Kale Chips - What works for me!

There are a lot of kale chip recipes out there, they're all similar and pretty simple. For some reason I can never remember exactly what to add and what temperature;

• 325, 350 or 375 degrees Fahrenheit?
• Olive oil, grape seed or what?
• Put the seasoning on before baking or after?

I have tried making oil-free chips in a dehydrator - they looked wonderful but they had a horrible taste with a thin cardboard texture.  So the dehydrator is out which is fine since I'm using it to dry celery for a low-salt celery salt today! I think you just need to experiment and see what works for you in your oven.  Below is a list of what I've learned; 

• Choose a kale variety that has smoother leaves, the more undulating the leaves are, the more difficult it is to evenly bake them.
• Plan to bake an entire bunch of kale...it is addictive and the chips will probably not survive 24 hours!  Trust me :-)
• Heat oven to 350 degrees and go from there (if they start to burn drop the temp to 325, if you end up with soggy leaves bump up the temp to 375 next time). 
• Cut out the stalks with scissors and pull leaves into palm size pieces.
• Put kale into a salad spinner, wash and thoroughly spin dry, lay leaves on a towel to dry.
• To speed things up, and to make sure the leaves are completely dry, you can put them between paper towels and roll out the moisture with a rolling pin.  Don't worry about harming the leaves!
• I have tried various oils like olive oil, grape seed and coconut, but my favorite by far is hazelnut oil.  I recently read that avocado oil works well too, so I may try that next.
• Pour some oil (~1 tbsp) into a small dish that you can dip the tips of your fingers into, and massage the oil onto both sides of the leaves. Make sure you use the oil, if you are economical with oil the leaves will not be protected and you're more likely to end up with dark singed and burned edges.  This is not a recipe where reducing oil will work - if you're worried about the calories in oil don't make these chips.  If you try and be lean with the oil you will increase the risk of uneven baking and half your chips will turn out brown and inedible!  Been there, done that!
• Spread leaves out onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, give the leaves some space and don't overlap.  Place in the oven on a middle rack and set a timer for 10 mins.
• At 10 mins keep an eye on the color of the leaves, you want them green with not even a hint of brown.  As soon as you see any slight browning, pull them out of the oven.  You can always pull out the cooked ones and put the rest back in the oven for a few more minutes; all the leaves are a little different so it makes sense that they will bake slightly differently.
• Mine generally take about 11 to 12 mins depending on how many leaves I load on the tray - I usually split a bunch of kale in to 2 or 3 batches in the oven.
• When you take them out of the oven immediately slide the parchment paper onto a cooling rack or cool granite surface to prevent them from cooking any longer, and season with salt.  I'm currently having a love-affaire with Herbamare seasoned salt, but you can also use garlic salt, paprika, ground steak seasoning, whatever makes your taste buds happy!

So to summarize;

1. Set oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Cut stalks from leaves 
3. Wash leaves and dry really well
4. Massage in oil (don't skimp)
5. Place leaves on a lined baking tray (make sure leaves don't touch)
6. Place in oven for 10 mins (keep an eye on them)
7. Season after they come out of the oven!

Enjoy your crunchy, salty little leaves of green!

Gringo "Chiles" En Nogada

I love, love, love Chiles en Nogada!!!!  This recipe is inspired by Chiles en Nogada, and arose from a desire to eat walnuts and cream for dinner, use up some orange peppers and make a dairy free and gluten free meal.

This can (should) be made with Poblanos but if you can't find them or want a milder version, you can use peppers -  Peppers en Nogada? Or  fill large tomatoes and use as appetizers!

This is also a quick and dirty low sugar version, so I haven't included any dried or candied fruits in this recipe.  The cinnamon and sweetness of the cashew cream is enough for my developing paleo pallet!

