Cheesy Herbed Kale Chips (Dairy-free)

So lately the new love of my life is Kale! This amazing superfood which is a form of cabbage, and is a pretty dark green and curly, is packed with all the goodies: High in beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin B6, an excellent source of iron, protein, magnesium and phosphorus, rich in calcium, and also a great source of sulforaphane, which is a chemical known for its cancer-fighting properties. Add all this to the fact that it has a delicious flavour all it's own and you can see why I'm currently super excited about using it!

Last week I planted a bunch of stuff in my garden. I'm so excited because I've been wanting to get in there and get the weeding done and get some food planted so I can eat more chemical-free fresh foods, not to mention the convenience of just going out the back door to get my groceries! :D Thanks to some great help from Jo Whitton's children with the weeding, I have planted tomatoes, beetroot, basil, parsley, dill and of course 2 kale plants. There will be more going in once I get the rest of the garden beds prepped! In the meantime I have found a local store which can order in organic kale for me - so for any of you who are up here on the Atherton Tablelands, you can get it from The Humpy at Tolga - you need to call and order it in, but they can get it within a few days.

I love kale in my green smoothies, its especially delicious when teamed up with pineapple, watermelon and pomegranate into a sweet yet tangy smoothie, this morning I also added a big leaf of it to my Cashew-milk hot chocolate. It was super filling and yummo and I'm still feeling energised almost two hours later!

One other thing that a lot of people make with kale is raw/dehydrated kale chips. I've found quite a few different recipes online. There are some at Uncooking101.com which are great, and also another one I've tried is from SuperKitchenMachine's Blog found here. However what I have discovered is that although the recipes are delicious, I sometimes find the sauce/marinade can overpower the taste of the kale a little - which I love in and of itself. SO my mission was to make a recipe for kale chips which enhanced but didn't completely mask the flavour of the kale. You can use this recipe to make the chips as shown, OR you can simply massage the sauce into the kale, and add some chopped tomatoes, avos and other salad vegetables and some seeds and have a delicious salad.

RECIPE: Cheesy Herbed Kale Chips (Dairy-free)
1. Pre-heat oven to 50C.
2. Take one bunch of kale and rip into 2-3 inch sized pieces and place into a large bowl like so:

(I know I may be a little strange, but isn't it pretty? ;))

3. Pop into TMX (or blender or food processor) 1 clove garlic, 1/4 to 1/2 red onion, sml handful parsley & a few basil leaves (I used about 8 large leaves) mince for 5 seconds on speed 7.

4. Scrape herbs down into the bottom of the bowl and add 2 TBSP Nutritional Yeast Flakes (also called Savoury Yeast flakes, NOT brewers yeast), 1 cup of soaked and drained cashews (140g), 1 large or two small tomatoes, quartered, juice of 1 lime or half a lemon, 1 tsp pink himalayan or other quality salt, a little cracked black pepper, 20g of Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and 100g water. Blend all ingredients in tmx for 1 minute on speed 9.

5. Pour the sauce over your bowl of kale - and now the fun starts! Roll up your sleeves and massage the sauce into the kale quite firmly (as Eva from uncooking101 says - a Deep Tissue Massage, not a light massage ;)) for 1-2 minutes, so that the sauce is thoroughly coating the kale and the kale goes a little limp:

6. Line two baking trays (cookie sheets) with good quality baking paper and spread the prepared kale evenly over them. Pop in the oven and bake for 4 hours at 50C, turning once halfway through. *A Quick Note (added 11 June 2012) - if making these in the oven, if you have a fan-forced oven it will be fine, if you have a standard electric you need to prop open the door of your oven by half to 1cm to let the moisture escape, otherwise you'll just have nice warm limp kale LOL! Even better, if you're lucky enough to have a dehydrator, put it on dehydrator sheets and dehydrate for 4 hours.

I don't have a picture yet of the finished product as I'm still (im)patiently waiting for mine to be ready! But I'll add a pic once they're done.

These make a great snack, and are pretty filling due to the high protein and fibre content, so they're great to pop into a ziploc bag or container and take on the go with you, IF you can restrain yourself and not eat them all as soon as they're done! :D You can also break them up a little and sprinkle over a salad for a little extra crunch and pizzaz.

Love and Health, B xxx

Recipes: Raw Beetroot Soup, Seeded Pizza Bread

So last Sunday was Mother's Day - I hope all you Mum's out there had a lovely day and were spoiled rotten! My daughter brought me a lovely green smoothie of baby spinach and oranges for my breakfast in bed, it was so sweet.

Then we went for a picnic lunch by the lake with my Mother, Saana, Jon and myself. It was just lovely, cool with a nice breeze but not too cold. I made a delicious and healthy picnic lunch of three deeps, some crudites and some seeded pizza bread, which I thought I'd share with you. It's based on the regular pizza dough from the Thermomix Everyday Cookbook with some adjustments. It's a lovely thickness - just a midbase, quite crunchy on the outside with a soft seeded centre, perfect for dips!

Seeded Pizza Bread:

Ingredients:

280g water

2 tsp dried yeast

20g oil

1-2 tsp salt

500g bakers flour

1 TBSP chia seeds soaked in 3 TBSP warm water

1 TBSP linseeds

1 TBSP sesame seeds

Method:

Place water, yeast, oil, salt and chia seeds in TMX bowl and blend for 6 seconds on speed 6.

