baked kale chips

i'm officially moved! well, for right now any way. we don't get to move in to our new apartment until early next month, so for right now we're crashing at my mom's house. she lovingly took both us and our cats in, effectively tripling the number of residents under one roof, but we're going to do our best to make it up to her with dinners out, short vanilla lattes and amazing company.

this isn't a sweet post, but i haven't had the energy to break out my stand mixer and whip something fancy up. instead, i've decided to go healthy, vegan and savory and make some baked kale chips. i know i'm a little late to jump on this super delicious bandwagon, but i snagged a bunch at the store today and decided to whip these up for a snack. 

i filled two baking sheets with kale and it was enough snacking material for two people. it may seem like you're making a ton initially, but i promise that when it wilts down you'll be glad you over-did it.

i sprinkled my chips - and yes, they are crispy and savory enough to use that term - with some garlic powder before i popped them in the oven. the beauty of this recipe is that it's totally customizable and you can really make them whatever "flavor" you're craving. my boyfriend suggested that we grab some ranch powder from the store to spice up the next batch. if nothing else, these will be far healthier than any bag of cool ranch doritos. 

baked kale chips

yields two snack-sized servings

3-4 leaves of kale, torn

1 tablespoon olive oil

garlic powder, sea salt, or other spice to taste

1. preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2. wash and tear kale into chip-sized pieces, leaving out center heart.

3. lightly toss kale in olive oil until evenly covered - a little oil goes a long way!

4. line two baking sheets with foil (makes for easy clean-up!) and distribute kale evenly along sheet. i place mine side-by-side with a little breathing room between them. you want to give them enough space to flatten down without touching each others - this makes for extra crispiness! 

5. bake kale in oven for 20-25 minutes or until chips lift easily off sheet. if you're doing two racks, make sure to check the lower sheet earlier (it will bake quicker!) and give them top one a little more time. my lower sheet was done at around 17 minutes, while my upper needed 21 or 22. 

6. once baked, carefully peel chips off foil and place in bowl. eat while warm!

nutritional information:

(note: this info is for 2 cups of raw kale & 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil)

calories: 132, fat: 3.9g, cholesterol: 0.0 mg, sodium: 146 mg, potassium: 146.2 mg, carbs: 7.3 g, fiber: 2.6g, protein: 2.5g. 

thanks for reading & happy baking!

amanda

ps: please excuse my less-than-gorgeous photos. i'm hoping to get my camera unpacked and my mini-studio set up sooner rather than later. figured some photographic documentation was better than nothing!

pps: thank you to all those who have sent me lovely little messages or comments of encouragement. your words keep me excited about baking!

springtime birthday cupcakes

i mentioned in my last post that i was doing all the baking for a first birthday - here are the promised results! 

i ended up with four flavors: vanilla cake with vanilla bean buttercream, vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream, lemon cake filled with lemon curd with lemon butter cream, and lemon cake with strawberry buttercream. 

all the flavors and colors fit in perfectly with the spring-time garden theme of the party and i received a very adorable photo of the birthday girl eating cookies & cupcakes, so i'd say it was a success!

hope everyone is enjoying the warming weather!

amanda

marbled sugar cookies

as i type, right around 63% of my life is in boxes. the remaining 37% is mostly a combination of shoes and baking supplies. if i were a math person i would come up with some kind of equation or pie chart to determine the length of time something spends in a box (let's say y) as directly correlated to my need to use it on a daily basis (should this be x? z? something squared?).

can you tell i was more of an arts & humanities girl?

in an attempt to use up some of the flour and sugar i have before we move next week, i decided to make a batch of marbled cookies. my co-worker has the most adorable baby on planet earth (seriously, i'm not even a baby person!) who is turning one on saturday and i was recruited to make the desserts for the party.

the party is spring garden themed so i ended up making a batch of butterflies cookies and a batch of "a" and "n" cookies (featured above!), which conveniently spell out the baby's name. i'm honestly not sure if i would have the patience to spell out a name with more than two letters, but you could always go the initials route!

i apologize in advance for there not being any new recipes until next week when i finally get to half-unpack. i may try to coerce my very talented sister to do another guest post since her last one was so popular!

as always, thank you for reading & happy baking!


amanda