Moments D362: Kale Chips

Today my day started earlier than normal for a weekend. I thought I might sleep in, but it was about 5:30-6am when I woke. But, today was the first day in many weeks (dare I say months?) that I didn't have an agenda for the day. Nowhere to be, nowhere to go. No real errands that had to get done. I had nothing pushing or pulling me. And so, I lounged in bed. I read, and later I pulled out my laptop and watched the final episode of a bad (I can’t even share the name I'm so embarrassed by it!!) reality show. And then at 9:30am, I finally shook myself out of bed.

It was that moment that I decided I was going to get myself back into some kind of routine. The last few months haven’t been good for routine. Too many tasks and not enough time. I’ve been trying to steal time from here and there to get it all done. Truly, the fact that I forgot to update my license plate sticker AND I missed the date on concert tickets a couple of weeks ago only goes to show just how crazy things have been. Now that school is done (for the next two weeks at least) and that my personal life feels more under control in general and that I nearly have things caught up at work, it’s time to set myself some new routines and get back to a few old ones.

So, I vowed to myself today, that I was going to kick up the health and fitness routine once again. (It’s been lagging along with much due to my lack of time!) Today was going to be a day where I picked up groceries for the week (yes I planned my entire week!). The big decision: I was going to juice some very healthy juices and I was going to get a workout in. If you are curious, I did the following: (1) Carrot, Orange (2) Carrot, Beet, Ginger (3) Carrot, Beet, Ginger, Lemon (4) Kale, cucumber, Lemon, Ginger (5) Kale, celery, Lemon, Ginger, apple

And so, I did all of that. I know, not a very “lazy” day, but it was an unstructured day and that’s nearly the same for me. (Besides, later on I was lazy as I played Bioshock2 for a just over an hour as I waited for dinner to cook!)

But the interesting part of my day, my moment today, was the last minute decision to make kale chips. My girlfriend from work was raving about them and I had picked up kale to juice. The kale bunches were on sale, so I actually picked up two while I was out shopping. It wasn’t until I was done juicing (and all my glass bottles filled!) that I realized I had some left over and I was going to try this crazy idea. (Okay - not so crazy since I do love baby kale as a salad base!)

So I tried this recipe and waited for 20 minutes for them to be ready. Wow. I was not disappointed. They were crispy and salty and quite delightful, in fact, I ate the entire baking pan full in short order! I can even imagine them with a hit of cayenne pepper or maybe cumin. So very delightful. So much so, kale may be on my weekly grocery buy now! I wonder if they keep for a couple of days? I’m going to have to try that out - I’ll let you know how it goes! Do give it a try!

Moments enjoying a lazy Sunday.

Moments of surprise with a new recipe.