Recipe Review: Kale Chips

In all of my 24 years of existence cooking has never been much of a past time for me. Then I got married to a fatty.... now we cook constantly and consequently, gain weight at about the same rate, so I'm always looking for healthy things. About a month ago I was bombarded with the term Kale Chips - I was seeing it on blogs, Twitter, in magazines and splashed across the interwebs. Upon trying them, with my own modifications, they are awesome and easy.

• Take some kale, it shrinks when cooked, so a big bunch is a good amount as a side dish for two people.
• Wash it, cut the big stems out, I usually divide it down the center completely because the stems are not tasty. Also it's easier to eat if it is in bite sized portions
• Lay them flat on a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper. You could also spray the sheet instead, but with parchment paper you can just shake them off into a bowl.
• Now here's my biggest modification, most recipes said toss with olive oil or melted butter, but it's somewhat time-consuming (I'm not wasting 5 minutes of my life coating greens in olive oil). So I use spray butter. It's so easy and gets the entire thing coated which makes them crunchy and has zero calories. Don't forget to coat both sides.
• Sprinkle both sides with sea salt.
• Bake at 330 degrees for roughly 9 minutes. I like mine super crunchy, not as wilty. I also do not think they have bitter taste when slightly burned, but most of the reviews I read said cook for 7 minutes.
• Shake into a bowl and hide them from your husband/children because otherwise they will eat all of them while you are cleaning up.
• Enjoy!

This is so easy, so good and healthy - it's almost too good to be true!!

Recipe Review: Summer Squash Carpaccio

I was inspired two-fold this morning when I saw my friend Becky posting about squash and my new favorite blogger, Jane Lear, writing about smothered lettuce.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a picnic hosted by my coworker, when I unfortunately had to work right up until the party. In my endless search for easy and impressive cold appetizers, I found the mother load... summer squash carpaccio

Now I love cheese and lemon and chances are that any dish involving a combination of these two is a winner in my book. The recipe is from Food Network and very well may be the BEST recipe I've every taken from their site. Check it  out:

Thinly slice yourself 1 yellow squash and 1 zucchini and arrange on a plate (a mandolin works best, but unfortunately since I am poor/a beginning cook I do not own one. I just thinly sliced circles, but long strips look pretty too)


Drizzle with minced olive oil and copious amounts of lemon juice and sprinkle any combination of fresh mixed herbs (I used basil, oregano, parsley and garlic) and shallots or garden onions.

Season that layer with salt and pepper and grate cheese, like Parmesan or pecorino, over the top.

Let it sit in your fridge. (This is the best part) The lemon juice cooks the zucchini so you can make it 8 hours ahead or 3, and it still turns out wonderful!!

I got a ton of compliments on this dish and so many people asked me for the recipe. Since is was SO easy I didn't give the recipe out because I pretended that it was SO HARD.

...sneaky.