Things we eat in the future: Kale Chips.

Ms. T's recent post about store-bought kale chips inspired me to make some of my own.  I read a little bit about them a few months ago, but was too scared that I would hate them so I never bothered.  I keep reading posts and articles about how people love kale chips, so I needed to make them.

Good news:  I have a garden full of purple kale that I have no idea what to do with.  

And you're like, "LOL, hippie, why would I eat a kale chip?"  It's like flat, green popcorn, that's why.  Crunchy, low-cal, high in Calcium (which all of us ladies need).  

How?

Preheat your oven to 300F.

Kut up your kale (1 bunch to start) into bite-sized pieces.  Remove the center rib.  Or don't.  Whatever. Toss with olive oil and salt, or add some more things (garlic powder?  seasoning salt?)

Place in a single layer on a baking sheet like so:

This tray is ready to go into the oven.  Check them after 10 minutes.  Should be crisp, but not burned.  If they're still flexible, put them back in and check again.  

Results:  

Better news:  you can crumble them and use them as a topping for other munchies. 

Life on 8th and Sherrett...

Summer is finally here.  I can't say we've been doing nothing but gardening, but it's high up on our list of hobbies.  Here are the latest pictures.

The view from our gable room .  Notice the dirt road and the  "Oregon dream" truck.
That would be a bio diesel-converted Isuzu Pup.  Other variations would include a an ancient tan Datsun or a Toyota. 

Cosmos.  These strange flowers have been good to me...I am pretty bad with annuals because they are so fragile...

A stay-on from the last owners

Hungarian Blue poppies...I. am. so. excited.

Red Honeysuckle...It's planted in a really unfortunate area so it doesn't grow much...

Hydrangeas from the last owner...or maybe several past.  These bushes are huge
and get bunches of flowers as big as a basketball.

Pink lavender...I am more into the purple variety but this bush was huge
and we didn't want to kill it.  Once the blooms are past I'll cut it all and made moth-repellent sachets.

Purple sage and Hidcote

Lavender "Edelweiss"

Blueberries, also in an unfortunate location.

Our strawberry patch is pretty immature at this point.

Still blooming..."June-bearing"?  I desperately don't understand the growing season here.

one of a few...

French food, take one.

Lots of people who go vegetarian are sad to give up their former favorite foods in order to achieve a healthier lifestyle, have less impact on the planet, or be kinder to animals.  Thought french onion soup had to be made with beef broth?  Nope.  I got the idea for this from my friends who let me try some of their soup at a french restaurant we went to a few weeks ago.  Their soup was so, so good and they suggested a vegetarian version would be easy.


They were right! Making vegetarian french onion soup couldn't be easier.  Or tastier. I have plenty of onions growing in my garden that need to be eaten.  Right. Now.


If you, too, have half a dozen or more onions, I highly recommend this recipe or one like it:


Vegetarian French Onion Soup


For the "beef broth" I recommend this:  Better Than Bullion No Beef Base.  One jar lasts possibly forever.  It usually takes me 6 months or more to use the 9 quarts or so of broth one of these jars makes.  I didn't add as much wine as they list in the recipe, but I don't recommend leaving it out entirely, considering we are using a pre-packaged (though very quality) base for the soup.


The oniony soup portion stores very well in the refrigerator. Adding a slice of toast and a combination of cheese slices and then broiling it makes an extremely tasty lunch or dinner that you can whip up pretty quickly after the initial work is done.


As far as being healthful, this recipe does use a lot of butter and cheese.  I love it and it's pretty great for helping to use up onions, leftover wine and bread; however I'm going to leave this one for the occasional dinner because of all that saturated fat!

My favorite breakfast spot...

