Recipe: Sweet and Spicy Kale Chips :: MMM (Must Make Monday)

June 11, 2012 by Laureen Fox

I have been a collector of recipes for as long as I can remember but I never manage to find enough time to try all the recipes I collect and that was the reason my MMM (Must-Make-Monday) series was born. The idea is to force myself to choose at least one recipe from my Must-Make-List each week. I will post the results on my blog. Solid idea, or so I thought, but with my recipe collection growing faster than the speed of light, I could use a month of Mondays and still not get to half of the recipes in my collection(s). That’s the other thing, since I started this blog, my collection has become plural. It started with the Must-Make-Page on my site but I also have a Must-Make Board on Pinterest.

My MMM (Must-Make-Monday) series, is good in that it forces me to follow through and use recipes from my collection(s). After using a recipe, I check it off and add it to Made-This (TAB). You can view archive postings from my MMM (Must-Make-Monday) series, by clicking here.

To start things off this week, here are a few recipes, that I’ve come across recently. I’ve categorized them but they are listed in no particular order. These are recipes that I would love to try but haven’t gotten around to yet. They are to become the newest additions to my Must-Make-List.

Important *** I have not tagged these recipe links as Gluten, Grain, Sugar, Dairy, Egg or Nut Free, nor have I labelled them as Vegan or Vegetarian. Please review and confirm the recipe meets your dietary requirements before you begin.

Sweet:

Flourless Mango Cake by Chocolate Chilli Mango. This recipe reminds me of the Flourless Orange and Almond Cake that I so love.
Mini Lemon Ginger Blintz Cheesecakes also by Chocolate Chilli Mango. These little gluten free guys are just too cute! Bonus, I can use some of my homemade yogurt to make the cheese part of the cake

Frozen Treats:

Summer Berry Sorbet Popsicles by Natural Mothers Network. I think this will be the summer of Popsicles, here in the Fox Kitchen.
Hot Apple Pie Smoothies and Popsicles by Peas And Thank You. A Hot Apple Pie Smoothie? Complete with a streusel topping? I say YUM!
Mango Orange Blossom Popsicles by Gluten Free A-Z Blog. I think I almost have enough popsicle recipes to get me through the summer…almost
Strawberry Coconut Gelato by Soup Addict. Gelato — Italian ice cream, slightly lighter, with a larger ratio of whole milk to cream. With balsamic-macerated strawberries and subtle coconut flavors, this Gelato looks simply scrumptious.
Vegan Agave Sweetened Pina Colada Ice Cream by Welcoming Kitchen. Still waiting for Summer to arrive here in Vancouver but when it does, I will be ready with a nice collection of Ice Cream recipes to choose from!

Salad:

Quinoa Salad With Buckwheat and Cranberries by Diet Dessert and Dogs. Looking forward to giving this recipe a try. It has an interesting combination of flavours.
Garbanzo Bean Salad With Mexican Mango Dressing by My New Roots. I’m a big fan of mango but Mr Fox…not so much. Yes! That means more salad for me
Greek Quinoa and Avocados from Fitness Magazine. I have a couple of bags of Quinoa to use up. What better way to do that than to add them to summer salads?
Wild Rice Salad by Sweet & Healthy Living. A Wild Rice Salad with pears, pecans and dried cherries or how about switching up the fruit and nuts? Apples, walnuts and raisins sounds just as good. Topped with “cashew cheese”, this salad is one I can hardly wait to try.
Gingered Quinoa Salad With Apples And Coconut by The Fig Tree. A quinoa salad with a refreshing new (to me at least) mix of flavours. I bet this salad would be good with a light sprinkle of raw cashews on top!

Savoury:

Spicy Green Beans With Homemade Soy-Free Teriyaki Sauce by The Tasty Alternative. I loved the spicy beans we got when we ordered from Chinese Take-Out. This recipe has sparked a real craving for those beans. I just have to make this side dish!
Brown Rice Cakes by Aunt B on a Budget. Super idea, I never thought to make rice cakes. I bet they taste better than the dry tasteless ones I get from the supermarket!
Wickedly Good Fish Taco Sauce by Soup Addict. How can you not want to try a sauce that is “Wickedly Good”?
Gluten Free Flatbread and Cracker Recipe by Gluten Free Gobsmacked. A versatile recipe for crackers, flatbread, pita bread, etc. I would like to try it as a flatbread with hummus.
Spring Time Pea and Asparagus Risotto by Sweet & Healthy Living. This risotto dish sounds wonderful and I am really intrigued by the cashew sour cream. Vicky says it “is basically just slightly fermented cashew cream”.

