I am addicted to Kale Crisps

I'm always on the lookout for tasty but healthy recipes, I feel so much joy when I'm eating something yummy but knowing it's actually doing me some good too! Obviously sometimes you just have that decadent scrumptious chocolate cake but most of the time I try to be good.

One of the things I found out about recently was Kale crisps (or chips, on the other side of the pond). I am one of those people that actually likes veggies (after all I am a vegetarian, so it would be tricky if I didn't) so this for me isn't one of those "I hated this vegetable before but like this I can actually eat it" situations.

But this my friends, is out of this world. When I read the several "recipes" - you can hardly call it a recipe it's that easy - on the net for kale crisps I couldn't believe it when people were saying that it really tasted like crips. Maybe even better.

I decided to try nonetheless, so I bought a bag of ready chopped up and washed kale leaves (it really is best if you can get hold of an actual bunch insted of the small leaves, but I couldn't find any other variety). 

Apparently the kale can't be wet or damp so make sure they're dry before you pop them in the oven. I just blotted them with a piece of kitchen paper.

Now these crisps can be done however you like them, the simplest being just done with olive oil and salt, but you can do other variations like sesame seed, salt and vinegar, paprika, maple sirup (?). My favourite crips in the whole wide world are salt and vinegar, so that's what I tried to achieve.

I put about half of the packet of kale in a large bowl with 1-2 tbspoons of virgin olive oil and 2 tbspoons of malt vinegar. Don't be afraid to really dig in and massage the leaves, the misture has to be well distributed throughout the leaves so give them some love!

Then I distributed them as well as possible on an oven tray, over a baking sheet and put them in the pre-heated oven at 150ºC for about 15 minutes.

I was going to leave them longer, but since the leaves were cut quite small I took them out earlier. You really just have to keep checking and take them out when they're nice and crisp.

Sprinkle salt and enjoy your fat free, almost zero calorie tasty crisps!

I tried making another batch yesterday and decided to be adventurous. Put paprika AND cayenne pepper. I like spicy, but boy they were hot! I drank about a litre of water after that, pheww. They were still nice though!

Speaking of healthy food, I have just joined Graze, a delivery service where they select the healthy foods that actually taste good and handpick your very own snack box. 

 

I joined because I saw somewhere an offer where I could get the first box for free, so I thought why not. 

You get a box delivered to your door, on the day you chose for a more convenient weekly delivery and they handpick 4 diferent little boxes of snacks that match your preferences. You can choose whichever system you prefer: 1 box a week, 2 times a week, heck you could have a box everyday except for sunday! 

You also choose if you want a healthy box, a diet box, a normal box... I chose the eat-well box - healthy but  still get the occasional treat.

They delivered to any UK address for just £3.79 and to be honest if I went out to buy a snack - especially healthy stuff - I'm sure I'd spend more than that anyway. 

I like the idea of having exciting new things to try, a healthy snack to "graze" on and the element of surprise when you find a little package in the mailbox!

If anyone's interested in joining I have here a code for a free box: D1GZ8N6