Kale chips have gone mainstream!

So you know that kale, and its tasty little derivative, kale chips, have gone mainstream when you can buy these nifty little pre-cut and washed bags from even our little podunk grocery stores. This bag made two pans of kale chips. Which, according to Martha Stewart's April edition of her magazine, are passe. Whatever. I love them, my husband loves them, and even my three-year-old loves them.

I use Smitten Kitchen's kale recipe. There are gobs of recipes out there that are virtually the same, so you can tinker with spices or sprinkling some cheese, whatever floats your boat. I like them just rubbed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. YUM.

Kale Chips

Ingredients:
Chopped kale (remove stems)
about 1 T. olive oil
sea salt

Preheat oven to 300. If you don't have the handy bag o' kale like I show above, give your kale a good rinse, towel dry, then cut out the stems and rough chop them (to potato chip size).

Arrange your kale on a baking sheet in a single layer. Drizzle the olive oil on, then use your fingers to rub it in so that the leaves are all covered. Sprinkle with salt and bake for 20 minutes, until the leaves are all crisp (soggy kale = chewy kale, blech).

Potato Soup--It's CHUNKY!

OK, this isn't just potato soup. It's not just potato leek soup. It's a mish-mash of potato leek and the yummy Zuppa Toscana from the Olive Garden. Yes, I will admit that I, too, am pretty excited that we are getting our first Olive Garden here in my town, mostly because of the soup-salad-breadstick lunch with the Zuppa Toscana soup. I came up with the idea when our CSA box from Full Circle this week had a leek and kale in it. So try it, let me know how it goes. I found it very tasty, pretty easy, and VERY filling.

CHUNKY Potato Leek Soup

Ingredients:
1 leek, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/4 stick butter
1 pound ground pork (I use this instead of sausage because it lacks those naughty nitrates/nitrites)
24 oz. chicken stock or broth
5 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
8-10 oz half and half
1 packed c. chopped kale (optional)
salt and pepper

In a big soup pot or dutch oven, melt butter over medium heat. When it's melted, add the leek and onion and cook, stirring frequently, until the veggies are a little brown on the edges. Salt and pepper them.

While they are cooking, brown the ground pork (or ground sausage if you prefer) with salt and pepper (and any other seasonings you like--since I use ground pork, I also add garlic powder, dried sage, and a little cayenne) in a fry pan.

When the veggies are done (see picture below), deglaze the pan with the stock. Add the potatoes and a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and cover. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, until potatoes are soft. At this point, if you like a chunkier soup (CHUNKY!), you can mash by hand with a potato masher or whatever floats your boat. If you want something very smooth, run it through your food processor or use a stick/immersion blender. I did it chunky. Add the sausage, stir, then add the half and half. I would add the half-and-half until you reach a consistency that  you like. Add the chopped kale. Heat the mixture through, until the kale begins to wilt, then serve.

We served this with a nice, crusty loaf of sourdough bread. It was pretty darned good. But I'm still going to Olive Garden when they open.

Here are the browned bits from the cooked veggies that you will work off by adding chicken stock. YUM. If you use a non-stick pot, you will not get all of this color.

Here's the final product. The kale this week was a purple variety, hence the dark specks (I promise, I didn't burn it!).