Kale Chips

Like most people, I think, I don’t cook just for me.

Don’t get me wrong–I love being in the kitchen. Case-in-point: my mother has been off gallavanting with my little sister in Virginia for the past week, and instead of scavenging in the fridge for meals of leftovers she so kindly left us, I’ve been wandering through the Food Emporium after work and dusting off that list of recipes I’ve been meaning to try. I love the feeling of laying out all my ingredients on her ample counter space. I’ve missed slicing through an onion–and using my mother’s fancy Japanese knives doesn’t hurt.

But the main thing I’ve been doing since she left hasn’t just been trying recipes that I want to try, but recipes that my father, who’s on a health-food kick, can enjoy: Straciatella soup, roasted broccoli, shirataki noodles with mushrooms…

“She made me pasta! La bambina!” My father exclaimed last night after discovering that he could have the proverbial cake and eat it too when I served him a plate of shirataki noodles, made entirely from tofu. So even if my mind was wandering, thinking about patatas bravas or quickbread recipes I wanted to try… I have to say that my three days of health food dinners were worth it.

Especially because I also discovered something that I love–kale chips. I don’t know how to say kale in French, and I’ve never bought it there, but it’s so easily available here that I bought a bunch on a whim and decided to try these. Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have noticed how much I love them–I ate nearly a pound of kale in crunchy form (that’s two batches of kale chips all by myself), chomping my way through them like a dinosaur. Even my culinarily cautious sister tried one.

“It’s pleasant,” she said, chewing thoughtfully, before sprinkling a few on top of her pasta. I’m cool with that, though I prefer to eat them by the handful, which my friend, the Almost-British One, so bluntly told me will turn me magnetic.

I don’t care–I’m back in the kitchen again.

Kale Chips
1 bunch kale, washed, leaves ripped into bite-sized pieces
olive-oil spray
salt

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Dry the kale well and lay it out on a cooling rack positioned on top of a baking sheet. Spray with olive oil spray and sprinkle with salt. Roast for 15 minutes, until crispy and slightly browned at the edges. Chomp like a dinosaur.