This is what you need:

Filling

• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 1lb of ground buffalo or grass-fed beef
• 1 small tin of tomato puree (I used homemade)
• 1 cup chicken or beef broth (I used homemade beef broth)
• 1/2 a large onion (finely chopped)
• 2-3 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup hot green chili or salsa - I had some very hot green chili in the freezer, so I used that
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 3-4 tbsp cashew cream

To put the filling in

• 2  poblano chiles, or peppers or tomatoes 

To garnish

• cashew cream with chopped walnuts
• cilantro
• pomegranate seeds
• guacamole

This is what you do:
Melt/heat the coconut oil in a pan, add chopped onions and saute on medium heat for 5-10 minutes...don't rush this part.  Add garlic and saute for another 30 secs before adding the ground meat.  Saute until the meat is brown and there are no red pieces left, 5-10 minutes. Add the tomato puree, cinnamon and broth, bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes.  Add green chili to taste (I added a little more than 1 cup), chopped walnuts and cashew cream and simmer for another 10 mins.  Taste to see if you need some salt (my broth had salt so it didn't need it) or more cinnamon.  If you like a more creamy mixture add a couple more tbsps of cashew cream!
[You can freeze the mixture at this point and defrost when needed.  I tend to spend my Sunday afternoons cooking and freeze partial meal items for use later in the week/month]

1. If you use poblanos, cut the top off and remove the inner seeds.  Place in a heat-proof glass dish and bake in an oven at 350 F for about 10 minutes.
2. If you use peppers, cut the top off and remove the inner seeds. Submerge in boiling water for 10 minutes.
3. If you use tomatoes, cut the top off and scoop out the insides, no further preparation is needed at this time.

Allow poblanos/peppers to cool, then stuff with the meat mix.
[You can save the stuffed peppers overnight in the fridge.]

Place stuffed peppers in a heat-proof glass dish and bake in the oven at 350 F for15 minutes until the stuffing is bubbling.

I like to server with a side of guacamole and sprinkle with chopped cilantro...yummy!  You can also drizzle with a cashew cream and walnut mixture, and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds if you have them.

For this version I drizzled with straight cashew cream, garnished with fresh cilantro leaves and served with Nom Nom Paleo's Cauliflower Rice!    

The Gluten Free World

Controlling an increase in carbohydrates....a not so healthy side effect!


Good Intentions

I got swept up in the emerging Gluten Free (GF) world, the camaraderie of all the blogs, the appreciation for alternatives....100s of recipes to make cakes, brownies and cookies without gluten! Pizza bases, pie crusts recipes and recommendations for commercially prepared bread and such!  For a while I got sucked in to this alternative universe where ground rice and xanthan gum are king!  You replace one type of flour with 10 different flours, and all GF recipes need a combination of at least 3 of them before you can create anything!

The overwhelming reason for such recipes is a good one - they are to protect our digestive tract and ensure good nutrient absorption, they help us recover, feel better and live well. But all this alternative flour testing and experimentation seems to be to the detriment of some basic nutrition.  Our quest to be free of gluten has clouded our basic nutritional values, we have GF goggles; we're willing to eat crap so long as it has no gluten.  Also, most GF foods concentrate on baked goods as if that is all we eat - we cannot possibly miss out on the fun of eating brownies, and cookies and sweets, oh my! We need our pizza, so there are 100s of recipes that provide a cardboard-like base for our toppings. And after a while we forget what the real version tasted like and settle into our new GF world. 

But wait....it's not a 1 to 1 flour exchange

GF flours generally have a high carbohydrate content (they have no gluten protein, well, duh!).  So many people, when they switch to a GF diet, inadvertently increase their carbohydrate intake (and decrease protein intake). There is also a psychological effect too, we tend to eat more baked (GF) products because we've been told the world of baked goods is now forbidden. Poor me, I can't eat bread, or pasta or cookies.....I must make or buy mass quantities of the GF version. These counterfeit baked good are generally not as  nutritional as their gluten counterparts.

Those darn hormones

An increase in carbohydrates (read - high glycemic index food) in our diet will stimulate more frequent Insulin secretions that will cause our bodies to put all excess carbs in our bloodstream into fat storage for a rainy day!  If you're not exercising or literally starving when you eat carb-laden food, Insulin will be called upon to mop up the excess and put it into fat storage. We forget Insulin is a hormone that is involved in carbohydrate and fat metabolism.  You have to think of Insulin as a bad guy, you don't want to feed him too often, because if you do, another fat fairy gets her wings!  And as far as I'm concerned I have way too many fat fairies in my thighs already...I can see them fighting under the cellulite!

