Kale Chips & Sweet Lil' Nothings

Happy Hump Day.  Anyone doin' any humpin' today?   Kidding!  But feel free to share, I'm nosey.

Glad that you enjoyed my TJ's and grocery finds post from yesterday and many thanks to all ya hotties who left me their fave facial cleansers in the comments section.  Now I get to do more shopping and tryin' all your recommendations out!

And in general, many thanks to everyone who stops by and leaves comments, and to those that de-lurk themselves and comment for the first time.  Thanks to new readers who are just discovering my little blog.  Thanks to everyone who reads along and it rocks my world that you do!  So thank you and love to all you sweet peeps!  Muuuuuah!

Speaking of new readers, I did a guest post yesterday on yoga on the lovely Jenny's blog.  For anyone who's come over here from there, welcome.  And I wanted to encourage all my readers here to check it out.  It's 100% yoga-themed so enjoy!

Let's recap some of the things I've been eating here...

I don't know what took me so long to figure out that a coupla drops 'o the NuNaturals liquid vanilla stevia in my Sunny Warr BRPP (brown rice protein powder) is heavenly.  I need to do that more often.  I don't think I can ever have something that's too sweet.  Never been a problemo for me.

I also have been diggin' the greenery.  This one was spiralized zuke noods and greens, and on toppa those, I put about a half a head of cauli (fiber anyone?), B.S., carrots, yellow & red pepps, and dressed it up with my go-to quickie dressing.  Juice of 1/2 orange, a little agave, and couple twists of black pepp.  

Another pile o' green leaves. This one had big chunky tomatoes & B.S. on top of the greenery.  Dressed it up with the same OJ, agave and black pepper action as I just mentioned.

Snack time included a Pure Bar, the Choco Trail Mix Flava.  This one was yummmy with big choco chunks in it.  I admit, I prefer choco chunks to the tomato chunks that were in the salad.

As for the dehydrator action as I promised at the end of the last post....

Kale Chips!
Super easy friends.  I want to thank my friend Michelle of Pure2Raw for sharing what she's been learning at school with me.  So y'all should feel very honored that you're getting a Matthew Kenney recipe here with these kale chippies, albeit this is my adaptation and tweakin' of the recipe.

First, you pick yourself up some Nooch.  I think this sized canister will last me well into Skylar's high school years.  A lil dab'll do ya.  Hey, sometimes my man picks things up for me at the store, and although I would have made a slightly different choice, I think, well, at least he bought it.  Just an industrial sized vat, but no worries.

 Then, I soaked 1/2 c of raw cashews for a few hours in some water. 

Drained 'em off and poured the soaked cashews, the juice of 1 very unjuicy lime, 2 Tbsp of Nooch, and about 1/4 c of a red pepp, and 1/4 c of a yellow pepp in the VitaGrind for my kale chip coating.

Voila, coating.

I massaged the coating on washed and de-stemmed kale leaves in a bowl.  I used most of a small to medium bunch of kale.  Not a ridic huge batch but I wanted to trial this before I got the Super Size Me of Kale Chips goin'.  Skylar is very confused why we have to wait to eat chips?

Some of the leaves got better coated than others, guess it just gives things a home style vibe.

Put the screens in the Magic Box for 4 hours at 118 F.  After 'bout 4 hours and they were looking crunchy and munchy, and I didn't want to overbake.   Has anyone ever burnt kale in your oven?  It's the most nastyass smell in the world so I didn't wanna over do it and end up with a stenchy house.
In retrospect, I probably woulda kept 'em in the dehyadrator another hour or two (dehydrators are very forgiving I'm learning) but what-evah, they're crisy enough as is.  I think 6-7 hrs woulda been the height of perfect, but cest la vie.

Word up.  Success.  Notice the shrinkage factor.  No, not that kind.

Thin-n-crispy

Containerized goodness.  The nooch makes 'em slightly cheesy and savory, and the cashews give 'em a nutty heartiness that you wouldn't expect.  And the peppers in the coating mixture add a lil' kick.  Recipe worked perf.  

For some desserts for Scott, I made sweet lil nothings.  First, a double take from yesterday...

...Cool Whip sandwiched in little stacks of baked goods I wanted to clean out.  This one is the Raw Vegan Chocolate Chocolate-Cookies with 'Whippy

And in this sweet stack I used up some Frozen Chocolate-Coconut-Chia Treats with Da Whip in Da Middle

Yoga is Ubhaya Padungusthasana (aka Both Big Toe Pose, a variation on Navasana, or boat pose)

Tip of the Day: A Zevia Contest.   And no, I'm not running it.  Missy is hookin' you up this time.  Head on over to check it out!

Stay tuned for some green goddess action....