually also sub 1/2 whole wheat)

1 tsp sugar (optional)

1 tbsp baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

¾ tsp (seasoned) salt*

4 tbsp cold unsalted butter

¾ cup buttermilk

Directions:

1.       Preheat oven to 400 °F and cover baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large bowl.

2.       Using a fork or a pastry cutter, cut butter into dry ingredients until pea-sized chunks remain (this can also be done in a food processor if you have one; continue with remaining steps by pulsing everything in).

3.       Add buttermilk and stir until the dough just comes together. Knead with your hands briefly until it just holds together (don't over-knead or the biscuits become tough).

4.       Transfer dough to floured counter and pat out until 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick. Using a round cutter (I use one about 2 1/2 inches), press straight down (don't twist!) and transfer rounds to baking sheet (you can also drop 1/4-cup balls onto baking sheet for drop biscuits).

5.       Bake until biscuits are golden brown on top, about 12 to 15 minutes. Cool slightly and serve warm (generously slathered with jam and Devonshire cream if you're me).

6.       Do ahead: make the biscuit dough and form the individual biscuits, then freeze them until needed. They can be baked directly from the freezer, with just a couple more minutes baking time.

  

*As I mentioned before, unsalted butter is a unicorn in Nova Scotia. Since I developed this recipe using salted butter, you may actually find that you need a touch more salt in your biscuits.

MMMMmmmmmmmmmmm...

Blue Screen of Death!!

Source

I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about: you're halfway through your facebook news feed working on something really important when out of nowhere everything stops. All you see is blue. Which according to colour "experts" is meant to be all soothing and calming, and other lovely words that you really don't feel in this moment. I'm sure if you're like me the first thought to pop into your head is "well thank goodness I'm so diligent about backing up my hard drive!".

What?!

Stop laughing!

Anyway, this happened to me last night. And alright, I wasn't being particularly productive right that second, but I was planning to tell you about this recipe. My evening was instead de-railed into a frantic attempt to get the darn thing running again, then back-up, please oh please, back-up before it dies again and I lose everything. Full disclosure: "everything" in my digital world amounts to pictures and recipes. I have no other important files.

Because Heaven forbid I should lose this gem...

Twenty-four hours later and all my files are safely, externally stored, tucked in safe and sound in their digital beds. Miraculously the computer itself is still working, even more surprising considering this month marks four years of dutiful service from it, and shameless mistreatment from me.

Somewhat ironically, I wouldn't have needed the computer to share this recipe with you. It's so incredibly simple, but people are inexplicably so impressed with it that it's hard not to let them believe you slaaaved over it! It's perfect to have out anytime company comes (although dangerous if you live in our house, it will never make it until company arrives), even better to take as a hostess gift, and makes for fantastic holiday gift baskets with a bottle of wine and some nice bread and cheese.

Spiced Candied Nuts

Yield: 3 cups (double the recipe if you'll be travelling any significant distance with these in the car, or if you're having my husband over)

Ingredients:

1 egg white*

1 tbsp cool water

1 cup brown sugar

1-2 tbsp spices of your choice (I used 1 1/4 tsp each curry and cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp each chili powder and cayenne pepper)

pinch salt

3 cups unsalted nuts (anything works here - I used pecans and almonds)

Directions: 

1. Preheat your oven to 250F; line a baking sheet with parchment paper (I actually skip parchment and just use an old baking sheet - sugar is fantastically easy to clean up, just soak in water until it releases).
2. In a bowl mix together sugar, spices, and salt. Taste and adjust seasonings if desired. (Optional: if you would prefer a slightly smoother texture, combine these ingredients in a small saucepan and heat over medium stirring frequently until the sugar is melted. Be very careful! Melted sugar gives really awful burns. I skip the melting because I'm lazy, and Hubby prefers the rougher texture.)
3. In a separate bowl quickly whisk together egg white and water until just foamy. Add in nuts and stir until they are all well coated.
4. While stirring the nuts, toss in the sugar mixture (or drizzle in slowly if you've melted it) until all coated. Spread on the baking sheet in an even layer.
5. Bake for about 45min-1hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Use your discretion on the length of time; softer nuts (ie cashews) usually need less time than harder ones (ie almonds). You're looking for the texture of the sugar to become sort of "dry".
6. Allow to cool to room temp before serving (or eat them hot if you live in my house and they barely make it off the pan).

*Note for separated eggs: both leftover egg whites and yolks can be frozen and used later. Whites you can simply freeze in an ice cube tray then transfer to a freezer bag. For yolks you need to stir in either 1/8tsp salt or 1 1/2 tsp sugar (depending if they will be used in savoury or sweet dishes) per 4 egg yolks for them to freeze and thaw properly. When ready to use, thaw overnight in the fridge and use immediately. And trust friends, I will be sharing other ways to use them ;)