Kale chips

I LOVE KALE CHIPS!

I think I've gone through bales of this stuff this past couple months. I can eat the whole bunch seriously in one sitting. Now, I did try the fancier techniques (dressing it with vinegar, etc), but I prefer the simple, salt and olive oil only additions.

What I usually do is:

1) Preheat oven to 350 F
2) rinse the kale leaves
3) rip off the leaves from the stem (saving the stem for my “forthcoming try on my own vegetable stock pile in the freezer”)
4) spin dry them
5) pile them on a baking dish (ripping leaves so they are more uniform size)
6) drizzle olive oil
7) sprinkle with salt
8) Massage/toss with hands to evenly coat
9) Bake for 10-15 minutes, turning halfway
10) INDULGE!

I'm happy that I'm at least addicted, okay maybe a little obsessed, with something healthy.

Actually, it's getting so bad that most of my vegetable stock pile in the freezer IS Kale stems!!!

Now for type, I prefer the curly kale. The tuscan kale produces a better crunch, but for flavor, I like the curly kale ( my sister agreed - on another note, I did try to introduce this healthy snack to my family and ended up eating most of it!!!)

If you want to try another recipe, here's a recipe that I've tried and liked.

Oh and btw -my obsession has led me to growing an army of kale plants outside on my balcony...hopefully they'll prosper!

vegan cheesecake

Keebler has these really awesome, ubercute mini graham cracker crusts...and I've been wanting to make Bryanna's Lower Fat S'More Brownies (graham cracker crust, brownie middle, marshmallow topping) but not vegan, because my bf wasn't going to be in town, and making things not vegan can be way simpler!

So I made a large regular version with Keebler's regular size graham cracker crust, with Ghiradelli double chocolate brownie mix in the middle, and Marshmallow fluff on the top (which went to the broiler for a bit of crust on the top) for the party (Pacquiao vs Hatton). Since my housemate wasn't going to the party...i made 2 mini versions with the mini crusts (which left me with the 4 remaining crusts) for us (her to try, me to preview). They were soooooo sweet! Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but just way to much flava to handle for me other than my own cute little personal brownie s'more pie. (I did not have any at the party)

What to do...well I had half a tub of vegan cream cheese, so cheesecake it was!
I used this recipe and am planning to make a wild blueberry topping (from frozen wild blueberries found at TJ's).

Very excited to try it tonight!