I'm Dipping My Toes In

In my previous blog I talked about changing my diet and lifestyle. I'm dipping my toes into the vegan pool, cuz I'm not quite ready to dive. My friend Phoebe introduced me to this particular kale chip recipe (I've tried others but this wins hands down!!) This is actually a combination of 2 different "raw" diet recipes. I don't own a dehydrator (which I will now have to purchase after realizing how very time consuming this recipe can be without one!), so I had to devise a different way of doing it. I have another kale chip recipe that you bake at the low temp of 300, so I used that instruction with this. Here's what I did folks (with photos too- oooo, how very cooking show of me!!)

Nacho Cheesy Kale Chips:

Ingredients:

1 bunch of curly kale

1/2 teaspoon each of: garlic, onion and chili powder

pinch of cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

1 teaspoon nutritional yeast

1 cup of raw organic cashews (soak for 2 hours in water to soften) ** see note below

1 red bell pepper- seeds removed and chopped

juice of 1 lemon

Instructions (with photos!!):

1. pre-heat oven to 300 degrees. slice the leaves of kale away from their stalks. tear leaves into large bite sized pieces. discard the stalks.

2. **(note on cashews. the recipe says to soak the raw cashews for 2 hours, but they are assuming you have an amazing Vitamix, which I don't have. I soaked them overnight, cuz I just have a Kitchenaid blender- this worked perfectly!!) combine all ingredients (except kale) in blender or food processor. Puree these ingredients. This mixture becomes a hummus-like consistency and looks like the photo below. (this tastes delicious on it's own! I bet it would taste awesome on some pita bread!!) I found this mixture to be a bit too thick to get all of my kale chips crispy. I would add a little olive oil or more lemon juice to make it a bit more runny- or add more kale.

3. in a large bowl combine the kale leaves and coating mixture. You can use your hands but I get eczema so I can't have my hands moist for too long, so I used some tongs to toss everything together.

4. arrange the coated leaves in a single layer on a cookie sheet. It's important that they are a single layer. I made the mistake of having some overlap and the ones on the bottom never got crispy.

5. bake in the oven for approx. 30-40 mins, but check them often!!!! My original kale chip recipe only baked for 20 mins. but because of the coating on these they take longer. These are so delicious and worth the wait, but I do want to invest in a dehydrator so it's done properly and I can walk away from them for several hours and get some other things done (*someday when I get that dehydrator I'll update this recipe with the instructions for that). For those of us without the dehydrator this recipe works just fine! Below is the finished product. They're crispy, crunchy and honestly they taste like nacho cheese chips (without the massive calories and the guilt)!!!!!!!!!! Simply divine!!!!!