G Eats: Pizza Kale Chips

Kale chips are a revelation.  I'm not sure how I went so long without these tasty morsels of guilt free snacking.  With the use of my dehydrator, it's so simple for me to just toss them in before bed and wake up to delicious chips.  For the most part I have been going the simple olive oil and salt route with flavourings, but over the past few weeks have started to explore some other combinations as well. 

Last week I happened upon a recipe for pizza flavoured kale chips.  Intrigued, I started to browse through a bunch of different recipes before settling on my ingredients. After some measuring, blending, mixing and dehydrating I ended up with these beauties:

{Pizza flavouring - check. Crunchy snackable goodness - check.  Eating a whole helping of this in one sitting - double check}

Pizza Kale Chips

• 1 Bunch of kale {washed, dried and veins removed} 
• 1 Cup raw shelled sunflower seeds {soaked 4 hours}
• 1 small can tomato paste
• 2 1/2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp each: red pepper flakes, garlic powder, onion powder, basil, rosemary, oregano
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• Salt to taste
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• Filtered water {to thin out mixture}

Combine everything except the water in a food processor.  Blend until everything is well combined and broken down.  At this point you should have a very thick orange mixture that needs to be thinned out.  With the processor still running slowly add in the water a 1/4 cup at a time to create a smooth paste.   The amount of water you use will depend on  how thick or thin your want it to be.  You want the paste to be thick enough to really coat the kale without being too heavy.  It's all personal preference though.

Place your kale in a large bowl and pour your sauce on top.  Use your hands to mix ensuring that every leaf is covered in your delicious pizza flavours.  Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and really massage the sauce into each piece of kale.

Lay out in a single layer on your trays and dehydrate overnight {approx. 12 hours} or until chips are completely dry and crispy.

Consume with enthusiasm. 

*Note: I have a very cheap dehydrator that doesn't have any sort of temperature control, so timing will most certainly vary depending on what kind of dehydrator you use.   

Happy snacking!

G.

The Gradual Evolution Of My "Diet"

 I have become a cavegirl!!! 

 Well more specifically I have adopted the Paleo way of eating, which is to say I've gone waaaaay back to our roots. The Paleo "Diet" {I don't really like the term diet because, for me, this is more an adapted life change and not a fad or crash diet solely based on loosing weight as fast as possible.  It's more about living a healthy lifestyle.  But I digress.} is all about eating more like the cave men used to eat. Lots of veggies, lean meat, seeds, nuts and healthy fat and cutting out dairy, grains, processed foods/sugars, legumes and starches. For a more in depth description you can check out this site: http://paleodietlifestyle.com/ which will describe exactly what it is way better than I could.

So how exactly did I end up here? For me it seemed like a natural progression.  After all of my weight gain due to injury I found myself lacking energy and generally feeling like crap all the time.  In addition my blood sugar began to jump all over the place.  I've always had to be careful to make sure my sugar levels didn't drop or I would feel really sick, but it was at the point where I wasn't even hungry but they were acting like I hadn't eaten in hours.  I started to re-evaluate my diet and lifestyle and try to figure out what I could do to even out my blood sugar, lose some weight and start feeling healthy again. I started by making more health conscious choices and getting more exercise in.  A few months ago I decided to cut gluten/wheat out of my diet, and in the process I read the book Wheat Belly.  It opened my eyes to the kind of food I had been consuming and I decided to give the diet a try.  I cut out a lot of crap from my diet and went through full wheat withdrawal as I purged it from my system.  I found that I was having a hard time motivating myself and that I didn't love all of recipes in the book.  But I was starting to feel better.

I am a notorious recipe searcher, I can spend hours combing the internet/books/magazines/etc for new ideas on things to cook.  I knew the answer to my motivation problem lay in the blogosphere and started looking for sites that had recipes that were "wheat belly" friendly.  I found a lot of gluten free/celiac friendly blogs at first {they are close but not quite what I needed. They still contained components that I no longer ate}, then I began to see sites talking about the Paleo Diet.  It was really similar to the diet I was already on, but seemed a bit more cohesive.  There were some differences that made more sense and it made me excited about the food I was eating.  The more recipes I scrolled through, the more I read about what exactly this eating habit entailed and how I could adapt to the lifestyle.  I thought to myself, well you're almost there anyways mine as well give it shot.

I realize that a lot of people think I'm crazy.  There is now a long list of food I can't eat and the majority of it used to be what I consumed most. I am now one of those difficult to go for dinner with people too, most of the menu items are not on my list of 'can haves'.  In fact my first restaurant experience since my switch was last week and resulted in me being very sick for a couple days.  The initial move to this diet is not easy, you have to re-adjust what your body thinks it's craving and really dedicate yourself to it 100%.  There is A LOT of temptation, but so far the results I am starting to see are nothing but positive. I have not had a blood sugar drop in weeks, I have dropped about 10 pounds, I am finally at the point where I don't miss bread, my energy levels are up and food is soooo good! When I eat I am full but not bloated/over stuffed, just perfectly satisfied and every day I miss my old diet less and less.  I am still new at this, learning the ropes so to speak, but it's not going to stop me from making delicious meals and yummy {paleo friendly} baked goods.  For me this is a whole new way of thinking and living, and so far I'm loving it.


G.

 
P.S. Stay tuned for updates on this AND my adventures in culinary class.