Healthy green snack

I grew up in a household where my mother always wanted to make sure we ate our veggies.  Good thinking mom!  Too bad that meant steaming or boiling just about everything under the sun, stinking up the house and turning off her audience under the age of 14.  Boiled spinach doused in red wine vinegar or steamed whole Brussels sprouts sans any sort of seasoning.  Yuck but I have to give her credit, she tried. What she should have done was turned on her 1950s Kenmore oven and baked or roasted the bounty we had access to year round in Northern California.  It's mid-winter now and kale is plentiful in the markets.  I even found organic curly kale at Akins for $1.97 OKC friends. 

Kale chips are a delicious, crunchy and paper thin veggie alternative to America's favorite snack.  They can't be used as a vessel to hold your yummy guacamole or fiery salsa but they will satisfy your craving for something salty.  Full of vitamins, tear this leafy green into chip size pieces for a great alternative snack.  Watch out - you may end up with little green flecks in your teeth a hazard that wouldn't need to be mentioned if we were going to be boiling the life out of this delicious leafy green!

Here's the recipe/technique, if you want to call it that:

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Submerge kale into a large bowl filled with cold water.  Swish kale around, let debris fall to the bottom of the bowl, pull out kale from the gritty water and shake off excess water over your kitchen sink.  Discard water, rise out the bowl and reserve bowl for later use. 

On your work surface, preferably a bamboo cutting board, remove the center rib from each piece of kale in the bunch.  That means use the tip of your knife or a pair of dedicated kitchen scissors and cut up the sides of the stem.  Discard stems.  Then cut kale into manageable size pieces that are about the size of a misshaped tortilla chip. Toss chips back into the bowl you used for washing the kale.  Drizzle kale with a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil.  Toss with your hands. Sprinkle kale chips with some kosher salt and toss again.  Spread kale evenly on a rimmed baking sheet.

Bake for about 20 minutes until kale has crisped up and browned slightly.