Add all flour and other seeds and blend for another 6 seconds on speed 6.

Place dial onto the locked lid position, and set the timer for 2 minutes, then press Interval and stay with the machine while it kneads the dough.

Check the consistency of the dough before turning it out, if its a little sticky, just add a little more flour (approx 50g) and knead for a further 30sec to 1 minute.

Turn dough out and shape into four similar sized balls, allow to rise for 20 minutes, then roll out into pizza bases.

Top pizzas with your favourite toppings, and bake for 10-15 minutes. Or to use for dipping bread, roll out into the desired thickness, then spike the dough halfway through with a fork all the way around, and bake approx 10 minutes at 180-200C.

Everyone loved the pizza bread with dips for our Mother's Day Lunch (well except Jon, because he's still drinking milk, lol!). To top off my day my Mum and Saana gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers, which I arranged in a bowl of water for our table when I got home. They turned out so nicely I just had to snap a pic, of course. ;)

At the moment I'm participating in Uncooking101's 21 Day Raw Food Jumpstart (you can find info at her website: uncooking101.com) and I'm finding it just fabulous! As part of our program for this week we needed to try some cold soups, after trying a few from the recipes I decided to have a go at my own based on one of my fave ingredients: the humble beetroot! The result turned out looking and tasting so vibrant!

Raw Beetroot Soup:

Ingredients:

1 tsp cumin seeds or ground cumin

1 small clove of garlic, with core removed

120g cashews, soaked for 2-8 hours, NOT drained

1 medium beetroot (250g approx)

20g lemon or lime juice (I used kaffir lime juice)

130g water (or more to your preference)

1 tsp sea salt

2 TBSP fresh parsley

small sprinkle of diced shallots and parsley to garnish

Method:

Grind cumin in TMX for 1 minute on speed 9.

Add garlic and mince for 3 seconds on speed 7.

Add all other ingredients (except garnish) and blend for 1 minute on speed 9.

Check consistency - I made mine quite thick so I could use it for a dip with vege sticks as well as a soup, if you prefer it to be more of a soupy consistency, add at least 50-100g more water.

Serve up in your favourite bowl, garnish with the greenery and enjoy! :D

Soon I will be sharing a Mediterranean Vegetable Quinoa recipe, but its still in development (read: I had a great inspiration last night but it turned out sooooo salty it was inedible, so back to the drawing board!) and once I get clear of my To Do List (which is about as long as my daughter is tall!) I will be putting out my Chookie's Cookin' Great Green Smoothies recipe ebook. So stay tuned, and please leave me some comments and feedback on what you'd like to see on the blog!

Til next time, Love and Health, B xxxx

Getting back on the wagon......

Helloooooo lovely people!

So it seems like its been FOREVER since I did a blog post! But I'm determined to get back into the swing of things now - not just with the blog, but with my raw food journey, weight loss, Thermomix, parenting, just everything, lol. I went on holiday for two weeks and then needed the next two weeks to recover from my holiday, so all sorts of things have been left to slide, but no more!

So the past few days I've been working on getting back into mostly raw food, as while on holidays I splurged and ate/drank all kinds of things that I know are not so great for me - don't we all do that? One green smoothie I did make while I was away I will share with you because it was sooooo sensational I can't wait to get my hands on some more kale and some pomegranate to make it again! Seriously it was THE best one I have ever made, bar none! :D

Recipe: Sweet and Tangy Green Smoothie
Ingredients:
2 cups kale
200-300g watermelon
100-200g pineapple
seeds and flesh from 1 pomegranate
large handful ice

Method:
Place all ingredients in Thermomix or blender and blend on speed 9 for 1-2 minutes or until nice and smooth and juicy! Enjoy the sweet and tangy deliciousness. Sorry I don't have a picture for you, I drank it all before I thought of taking a pic!

Another quick recipe I'd like to share with you (and one I DID snap a picture of) was this fabulous salad I made the other day:

Recipe: Monster Salad with Minted Lime Dressing
Salad:
Ingredients:
6-8 large leaves of iceberg lettuce
1 large tomato
1/2 medium cucumber
1/2 large red capsicum
1/4 red onion
1 medium avocado

1 Serve of your favourite veggie pate (I used Uncooking101's Sunny Carrot Pate)

Method:
Chop lettuce and veggies and arrange prettily, making a fan of the avocado slices and sprinkling the red onion on top (I layered lettuce, then tomato, then cuc, then capsicum, then avo, then onion). Place a nice ice-cream scoop of pate on the top and drizzle with Dressing.

Minted Lime Dressing:
Ingredients:
70g fresh lime flesh (approx 3 limes or kaffir limes, peeled and deseeded)
sml handful fresh parsley
sml handful fresh mint
60g Apple Cider Vinegar
60-80g Grapeseed Oil

Method:
Place all ingredients in Thermomix or blender and blend on speed 9 for one minute. Drizzle over your monster salad and pate and enjoy! This dressing is VERY tangy, so if you don't like that zesty lime flavour reduce lime flesh to 40g or just use the juice from the limes instead of the whole thing.

That's about it for NOW! But there will definately be more to come in the following days and weeks, and I will be working on that Great Green Smoothies ebook to have available for you as soon as I can!

Please have a look on my facebook page I have an exercise in self-love going on there at the moment which I hope will be really special!

Love and Health, B xxx