Kale Chips

These kale chips started out as a roasted tomato salsa.

Well, not really. But I thought I was going to make roasted tomato salsa one night. I was just craving roasted tomato salsa all morning long. At lunchtime, I strolled down to the cafeteria and lo and behold, they were serving chicken enchiladas with roasted tomato salsa! And I shoveled it down most elegantly, if I do say so myself.

So once I was done inhaling my lunch, my roasted tomato salsa craving was also pretty much done. Yup. That was it. The urge to make this salsa was out the window. So sad. However, while I was in the cafeteria waiting for my food, the chef and I began discussing the kale that was being used as a decoration. As we talked, he mentioned that his daughter had asked him to make kale chips.

Hmmm...this was an idea. I've seen multiple posts for kale chips over the past few months. Kale chips are the new starlets in the food world. And since I had never had kale before, I figured why not. Let's live on the edge! Yeah kale chips!

Kale Chips
recipe from Shutterbean's Kale Chips

• 1 bunch kale
• olive oil
• salt

1) Wash and dry the kale.

2) Tear the leaves off the kale stems, then rip the kale leaves into bite-sized pieces. Obviously you should make them the size that you want your chips to be.

3) Place the leaves in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil. The amount you use will depend on the amount of kale you have and the amount of olive oil you like. I drizzled a few tablespoons over my kale. I wanted the chips to be covered by the oil but not dripping in it.

4) Add a tablespoon or two of salt in the bowl. Toss the kale to distribute the salt evenly.

5) Place the kale chips on an ungreased baking sheet. Make sure they're not overlapping each other.

6) Bake 10-15 minutes, or until the kale is crispy and slightly browned.

I learned something here. I'm a heavy-handed olive oil and salt gal. It may be advisable to go easy on both ingredients and bake up some test kale chips, then add more oil or salt to the batch if you need to. Just sayin'.

This could be the easiest recipe yet. It really doesn't take long to whip this snack together. And obviously the ingredient list is minimal. So how did they taste?

I'm actually not a big fan. There's something about the smoky, slightly bitter chip that I wasn't too fond of. Maybe I added too much oil and salt. Or maybe it's just not my taste. Sometimes it's like that. So why am I still posting this recipe? Well just because I don't like it that much doesn't mean that you guys won't. I'll probably try this recipe again in the future.to see if I still dislike it. Food can grow on you. I may also make some modifications. I've seen some buzz out there about flavored kale chips, so who knows.