After watching a few cooking shows this morning, (Has anyone seen Baron Ambrosia?  So silly and ridiculous I laughed till I cried.) I found myself craving a crunchy, flavorful treat.  It seemed like every dish that was featured on the shows was something I couldn’t have.

My menu idea for Kale Sausage & White Bean Soup was a bust the other night when I realized we had gone through the batch of sausage I had made to make GAPS “biscuits” and sausage “gravy”.  More on that another time, but as I was already omitting the beans, I gave up on the soup idea.  Who wants plain old kale soup?  Not I, and I know my husband would have wondered why I was giving him a bowl of his least favorite vegetable boiled in water.  The promised Lemon Olive Oil cake my kids were expecting never happened that day, either, because I found that we had no back-up eggs in the fridge.  Despite my begging and pleading and divvying of kitchen scraps, our chickens refused to lay any more that day.  Sigh.  Some days are just like that.  I don’t even remember what we ended up eating that night for dinner.  I have been trying to remind myself every day since, however, that I still had a bag of kale in the fridge that needed to be used.  I was very glad it was there this morning when I decided I needed something to snack on.

Some Facebookers were discussing BBQ flavored potato chips in a post the other day which had me strumming my fingers until I gave up on finding a way to get them and went ahead and ladled myself another bowl of beef broth.  So…kale chips+a BBQ potato chip craving=BBQ Kale Chips!  Thanks to a little bottle of smoked paprika I was able to get what I wanted.

I forgot how much kale shrinks in volume as it roasts when I chose to use a full teaspoon of salt, so they were a little on the salty side.  My husband didn’t complain about that, he took full advantage of my mistake, but he did do a little whining about the kale-full aftertaste, as did I.  But kale chips are allowed on GAPS, potato chips are not.  Nor are they allowed on any other healthy eating plan that I know of.  But someone please, PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong.  😀

Ingredients:

8 cups of washed, trimmed kale leaves, torn into bite-sized pieces

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tsp. (or less) Himalayan salt

1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper.  I ground it on the course setting of my grinder and loved every spicy bite on the finished kale chips.

1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1 T granulated garlic

1 T smoked paprika

1/4 tsp. ground cumin

1/4 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. chili powder

Method:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Lay the kale out on a sheet pan.

Generously drizzle with olive oil to keep the leaves from scorching.  Toss well to coat.

Mix together seasonings.

Sprinkle all over the oiled kale.

Toss well to coat.

Bake for 10 minutes.  Stir.

Bake for another 10 minutes.  Stir.

Bake for 5 minutes and stir.  The kale on the outside crisps before the leaves on the inside.  Mix then around to keep them rotating.

Bake for 5 more minutes or until all the leaves are crisped.

Cool and munch!