Best Ever Kale Chips? Is This Possible?!

     I'll admit, it took me a long time to like homemade kale chips. But like so many healthy things, once I got the taste for them, I couldn't stop! It's a good thing kale and so many other awesome cool-weather-growing greens are easy to find locally grown in greenhouses all over the northeast. It makes these chips healthy not only for me, but for the environment, too! 

     If you've never liked or tried kale chips, I'll confess that the first time I tasted kale it was what I imagined a horse eating. It was a tough, stringy, unappetizing green thing that I could not possibly imagine myself being able to digest before asking for more. Good thing I am often wrong!

     I once had a very smart person admit to me that though she has a low-sugar family, it's always how she manipulates her child's taste-buds to change. "Start by putting a bit of honey, maple, or sugar with something unpalatable, and ease out of the sweetness a little each time your kid tastes the food again. Slowly they get a great association with something they would have otherwise hated outright." Add in some locally-sourced maple sugar from a nearby sugar-house, and never was this smart piece of advice more helpful than with bringing me to a full-out kale addiction. Do try this sweet treat; you'll think a bunch of local kale is one of the tastiest things ever!

Ingredients

• 1 large bundle curly green or purple kale
• 1-2 Tbsp (15-30 ml) melted coconut or avocado oil
• Seasonings of choice (i.e. pinch sea salt, 2 tsp of sugar or maple sugar) 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 225 degrees F (107 C). Use convection bake if you have it to speed cooking time and help chips crisp up even more.
2. Rinse and thoroughly dry kale, then tear into small pieces and discard any large stems.
3. Add to a large mixing bowl and drizzle with oil and seasonings of choice. Toss thoroughly to combine, using hands to distribute the oil and salt and sugar evenly.
4. Spread the kale over 2 large baking sheets, ensuring the kale touches as little as possible to help them crisp while baking.
5. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the pans around and lightly toss/stir kale to ensure even baking. Bake for 5-10 minutes more, or until kale is crispy and very slight golden brown. Watch closely as it can burn easily.
6. Remove from oven and let cool slightly - chips will crisp up even more once out of the oven.
7. Enjoy immediately! Best when fresh. Store leftovers covered at room temperature for 2-3 days.

Baking Fall in New England

My middle name is pretty much "Hides-Veggies-In-Everything." It's true. I never make a baked-good without a fruit or veggie hiding inside. But as my child will attest, it's not as painful as you'd think.

As we celebrate our local fall products and produce, I have a great recipe to share with all you baked-goods lovers out there who think it's impossible to make a healthy donut. In New England, not an apple orchard or grocery is without apple-cider donuts come October. And though I love them, my family has recently found a recipe we've latched onto that is by far the healthier (dare I say tastier?!) fall equivalent. These donuts, in which I use roasted mashed butternut/pumpkin from my backyard New England garden, are chocked full of healthy hidden veggies and nostalgia-inducing fall flavors.  Whether you find some apple cider donuts or try making these healthy Baked Fall Donuts yourself, it's a great time of year to live in New England! Happy Fall!

 Baked Fall Donuts

Preheat the oven to 350°F / 175°C

Donuts:

1 and 3/4 cups of flour (we use gluten free, which works very well in this recipe!)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/3 cup high heat oil (coconut, sunflower, and safflower all work well)

1/2 cup brown sugar or raw sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup roasted and mashed or canned pumpkin or butternut (butternut is naturally a little sweeter, so I healthily lower the amount of sugar slightly when using it!)

1/2 cup milk (our dairy-free household thinks coconut milk, almond milk, or rice milk work great, too!)

Glaze:

1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

1/4 cup buttermilk (our dairy-free household thinks coconut milk, almond milk, or rice milk work great, too!)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients in until just combined. (Be careful not to overmix or it makes the batter more chewy than fluffy!)
2. Grease a donut or mini muffin pan very well. Divide the batter among the molds. Bake 12 – 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  (I don't own a donut pan, so I use a muffin tin, then punch out the holes after baking by using a small round lid off our jar of olive oil. It doesn't sound fancy, but I promise, it works well! See picture above.)
3. When the donuts are completely cool, dip them into the glaze, or dust them with powdered sugar, or sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. This step is up to you, depending on how much sugar you are comfortable with. Confession? The glaze has the most sugar, but is sooo tasty, you won't want it any other way!
4. Listen to your donuts... I think I can hear the pumpkin thanking you that this was its destiny.
5. Eat! They’re okay on the second day, but insanely delicious when fresh!

