Kale Chips and Pasta Salad

As promised in yesterday’s post- 2 recipes!

Have you ever tried kale? The curly, hearty green leaf? No? Well you should definitely acquaint yourself with this lovely specimen.

Kale Chips

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of Kale
• 2 tsp Olive Oil
• 1 TBSP Lemon Juice
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
• Other seasonings (see recipe)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Tear your kale into bite-sized pieces, wash well.
3. Squeeze as much water as possible out of your kale, spread in one layer on a baking sheet
4. Mix together 2 tsp olive oil, 1 TBSP lemon juice and approx 1/4 tsp salt. I also added about 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, a couple drops of liquid smoke seasoning.

5.   Massage your seasonings into your kale, making sure each leaf is thoroughly coated.

6.   Bake your kale chips for 15-20 minutes, or until kale chips are crispy (if your oven bakes unevenly, like ours, take off the crispy chips and put the rest of the kale back into the oven to fully dehydrate).

While your chips are baking, take a piece of kale outside to your dog and proceed to take pictures:

I just did a Google search about “Dogs and kale” and apparently kale is a WONDERFUL food for your canine pal!

Get ready for some crunchy-munchy goodness once your chips are out of the oven!

We ate the entire batch in about 20 minutes. They’re addictive. You’ll seriously want to consider making 3 batches of kale chips at a time. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I wanted to make a quick side dish that would keep in the fridge for a few days, so I also whipped up some gluten-free Pasta Salad

Gluten-Free Pasta Salad

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. gluten-free pasta (I used shell-shaped brown rice pasta)
• 1 Roma Tomato, diced
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced
• 1/2 bag frozen peas (don’t worry about thawing them!)
• Lemon Juice (about 1.5 TBSP)
• 1 TBSP Olive Oil (I used Rosemary Olive Oil)
• 1/8 tsp. Garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. Smoked Paprika
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to directions on package, rinse under cold water once noodles are al dente.
2. Put all veggies in a bowl.
3. Mix together lemon juice, oil, and seasonings.
4. Add cooled pasta to veggies, toss well with dressing.
5. Adjust seasonings to taste
6. Store in the fridge to let the flavors mingle, eat throughout the week!

I also whipped up a glutionous version of this salad for the hubs, but I left out the peas because he’s not always a fan of the tiny green buggers.