Gorgeous Kale Chips

Well, I'm not going to win any prizes for food photography, but I just had to share with you how my kale chips came out. They are glossy and luscious, salty and garlicky and fatty and crisp, just the way I like them. They aren't quite as good as the first batch I made, but I think that's because I used two bunches of kale and mixed them both up together. Next time I'll season them in batches.

So here's the recipe. I don't do measurements, so play with it.

1 or 2 bunches of kale - I used one of black kale and one of curly kale, but you can use anything you like.
Liberal quantities of olive oil - depending on how fatty you like your chips.
Ditto salt and garlic powder.

1. Preheat your dehydrator to 145F. I have the stupid cheap round kind, and it works just fine. Some day I'll buy myself an Excelsior, but right now it isn't in the budget.
2. Wash the kale and tear it off its stems. Some people say to use scissors but I don't bother.
3. Put it in a salad spinner and try to get it as dry as you can.
4. Tear it into little bits - the size you want your chips to be.
5. Put it in a big bowl and mix it up with your hands with the oil and spices. I like to make it very fatty, salty and garlicky. You'll make it the way you like it. Of course you could use different spices if you prefer. I'm not big on BBQ or paprika or whatever, but I bet it would work just fine.
6. Put the kale in the dehydrator, arranged nicely on the trays.
7. Let it sit at 145F for an hour or so, then bring it down to 115F.
 8. Let it dehydrate for as long as you like. I like them really crispy so I left them overnight. Just taste them periodically.

Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom to all!

A New Toy for GI sufferers

I've found a new toy - an online GI tracker. It's a little inflexible in terms of input, but it seems to work nicely to correlate foods and symptoms. You can have it send you reports in the form of PDFs that you can take to your doctor. It's kind of cool, in a medicalised kind of way.

One thing that shocked me is that you HAVE to input some kind of medication. The idea of having a condition like this and not taking medication appears to be outside the box. I put in one of the more innocuous things I've been prescribed (and that I do occasionally take), but it was pretty amazing that there was no "none" among the options!

I've also bought myself the latest version of Mark Sisson's book The Primal Blueprint. Not that I lead such a Primal life - for one thing, having had a kosher vegetarian kitchen since 1994, I'm not about to introduce meat into the house. Even if I were ready for such a major upheaval of my kitchen, I don't think grassfed kosher meat is available anywhere around here for a price I'm willing to pay (apparently it's available in Baltimore, but that doesn't help me). Right now my kids, vegetarian from birth, are revolted even at the idea of eating fish, so it's all baby steps. I did such a great job of raising them according to the ideas of the 90s, healthy whole grains and all ... sigh.

Still, being that I'm on the SCD, it's a lot closer to Primal than the Standard North American Diet. I do make the SCD yoghurt and eat cheese, and I also use honey on occasion. Legumes are also a major part of my diet, since I seem to tolerate them pretty well.

By the way, the kale chips came out great. I was going to take a picture of them, but I ate too many before I thought of it. Oh well. I'll make more later in the week. I do need to be a little careful, can't gobble too many of them or the fibre gets me. But they were crunchy, fatty, garlicky and salty, just what I like! I'll post the recipe when I make them again, along with a lovely picture.

What about you, what substitutions can you make to enjoy your favourite things without ruining your health?