...is my backyard.  Earlier in the year I posted pictures of the pathway Zach and I cleaned up...now the raspberries are beginning to get ripe.  We get about a pint of them ever 2 days, maybe a bit more.  If you have room, and you don't need much as you can see, I really highly recommend growing a small berry patch.  With careful maintenance last fall (tips from my mom as well as online tutorials), I got plenty of berries with almost no work.  Mainly the labor consists of cutting the berry canes at the end of the year, tying them to the fence (you can see an old chain-link fence the picture that divides my yard from my neighbor's).  I want to add that though I did not fertilize them or do anything else, I am looking into it for this year.  As I inherited this patch, I cannot tell you which varieties are planted here, only that there are about 4 different kinds that all ripen at different times.  All are thornless, which is a relief to me because blackberry picking always ends in blood and ripped clothing.

at the beginning of spring...not much growth over the winter

Berry patch now in June.

Yum yum!

We have strawberries, too.

I, for one, welcome our new artichoke overlords...

Look at the giant artichokes that we had for dinner (there were two, this one is slightly larger).  That is a normally-sized dinner plate and a normally-sized oven mitt.

Vegan Soul Food w/ additonal Memphis Crunk

Even though I'm trying to eat ever increasing amounts of vegan food, sometimes I'm not great at controlling what I eat.  If there's a cookie around, as there often are at work, the rational part of my brain focused on high cholesterol is overridden by my impulse of "Ooh, free cookie!"  And in my life, there are an unbelievable amount of free cookies.

But in keeping with my desire to be vegan and save the world or myself or whatever I still try and try.  Sometimes it's not very hard.  Working at a library, I have an endless supply of new and innovative cookbooks at my disposal.

Enter this one:  Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry.  This caught my eye on the shelves of MI library because of a place I ate in Atlanta that served vegan soul food - Soul Vegetarian.  This cookbook is probably my favorite vegan cookbook ever. More than just an African-American cookbook, it's an American cookbook, period.  Fresh tasty stuff that is good for you, too.  Indulgent treats.  Multiple recipes for watermelon, which I've just really gotten into recently.  Includes Lunches, Dinners(entrees like Tofu and Beans), Desserts (even a recipe for a vegan coconut butter pie crust which I am anticipating with all my soul!), drinks with names like Memphis Mint Julep and California Slurricane.  Tonight's dinner was greedily ripped from the pages, without many changes at all:

Yes, I still eat on the floor.

Shaved Cucumber Salad with Citrus-Cilantro Dressing(p. 61), Rosemary-Roasted Tofu Cubes (p. 146) and a Frozen Memphis Mint Julep (p.37) on the side.  The only changes I made were subtracting the sweetener from the Cucumber salad dressing and adding, like waaaaay more paprika to the tofu cubes.  The cubes definitely reminded me of something meaty...chicken nuggets with a mildly bacony flavor.  I never say this, but I am probably going to buy this cookbook after my library loan period is up.  It's a keeper!

Memphis Mint Julep or "green mint slurry with booze."

crafting ex nihilo

Recently I came across this book at work:

It was on hold for someone else, but I got a chance to glance through it quickly.  I recommend taking a look at it if you love to make things out of trash or other cheaply-acquired objects around.

The most interesting craft I noticed was a messenger bag made out of something I have a frickin' ton of: Those plastic tube-y bags that newspapers come in.  Somehow my husband and I happened upon a subscription to the Oregonian that we never paid for.  I use the newspaper for various projects (not, ahem, for reading) but the bags sort of piss me off.  What a waste of a bag.  

The project consists of a no-sew way to put the bags together with a hot clothes iron to melt them into a thicker plastic.  I'm going to try to get a better look at the book in the future, but in the mean time, I made this:  

I made my own "fabric" from the bags by layering them in a basketweave pattern.  I then sewed it into a typical tote-bag shape and added handles.  This is, of course, a test because I have no idea if I made the fabric thick enough, or melted enough, or even too much.  Going to give it a try and update if it works well or falls apart or whatever.

Find the book on Amazon:  Ready Made: How to make [Almost] Everything