Miscellaneous:

Annual Gluten Free Birthday Cake Challenge by Daily Dietribe. Iris is having a milestone birthday and she has invited us to join in. Bake a gluten free cake, cup cakes or birthday pie before June 25th and link it up to her birthday post. She will have prizes along the way
GAPS Q&A at the Clark County WAPF Recap by Joy Ceilidh of The Liberated Kitchen. An interesting and informative article on the GAPS Diet.

To see a text listing of my gluten free recipes, click here

The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy. ~ Kalu Kalu

Here’s what’s been cooking in the Fox Kitchen lately…

Salmon With Thai Coconut Curry Sauce by Jeanette’s Healthy Living. I love salmon and I love coconut curry dishes. I said I would definitely be giving this recipe a try, and I did!

We only needed two servings, so I split the recipe in half to serve over our Baked Salmon. It was wonderful! I froze some leftover sauce but it didn’t stay frozen for long. I thawed it out to go on our grilled chicken the next day. YUM! This sauce has definitely earned a place in our regular recipe rotation.

Question for you…am I the only person who hasn’t jumped on board the Kale Bandwagon?

My tenuous relationship with Kale started about twenty years ago after I first spotted some strange new leafy green at the local produce market. I was given instructions to simply chop it up and fry it along with some garlic in a bit of butter. The result was something that was deep green, almost black, limp, rubbery and impossibly chewy. For me, Kale did not have any redeeming qualities. It was a complete waste of some good garlic and butter.

Pretty harsh, I guess, to carry a long-term grudge against what has become a very popular leaf. It’s not that I don’t like leafy greens. I grew up eating things like swiss chard, dandelion greens, pig weed. You name it, if it was edible, you could expect my homestead, forager parents to fix it up and serve it to us kids.

These days my leafy greens are foraged from the local farmer’s market. They generally consist of the safe bets…spinach, beet greens, bok choy and romaine lettuce. Last summer, I remember stopping and marveling at the seemingly vast array of different kinds of Kale. So many choices, how does a Kale newbie know which one to choose? What if I choose one that I end up hating?

I wore a sandwich baggie on my hand while massaging the dressing into the Kale

By the end of last summer, I worked up enough nerve to buy a bunch of Kale. I think I must have closed my eyes and blindly selected one kind from a vast selection, or maybe I went with the smallest bunch or the least expensive. It hardly mattered anyways, because that bunch of Kale lived in my crisper for about a month before I had to throw it out.

I was surprised at how condensed the Kale became after adding the dressing.

There, you would think that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. BTW, I have a new rule. I must not go to the farmer’s market when I am craving fresh fruits and vegetables, leafy or otherwise! I overfilled my basket with radishes, both red and for the first time, white radishes. Spinach, baby bok choy, zucchini, sweet peas, carrots, organic green cabbage and organic red cabbage, organic romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, new nugget potatoes, two different sizes of tomatoes, large and grape tomatoes. Fresh dill, cilantro and green basil, many kinds of fruits, strawberries and to top it off, a single bunch of Kale.

I have no idea what kind of Kale I purchased. It was the only kind they had and it was labelled simply as Kale. No hints about the best method of preparation either, it was simply, Kale. At a $1.69 for the bunch, I simply felt the need to possess it.

After I got the Kale home, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I ended up tucking it away in the back of the fridge behind all the other fruit and vegetables that I had plans for and there simple Mr Kale sat. Until this morning. My two and a half-year old grandson was over for a visit this morning. After we finished cleaning up breakfast, he asked “what are you going to make now Nana?”. Little darling, he knows me well.

Prepped, ready to go in the oven

I thought I was going to make cookie dough. After all, I volunteered to bake cookies for another golf tournament this week but I opened the fridge and there was that simple, lonely bunch of Kale. Lonely? Yes, we had worked our way through the other produce.

Out came my Must-Make-List. The first thing (and quite possibly the only thing) with Kale on my list was a recipe for Sweet and Spicy Kale Chips by The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen.

All baked, ready to eat. Do you have any food photography tips on how to make Kale Chips look edible?

Have you been to Tom and Ali’s Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen? I highly recommend it. For me, their site has been an invaluable source for wholesome gluten free recipes and easy to grasp nutritional information.

I veered off a bit from their original recipe. I cut it in half because I only had a single bunch of Kale. I used vinegar instead of lime, because my limes were all used up in my Citrus Marinade for Chicken. I omitted the red chili flakes and added some spicy ground pepper mix along with a dash of ground cayenne pepper.

Did the Kale Chips win me over? A bit. Am I addicted to them just like everyone else? Not quite but I admit they don’t taste all that offensive and they’re surely healthier than Potato Chips. Are Kale Chips enough to make me forget my first disastrous experience with the leafy green? Umm, not so much but I think I will be making this recipe again.