Today was a very quiet day at home thanks to it raining all day, we stayed in and cleaned, did laundry, watched TV, played in the kitchen and I got another load of clothes and household items together to donate. Decluttering feels so good! But the chihuahua is giving me the stink eye from being bored and stuck inside the house all day. I also tackled my banana freezing project since the two bunches I bought last weekend were finally ripe enough to throw in the freezer.

I just peel them, chop them up and throw into a freezer bag. The bag makes it easier to whack them apart when frozen with a rubber mallet for tossing chunks into smoothies, soft serve and protein ice kream. I’m not a fan of using disposable bags, but I try to reuse the them as much as possible, hard freezer containers make it impossible to pry and chisel the frozen banana chunks out.

All the kale chip sampling yesterday had me craving more, great because I have a lot of kale to use up in the garden still. My kale is blooming like crazy for spring already, so I harvested a huge bowl for experimenting.

Many of the store-bought kale chips annoy me because they’re loaded with nuts, super pricey and way too crumbly. A few bags I’ve tried were mostly crumbs, hardly any chips, and very messy to eat. It’s hard to look dignified with kale chip crumbs in your hair, all over your shirt and stuck to your face. Plus many seem to have way more calories than they should thanks to the sauce being mostly cashews. So I utilized my quiet day at home to experiment with a lighter and more flavorful recipe that was a success.

Print Recipe

Light & Spicy Kale Chips 1 bunch of kale, chopped into bite-sized pieces and de-stemmed if desired

1/2 cup cashews or hemp seeds

1 red pepper, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 clove garlic

3 tbsp. lemon juice

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1 tbsp. chili powder

2 tsp. nama shoyu (organic soy sauce) or tamari

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

pinch of turmeric

1/3 cup water Mix all ingredients except the kale in a high speed blender to create a sauce. Pour sauce over kale pieces in a large bowl and thoroughly mix coating each kale piece with sauce. Place kale pieces in a food dehydrator and dry at 110 degrees for 3-4 hours or until desired texture is reached. Makes about 6 servings … or one large serving since they’re kind of addicting. :-)

This version reduces the amount of nuts/seeds in the sauce thickening it with carrots and adds more of a spicy nacho kick and creamy flavor to the chips. The sauce is pretty hearty and could be spread over larger batches of kale for even lighter chips since it has a stronger spice kick and a pretty orange color. :-) And these seemed significantly less crumbly!

GIVEAWAY!

I did snag some fun products and swag at yesterday’s raw foods fest, a few of my favorite raw goodies and a new delight that I’m just going to giveaway. One lucky winner will get:

A package of Tahini Cosmic Kale Crunchies

A Lydia’s Organics Cacao Crunch Bar

A jar of UliMana’s Peppermint Truffles (which are freaking amazing!)

Some fun Cafe Gratitude stickers and fliers

And various other reading material I grabbed

To enter:

Leave a comment telling me which item you’d enjoy the most.

Like my Facebook page and leave a comment confirming.

Follow me on Twitter and leave another comment.

I’ll pick the winner next Sunday and who knows what I might decide to add to the box between now and then. :-) Good luck!