Hello world, my name is Caitlin and I am a chip addict. Mostly kettle chips, but I don’t discriminate between flavours. I’m an equal opportunity chip binger. You can imagine my chagrin as I started my journey towards healthy eating and realized there was no place in my life for my delicious companions.

Au revoir, auf wiedersehen, adios amigo! Or so I thought. Luckily I attended a raw vegan cooking class where I learned from Eva Cabaca an amazing recipe for kale chips. Now I’m not a vegan by any stretch of the imagination, but as someone who didn’t willingly eat a vegetable until I was in my 20s I’m always looking for new and exciting ways to prepare them. I’m a little behind on the curve here.

This recipe is a little more involved than your typical olive oil, lemon juice, seat salt recipe, but it still only takes a few minutes to prepare and the end result tastes almost exactly like sour cream and onion chips, minus the trans fats and dairy. What a revelation!

I try to always have a batch on hand to munch on while working or to offer guests. They’re so tasty I promise you won’t miss real chips. Well not much anyway. I’ve played around with Eva’s recipe a bit and you should all feel free to play around with mine until you find your perfect chip.

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. nut butter of choice (I like sunflower seed or tahini)

1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

1 + 1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

½ red onion

1 bunch of kale

Salt to taste

Directions:

1. Set oven as low as possible. Mine goes down to 170F and I’ve found this to be a good temperature to work with. If your oven doesn’t go below 200, try keeping it open a crack so it doesn’t get too hot. Alternatively, you can place them in a food dehydrator.
2. Add nut butter, 1 Tbsp. olive oil, and apple cider vinegar to a small food processor.
3. Rough chop garlic and onions and add to food processor.
4. Blend until mostly smooth. Don’t worry if there are a few chunks. They just add more texture to the chip.
5. In a large bowl tear kale into slightly larger than bite-sized pieces, taking care to remove the stems. They can become rather hard once cooked so it’s best to remove them altogether. I usually just grab the base of the kale stalk in one hand then run my hand up the stalk in one smooth motion. It removes most of the kale and then you just have to rip into small pieces. Quick and easy!
6. Pour the mixture over the kale and massage into the leaves by hand.
7. Grease baking sheets with remaining Tbsp. of olive oil.
8. Spread the chips in a single layer over two baking sheets.
9. Sprinkle with salt.

10. Place in oven or dehydrator until crispy. This can take a couple of hours due to the low temperature. After an hour flip the chips to get an even crunch.

11. Let cool before storing in an airtight container. However, since my apartment is hotter than the fires of Mount Doom, I just leave them in a bowl on the coffee table until they’re gone so work with what you’ve got.

So now that we know how to prepare some delicious kale chips, let’s take a closer look at some of the awesome health benefits of the ingredients!

Kale:

I’m pretty sure I could do an entire blog post on why kale is so spectacular, but I’m unsure how exciting it would be. So I’ll just hit on a couple of key points. Firstly, our livers are super important for maintaining health. I’m going to do an exciting post all about the liver in the future, but for now just know that it detoxifies all the icky things we may accidentally ingest, inhale, or otherwise absorb into our person. Kale supports the liver thanks to its sulfur containing compounds, such as sulforaphane. These compounds increase our liver’s production of the sweet, sweet enzymes necessary to break down toxic substances. This delicious cruciferous veggie (it’s part of the broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts family) also has tons of fantabulous antioxidants, which help keep us all looking young and beautiful.

Apple Cider Vinegar:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

1. When bought in the unpasteurized form with the mother (it’s similar to the SCOBY) it can help improve digestion and, uh, keep things moving south in a timely manner.
2. If you have a hard time digesting certain foods or suffer from heartburn, you can try taking a Tbsp. about 15-20 minutes before meals (in water if you don’t want the burn, but I just shoot it like a champ :P) to see if it helps.
3. It makes a great skin toner! Just add 1 part ACV to 10 parts water and use before bed. I had a monster breakout last weekend and it helped clear me up in a jiffy!
4. Certain studies have shown that consuming ACV with a meal can help balance blood sugar which as we’ll see in upcoming posts is key to managing energy and inflammation.

It tastes friggen delicious! It’s my go to acid in salad dressing recipes. An easy one: 1 part olive oil, 2 parts ACV, ¼ part raw honey, spoonful of ground mustard. Simply divine, dahling!

Garlic:

This delicious little fella packs quite the nutritional punch. Thanks to its sulfur content, specifically in the form of allicin, garlic has great anti-bacterial and antiviral properties and it totally helps boost antioxidant activity! Can you feel these chips making you younger as yet?

Onions:

Nothing makes me quite so teary eyed as a delicious red onion (I’m sorry for that) and these bad boys are full of phytonutrients (plant nutrients) which help decrease inflammation. Huzzah! I’ve also heard it said that the stinkier an onion, the more nutritionally powerful it is so don’t be afraid to shed some tears y’all! They also contain sulfur and we already know how good naturally occurring sulfur is for our bodies.

Sunflower butter:

This spoonful of creamy deliciosity is a great source of Vitamin E, which stands for vitamin extraordinary! Well it actually doesn’t, but how much more fun would nutrition be if people gave vitamins and stuff really exciting names? Learning about the krebs cycle is a snore, learning about the epic cycle of energy combustion perhaps would have kept me awake during body metabolism. Anyhoo, back to the point. Vit. E is an antioxidant and which promotes brain health so we can remember all the boring science names for stuff. It also contains healthy omega fats, which decrease inflammation. Finally, they contain protein and fibre to help balance blood sugar. What a seed!

Olive Oil:

Whew! This is getting a little long winded isn’t it? Thanks for sticking it out; this is our last super awesome food to go through. I’ll keep it brief so you guys can get on with your lives. Olives contain fabulous phytonutrients which we already know help keep us young and fresh. They’re also a great source of oleic acid, which is a healthy source of fat that supports our hearts. Plus, fat is delicious and we should never deprive ourselves of healthy fat sources!

Well, we made it! A big thanks for joining me today folks! Let me know how this recipe works out for you in the comments. Happy eating 🙂