An Unexpected Use For Kale

The other day I made a rather delicious summer-inspired soup for dinner.  The soup was tasty, but texturally, it was missing something.  With soft beans and zucchini inside, it really needed something to give it a little crunch.  Normally, it would have been the perfect opportunity to crisp up some croutons and add them to the soup.  Since I’ve been on a vegan kick though, and my bread has dairy in it, I wanted to figure out an alternative to provide that crunch I was missing.  My solution came from the garden, and what is probably one of the most bizarre things my kitchen has tried out to date.

I headed out to the garden and plucked 12 healthy kale leaves from my kale plant.  I brought them inside, rinsed them off, and set about removing the tough center ribs.  After those were easily cut out, I tore the leaves into manageable pieces.  I turned the oven on to 250ºF, and got out my trusty baking sheet, which I sprayed with cooking spray.  The kale I placed in a bowl and tossed with olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper, and then I spread it out on the baking sheet. I popped the kale into the oven and let it go to work.  At the 15 minute mark, I pulled out the pan and gave the kale a toss with my spatula, before giving it another 15 minutes in the oven.

The kale came out as crispy as a thin-cut potato chip.  I gave the kale chips an extra sprinkling of sea salt, and started nibbling on them.  And I couldn’t stop.  I would walk away and do something else, only to come back to the bowl and nibble up a few more chips.  Andy…well, when Andy first saw them, I truly thought he might unload his lunch.  He really doesn’t like kale- so far his experiences with it have been less than stellar, and he will avoid it at all costs.   But later on in the day, his curiousness got the better of him and he popped a crispy chip into his mouth. Apparently it was a revelation, because then he loaded up a bowl and sat down and snacked on the salty-crispy goodness known as Kale Chips.  In fact, yesterday when he came home from work, he confessed that he had been thinking about those chips while he was at work, and was wishing that he’d had some to go with his lunch.

Since kale is a nutritional powerhouse, any way that we can find to enjoy it is a huge bonus!  My soup was happier with a little crunch, and we found a strange new snack to help us eat up the kale bounty in the garden.  I can’t claim any responsibility for creating the kale chip though, that honor goes to the amazing Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns.  Here is his recipe:

Tuscan Kale Chips

Preheat oven to 250°F Toss kale with oil in large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange leaves in single layer on 2 large baking sheets.

Bake until crisp, about 30 minutes for flat leaves and up to 33 minutes for wrinkled leaves. Transfer leaves to rack to cool.