Kale Chips

Kale Chips.

I feel like I jumped on the kale chip bandwagon about a year too late.  They were huge a while back, and I never really paid attention then.  I guess I just thought that it was just a fad and I really didn't know too much about kale anyway.  

So then I decided to see what all the hype was about, and it sucked me in as well.  I'm now a huge lover of kale, especially kale chips.  And the nutrients that kale has is also amazing.

So much good stuff in there! I've really tried to use kale in recipes more, and eat it at least once a day.  I typically make smoothies including kale to get my daily dose, but I also make kale chips often.  The other day I made sweet potato ravioli with a pesto made from kale (recipe coming soon). 

I feel like kale is one of those things that people either love or hate.  I love it, Jeremy hates it.  He'll drink the smoothies that I make with kale, cause you can't taste it.  He won't touch kale chips.  He did eat the sweet potato ravioli with kale pesto, and when asked how he like the kale pesto, he said "I could still taste the kale."  Silly boy. 

Kale chips are probably the easiest thing ever to make, and there are so many variations.  There are spicy kale chips, cheesy kale chips, chocolate kale chips (sounds really gross-has anyone tried this?!), even kale chips on popcorn.   *You can click here to find a whole bunch of different types of kale chips recipes.

Here is how I typically make them:

Kale Chips

Couple stalks of kale

few tbsp olive oil

salt

pepper 

garlic powder

paprika

Wash and dry the kale.  Tear off the leaves from the stem into bite size pieces.  toss in a bowl with olive oil and a few dashes of each of the spices.  lay out on a baking sheet, and bake at 350 for about 10-15 mins, until crisp and lightly browned.  

Roasted Cherry Tomato & Corn Salsa

In our CSA shares this summer, we have gotten an overwhelming amount of cherry tomatoes.   We usually get 2 pint size(?) cartons in our box every week.  I'm always trying to find new recipes using these mini tomatoes.  I also like to eat these tomatoes on their own.  I thought this recipe looked delicious, and would also use a good amount of the tomatoes that were about to get attacked by the swarming fruit flies that have made their home on my kitchen table.

This salsa is a little more on the sweet side.  Roasting the tomatoes caramelizes them a little bit, and brings out their sweetness.  It's also very thick and chunky.  Delicious to eat up with tortilla chips or on mexican pizza!

I found this recipe from Naturally Ella.  I love her blog.  It has so many seasonal vegetarian/vegan recipes that all look amazing.

Roasted Tomato & Corn Salsa

2 lbs cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 serrano pepper, chopped

1 large onion, roughly chopped into pieces the size of cherry tomatoes

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 ears sweet corn, corn cut off

juice from 1 lime

1 cup freshly chopped cilantro

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400.   On a baking tray, place tomatoes, onion, garlic, and pepper, and toss with olive oil.  Roast in the oven until softened and lightly browned, 45-55 mins.  Place corn on a separate baking tray and toss with a Tbsp of olive oil.  Roast the corn until lightly browned, about 15-20 mins.  In a food processor or blender, combine the roasted tomato mixture and the cilantro.  Pulse together until well combined.  Add in the lime juice and salt, and pulse again until combined.  Remove from food processor/blender and stir in the corn.  

  

Avocado Egg Rolls

Avocado egg rolls.  These little guys are so addicting.  I had a few extra avocados lying around that needed to be used up before they turned too ripe, so I researched some interesting avocado recipes and landed on egg rolls.  Most of the searches that I found were comparing recipes to that of the Cheesecake Factory's version.  Although I've never had theirs, I've heard they're pretty darn good.  Well, these are suppose to be a copycat recipe of those, so if you like the one from the CCF, you'll probably like these!

Sundried tomatoes mixed with creamy avocado, cilantro, and crunchy red onions all fried up in a crispy shell.  They're sooooo good.  I used a sweet-chili dipping sauce to go with them.  The first time I made these, I was at home alone, and I may have eaten the whole plate by myself and called it dinner.  maybe.

Avocado Egg Rolls

adapted from MsVegan

1 large avocado, peeled, pitted and diced

2 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

1 Tbsp red onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp fresh cilantro, chopped

1/4 tsp salt

6 (ish) egg roll wrappers

oil of choice for frying

Stir all the ingredients together and stir until combined.  Place a Tbsp or 2 of filling into the center of each wrapper.  Starting with a corner, fold up to cover about a 1/4 of the filling.  Brush the rest of the corners with a little water.  fold in the side corners, and then roll up the last.  Press gently to seal.  Repeat with the rest of the wrappers and filling.

heat oil in a deep pan over medium high heat.  When the oil is about 350-380 degrees, add the egg rolls and let them fry for 2-3 minutes each side.  Once browned, transfer them to a paper towel-lined plate to drain excess oil.  Slice diagonally in half and serve with dipping sauce of choice!

