Plain Kale Chips

Today, I am sharing an easy and tasty recipe that you can kill in a good way, or a bad way depending on how well you follow directions.  These are a good match to a plain potato chip that is thinly sliced.  No doubt, they have got to be a better choice.  Create an option for yourself and your family.

This recipe can be found here.  What I want to share with you today, my the technique I used.  My husband and one of my daughters also enjoyed these as well.  A lot.  

Homemade Kale ChipsThe What's:

1 bunch kale, rinsed, thoroughly dried, and chopped (remove thick stems, or not)

olive oil

sea salt

(I added sesame seeds)

Recipe from AllRecipes.com

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and cover your cookie sheet with parchment paper.   Place your kale in a large ziploc bag and place enough olive oil in the bag to cover each pieces of kale.  This amount will varied by how much kale you are making.  I added three sprinkles of sesame seeds and at least 1/2 Tbsp of Kosher Salt.  Seal the ziploc bag and shake the bag until every piece of kale is covered.  Open the bag and spread the kale evenly on two cookie sheets. 

Bake your kale at 350 degrees for 10-20 minutes until the edges are browned but not burnt.  I tossed the kale around a bit and when I saw the edges were browning, I turned the oven down to 225 and let it bake until they were equally crunchy.  If you want a crunchy chip like I do, keep watching and tasting them, at a lower oven temperature, every ten minutes until they are equally toasty.  Let them cool before serving, if you can resist.  

Recipe from AllRecipes.com

Kale Couscous White Bean Chicken Soup

Today was an absolutely beautiful day here in the Carolina's.  For dinner, we needed a healthy and quick meal that would satisfy hungry kids from playing all afternoon in the crisp weather.  I made a big batch of roasted chicken earlier this week and while I used it in this soup, along with chicken broth, this can be omitted to make a vegan soup.  As a vegan soup, I am sure this will be exactly what soup is to your heart and soul.

The recipe I followed started off from this link.  I had to at least double this recipe and even doing that, my family of five have left me no leftovers.  I added in two bay leaves but otherwise followed the recipe as instructed.  Even my children enjoyed the soup and for this in itself, I am thankful that they don't squeal when they see kale in their soup or watch me put spinach in their smoothies.

Toast some bread and enjoy this by the spoonful,

Enriching Ego

Nutritional Details:

335 Calories

27 Carbs

11g Fat

30g Protein

860mg Sodium (eek)

4g Sugar

Day 1 of The Clean Eating Challenge

Kale and Banana Smoothie starts off my day one!  Five ingredients blended together to make a fantastically green concoction.  Here is the link to the recipe.  Kale, Almond Milk, Frozen Banana, Vanilla extract and Peanut Butter (*recipe calls for almond butter, I am using what I have).  

My husband was the first to leave the house this morning so I offered to make him one.  He tasted it and decided it wasn't for him so off he went with an empty belly.  

To rate these recipes, I will mention ease of preparation, cost of ingredients, satiety, serving size per recipe and flavor.

Ease of preparation:  Scale of 1 (being easiest) to 10, this is a 2; Very easy.  You only need to have frozen unpeeled bananas overnight as well as have the ingredients on hand.
Cost of ingredients:  Inexpensive.
Satiety:  within 20 minutes of eating it, my belly is not stuffed yet full.
Serving Size:  This recipe will yield close to two cups of smoothie, well at least 1.5 cups easy.
Flavor:  This smoothie tastes mostly like peanut butter.  Drinking this was not difficult but the flavor was not sweet.

Next up, is lunch! I had to wait four hours between meals so by the time it came, I was hungry yet still reasonable.  Today's lunch was a Shaved Asparagus salad with Shallots and Fried Egg Salad and the recipe can be found here.

Ingredients for this recipe included eggs, asparagus, arugula, shallots, tomato, lemon juice, olive oil, parsley, salt/pepper and feta cheese.  We used the entire container of arugula and we were able to serve three platefuls of salad.  

Wow, what a salad! I like my egg slightly runny and it complimented the warm, al dente asparagus. Did I mention that I didn't think I even liked Asparagus?!  Yep, I asked my husband yesterday if he liked them because in ten years I had never bought them from the store or asked for them in a restaurant.  Neither, had I seen him eat them.

Ease of preparation:  Scale rating:  4. I could not peel the asparagus, as the recipe suggest so I just sliced them lengthwise and cut them in half across. The shallots will cook fast so keep your eye on the pan. Frying the egg, can always go either way; broken or perfect.  If you prefer a runny egg, then opt for what you enjoy!  I love, love, love feta cheese so having it for lunch made my heart sing. This salad is served best when it's warm but not terrible as I had two plates, the second which was room temperature.  I added a little olive oil as a dressing to give it congruence.

Cost of ingredients:  Estimated cost is between $5-$6, mainly due to the amount of arugula you use and the cost of asparagus.  Still affordable.
Satiety:  I was able to suppress my appetite until it was snack time, three hours later.
Serving Size:  This recipe will yield close to six cups of salad and is a great meal to serve to guest, pending you can serve it warm.  You can cook as many eggs as you prefer and I imagine a hard-boiled egg wouldn't be bad here either.
Flavor:  This salad tasted green.  Your body is screaming with joy once you've cleaned your plate and licked your fork.  Favorite meal of the day.

Here is my portion of the salad, in which did not hesitate to help myself to a second serving. 

Guilt-Free, I may add!  

I am omitting the pictures of my snacks.  So far, I've had peeled and sliced whole carrots and red pepper hummus for a snack and soon, it will be a nice pear with peanut butter, or almond butter if you have it.  

Finally, the final meal of the Day 1 Clean Eating Challenge!  

Tonight, I serve you a Roasted Chicken Bowl with Couscous, Kale and Big Orange Vinaigrette.  I was able to use some leftover chicken that I had roasted this weekend in place of baking new chicken, so stay tuned later this week for a review on their Big Batch Roasted Chicken Breast.  I also changed quinoa to couscous because that is what I  had in my pantry!  I am no nutritionist but I bet these two are pretty close nutritionally.

Ease of preparation:  Scale rating: 4.  You should prep everything while your chicken is roasting so you can progress in steps beforehand then bam!   I cooked the couscous first and let it sit on the counter top at least 10 minutes. I made the vinaigrette dressing and let that sit while I finished up the kale.  Steaming the kale was easy but be sure to strain in before mixing it all together.

Cost of ingredients:  Inexpensive.
Satiety:  stuffed.  My palate is fresh, my teeth are happy and life is good.
Serving Size:  This recipe will yield close to six cups. I wouldn't think adding more kale would hurt anyone so be sure if you are adding more kale, that you make more dressing.
Flavor:  The kale was pleasant, not bitter.  I don't know if it was because of the orange vinaigrette that helped or the light steam.  The couscous had no real flavor but I did add some olive oil and salt into the water.

In case you were interested, this is the orange vinaigrette.  My interpretation is to squeeze juice from an orange and not use sweetened orange juice that you would drink. 

The flavor of this was good, not sweet at all.  

Who doesn't love making their own dressings?!

I hope you have enjoyed today's posts and I hope the pictures encourage you to make this your own.  I will not post specific recipes as the link is the best way to organize your week.  I am now off to clean up the kitchen and prep my oatmeal for tomorrow.  I can't wait to see how overnight oats with chia seeds and blueberries taste.