I’ve been eating with an emphasis on raw food for about 4 years now.  I feel best with about 75-80% of what I eat being raw.  I’m not always there but it’s what works best for my body.   BUT I’d never made my own kale chips!

I have a bunch of kale in the garden and it’s already getting hot here so I decided it was time.  A local friend gave me her recipe and I altered the spices a bit.  I’m leaving her measurements, I tend to wing, not measure 🙂  I also probably doubled this.

INGREDIENTS:
6 cups kale
1/4 to 1/2 cup cashews, soaked 4 hours  (discard soaking water)
4 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon favorite blend (I liberally sprinkled Trader Joe’s 21 Season Salute – great flavor!!)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan Sea Salt
1 clove garlic

DIRECTIONS:
1. Remove stems from kale and tear or cut into big pieces. Rinse and spin in salad spinner (I didn’t do this because it was from my garden and wasn’t dirty). Place in large bowl.
2. Blend rest of ingredients until smooth. May need to add 1-2 T water or EVOO to blend  (I added water slowly and just watched the consistency)
3. Mix sauce and kale with yours hands until well coated.
4. Place on teflex trays at 115 for 6-8 hours.

It will shrink down so making a big batch makes a lot of sense.

Fresh Kale from the Garden

I started with fresh kale from the garden. I cut it with a knife, seemed easier than tearing.

Adding the sauce/seasoning

This is the paste after blending.  It’s smooth but still quite thick.

Kale is coated

Kale is completely coated.  Make sure all of the surface area is covered.  This was easier than it sounded.

Spread on the dehydrator sheet

Spread, in as thin a layer as possible, onto your dehydrator sheets.  Mine was still pretty thick but it was fine.  I just had to flip and spread out a bit as it was dehydrating.

Finished Kale Chips

Then it was done!  I would say it was closer to 10 hours but my layers were thick.

Here is lunch:

Raw nut pate with romaine from the garden and kale chips on the side – YUM!

Lunch!

It was easier and a lot tastier than I thought they would be.  I ended up giving my sister most of this batch to take with her on the trip home.  Tomorrow I’m going to make another batch while I still have a lot kale.