Homemade Potato Chips

One of my Christmas presents this year was the KitchenAid Food Processor.  This thing is awesome.  It does so many things!  It kneads, chops, slices, puree's, dices, minces, shreds, and more.  I typically am a pretty slow cooker.  Because I make almost everything from scratch (starting with fresh veggies/fruit instead of pre-prepared/canned, etc), most of the time that I spend making meals is because of chopping/slicing up things for the meal.  Well, my new food processor can do all that for me, and is a huge time saver.  It's really easy to use, safe, and extremely efficient.  

The first thing I made with my new kitchen toy is potato chips.  We put the slicer disc on the thinnest setting, and it made perfect potato chips.  

The top part of the FP has an adjustable size lid to fit big or small foods in.

Slicing the tater...

Raw chips.

Fry em' up!

season with salt 

Perfect!  They're crispy and very potato-y.  Sooooo good.

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Pizza Rolls

Totino's Pizza Rolls are nasty.  

Jeremy loves them.  I used to eat them when I was younger, but I can't stand them now.  I don't think they taste good and I haven't even looked at the nutritional side of them, but I'm sure there's not much to stand for on that end.  I sent Jeremy out grocery shopping one day and he came back with a bunch of junk food, including an enormous bag of pizza rolls.  And he ate the whole thing...in like 2 days.  He even has a certain way of arranging them on a plate so that they all microwave and cook through evenly.  I should have taken a photo of it, cause it's pretty ridiculous.

I made my own pizza rolls once before, at our Gender Reveal Party.  Everyone loved them and they were gone quite quickly.  So quick that Jeremy did not get to try one.  Since Jeremy said that he was craving pizza rolls, I decided to make them once again.  The first time I think I used store-bought pizza dough, but this time I made my own dough instead.  I thought they were much better with the homemade dough.  They're filled with typical pizza sauce and toppings, baked and then brushed with garlic butter.  They're delicious, and my Totino's-loving hubby totally approved.  

I didn't really use a set recipe on these (except for the dough), and the filling possibilities are endless (eggs, cheese, peppers and onions for a breakfast version?).

Pizza Rolls

Pizza dough (store-bought or homemade, I used my no-fail pizza dough, found Here)

Mozzarella Cheese, grated

pepperoni's, chopped

tomato sauce of your choice

basil

oregano

2 tbsp butter, melted

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp parsley


Preheat oven to 425.  Divide the pizza dough in half.  Roll each half out very thin.  Mix together the pizza sauce, cheese, pepperonis, basil and oregano in a small bowl.

Drop cheese/sauce mixture by the tablespoonful onto one of the rolled out doughs, leaving a few inches in between each (see picture above).  Place the other rolled out dough over top of the dough and fillings, and gently press the top and bottom doughs together.  Cut squares around each of the dough and fillings, and press edges together with a fork.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until edges are very lightly browned.  While the pizza rolls are baking, make the garlic butter.  Stir in the garlic powder and parsley to the melted butter.

When rolls are done baking, brush on garlic butter.

Enjoy!

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws.  They are exactly what they sound like.  Like cheez-itz, but less processed-tasting, and in long, thin, stick-like form.  They're super simple and easy to make, and taste like nothing more than sharp cheddar cheese with a tad bit of red pepper mixed in.

I made them as part of the food arrangements for our gender-reveal party.  Our party was in the evening, and I made the cheese straws earlier on in the day.  I had a hard time keeping Jeremy away from them.  Pretty sure he ate almost half the batch before the party started.  I don't really have much else to say about these fun little snacks, except that they are easy, cheesy, and delicious!

Cheese Straws

from Smitten Kitchen

1 1/2 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese (I used extra sharp)

4 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened and cut into 4 pieces

3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (or more)

1 Tbsp half-and-half

Preheat oven to 350.  In a large bowl, combine the cheese, flour, salt and red pepper flakes.  Cut in the butter with a pastry blender (this step can also be done with a few pulses by a food processor, but mine is embarrassingly tiny, so I used a pastry blender).  Then cut in (or pulse a few more times) the half-and-half, until the mixture starts to stick all together.  

Roll the dough out on a floured surface into a large rectangle, until it is about 1/8 inch thick  With a sharp knife or pizza roller, make thin strips.  They were a little crumbly for me, so I rolled each strip between my hand and the counter-picture making a snake out of playdough.  Like that.

transfer the straws to a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until they are slightly hardened and edges are lightly browned.  Cool and enjoy!