I've become that "earthy crunchy" kind of girl

7 weeks into the summer of the CSA and I finally took the plunge Monday night and made the kale chips.  We have gotten an over abundance of kale so far and as Andrew told me earlier, it's going to keep coming all summer.  Before this summer, I had never had kale before on a regular basis, always thought it was quite the hippie vegetable but I've done a pretty damn good job in embracing the leafy greens and making them a variety of different ways.  Regardless of what the food is though you are bound to hit the point of no return whenever you are eating something on such a consistent basis and we hit that wall quite hard last week.  I made the pasta with the tomato sauce, ricotta and kale like I did a few weeks ago and maybe because it was 9:45 when dinner finally made it on the table and I was ready to eat my arm off since I was so hungry that I was ok with the dish but my mother and Andrew were not feeling it at all.  I spent my dinner listening to comments of "the kale is too big" and "there is so much kale" that I was just like pick it out but I knew I was going to have to ease up on the onslaught of kale that I have been pushing on my family. 

So here is where the kale chips come into play.  Everyone who I know that has had them absolutely loves them and has told me what a breeze they are to make and that you will use up a lot of the kale in the process.  Stacia from Stone Gardens included a recipe for them in our weekly email and they really were so simple to make. 
-Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. 
-Pull the kale leaves off of the stalky middle and rip into 2-3 inch pieces.  Give them a quick spin through the salad spinner and then toss them with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and arrange onto a cookie sheet in a single layer.  Sprinkle the kale leaves with Parmesan and salt.
-Pop in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until the leaves crisp up and start to brown on the ends. 

nice and crisp right out of the oven

Maybe it was because I was starving again from just coming from a zumba class but they were really good.  So good that the next day I proceeded to inhale the whole bag of them when I was at work on a conference call and a hell of a lot healthier then the potato chip binge that we sometimes like to go through in our house.  Now I'm looking forward to the next batch of kale that is coming to do this again.