Don't get caught with selective amnesia! 

We completely forget about Glycemic Index when we're eating GF food.  We tell ourselves our guts are healing, our leaky guts are now able to take up nutrients, a little weight gain is to be expected.  We feel bad for our kids who can't eat the foods we ate as a kid, we feel bad for ourselves for being inflicted and deprived. 

Don't Feel bad!  Be Healthy!

• Be aware of sugars and carbohydrates in your food. Based on daily values for a 2000 calorie diet, we're supposed to eat around 300g of carbohydrates a day.  I aim for 100-150, if I want to lose some weight all I need to do is drop below 50g a day.
• Try to minimize rice-based flours and foods.  Try almond flour or coconut flour. Try quinoa pasta instead of brown rice pasta.
• Train your pallet to prefer less sugar.  You trained yourself to like GF food, you can modify your desire for sugar; start by using a 1/4 cup (instead of 1/3) in your next recipe.
• Introduce more non-baked goods into your diet.  What would you do if there were no GF substitutes? What snack would you eat instead?  A handful of nuts, a boiled egg, a piece of fruit?  
• Modify recipes to be naturally GF. Instead of deep-fried chile rellenos, try baking them naked (I mean without breading - please wear an apron)! Try quiche without a pie crust. Once you get the hang of using lettuce wraps you won't want buns for burgers or hot dogs!  
• Compare the number of sugars in similar products. Always buy the product with less sugar; 3 or 4 grams less sugar will add up over time. Nut flours have more calories than rice and grain flours, but they also have protein and will keep you feeling full longer so ultimately you eat less!
• Try and eat minimally proceed food.  Eat products that have few ingredients, do you really need a GF bread with 6 different flours. If you don't recognize an ingredient, don't buy the product!  

Look after yourself.  Don't get lost in the GF marketing buzz!

My New Years Resolution - A Progress Report

I have not been doing a very good job of sticking to my New Years Resolution, but I am not going to beat myself up about it.  This year's resolution is probably the biggest resolution I have made, so a slow ramp up is okay.  My resolution is to follow the Paleo lifestyle.

I was happy with my resolution choice. I had been trying to find my place in the dietary world. I need to be gluten-free, but wasn't sure if my regular diet should lean towards vegan, vegetarian or low-carb.... for some reason I need to classify myself.  Ethically I wanted to follow a vegan lifestyle but since I didn't eat soy, due to the phytoestrogens, so that made a vegan diet very limiting, not impossible, but very limiting.  Another plus is now I have characterized myself, it makes it so much easier to find good recipes.  I don't need to wade through the high carbohydrate, GF rice flour-laden baking recipes, if I do a "paleo" search, simple, healthy recipes come up.

What I realized is Paleo is not all steak and bacon!  Half the diet is vegetables!  If I follow a Paleo diet I will eat more fresh vegetables than I ever did before.  When I am being good and eating Paleo I eat a little more meat, but the carbohydrate part (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice) is mostly replaced with vegetables.  Instead of a chicken breast with broccoli and a baked potato, when Paleo it becomes a chicken breast with more broccoli! Meatballs are crammed with vegetables and stews are full of vegetables and comprised of only 1/3 meat protein.  Though I'm sure 2/3 of my calories come from proteins and fats. I've also noticed that because the Paleo diet is made up of compact nutritious food, I am eating less; less in terms of volume.  I think I'm eating about the same calories, I just eat less because Paleo food takes longer to digest and also stops me from getting hungry sooner...I don't snack so much!

My progress after month one;

• I still have difficulty staying away from potatoes and rice, but I'm eating less.  I don't miss pasta, so that is an easy one.
• I still could eat more vegetables - the main issue here is I don't buy enough.  I start the week with a lot more vegetables in the house than I used to have, but I still come up short by Thursday or Friday. I may try freezing some prepared vegetables since the veg draw in the fridge is now always full at the start of the week.
• I need to be more organized and plan my week. When I plan ahead it is so easy to stick to Paleo, when I don't plan well enough I end up eating whatever I can find in the house.

The still feel the time is right for a Paleo me, and there is a lot of help out there...I just need to stick to it!