**Most recipes I post are ones I have altered so much they don't have an original source outside of my kitchen. But this recipe is very very similar to a recipe on texanerin.com. Do check it out if my chicken scratch above doesn't convince you quite enough of just how tasty these fall goodies truly are!

 http://www.texanerin.com/100-whole-grain-baked-pumpkin-donuts/

Harvesting in the Name of Carrot Caking

Our garden looks insane. I'll admit it.

This is thanks in part to the strange little habits my husband and I have picked up from living in Spain, Iowa, and Zimababwe. You might just say our local backyard garden is a mix of the best of three continents. But thanks to a crazy little gardening method we have adopted called "hugelkultur," we have had the most giant green mess of unwatered growth -despite being in a drought!- that any gardener could hope for.  We have pulled an insane amount of produce out of our 20 x 20 space, and fed a few good bees in the process, thanks to my science-teacher husband, some elbow grease, and the constant supervision of our six year old. This month I thought I'd share a few of my favorite recipes that highlight some of these locally grown treasures, starting with -what else?- dessert.

Because, hey, why not?

I always judge a dish by how many guests have asked for the recipe. This one takes the cake. Literally.Though I can assure you it is the best cake I have ever eaten, it will not look so pretty in my pictures. This is because this time around, I made this a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free cake (substitutions galore!) that challenged the frosting-aesthetics. Add in my child's blueberry decorations, and well, you get the picture. Literally.

Yup. No lies here. It can feel time intensive if you only have one cake pan instead of two or three (translation: the woman who moved her whole household back to the US with six suitcases may have "more cake pans" written on her Christmas list this year) but it is well worth it, I assure you. Plus, you're eating your vegetables. Literally.

    

Most Delicious Carrot Cake Ever

(Even when you use a lot of substitutions!)

Ingredients

2 cups flour (gluten free 1-1 works quite well, too!)

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

Not-So-Local-Local African Chicken Salad

If you've never tasted Zimbabwe, here is your chance.

Wait, what?

"Isn't this a blog about New England?!" you say.

Definitely. I love to take a recipe from a distant time or place and bring back a little nostalgia with one bite.  Food is truly a way to immediately relive a certain magical something we remember, in this case something far from the Northeastern mountains and shore sitting outside my window. Though the recipe I'd like to share today is from my honorary homeland of Africa, it can be made using entirely local New England products.  As the farmers markets of our region pop up in town greens all over the Northeast, fresh green things continue to be on the menu!

Try it right away.  For me, it's like biting into my Zimbabwean garden all over again. Mm mmm...

New-England-African Chicken Salad

1 chicken, deboned / or 2-3 cups of cooked and cubed chicken
3/4 cup dried apricots or other dried fruit, preferably diced (a great opportunity to use local, Massachusetts-grown craisins!)
1/2 cup salted pistachios, no shells
1 bunch of cilantro, washed and coarsely chopped
2-3 tablespoons olive oil

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, salt and pepper to taste. Easy-peasy!

Favorite Local Recipe: Chocolate Beet-Apple Cupcakes!

  

Yes.  This picture of my child and the beets we used to grow in Africa has pretty much nothing to do with this cupcake post.  But who can help but pull out cute beet pictures when it's the topic of the day?!  Humor me here.  I mean, how often do I get to use beet pictures?!?  

Today, middle-of-January-today, I bought local beets, grown right next door in good old -freezing cold- New Hampshire.  

Surprised?  Me, neither!

If you have ever been to a local farmer's market in mid-winter, you probably know that oodles of foods are still producible in the coldest of climates thanks to something I lust after all the time: a greenhouse.  (My latest obsession? The super affordable underground greenhouse called a walipini, which I may just have to try one day soon!  But I digress...) My point is, fresh local produce in mid-Arctic-winter is not only possible, but an awesome thing to support!  I'd like to say the local farmers benefited today, but I will save that argument. My family entirely reaped all the benefits on this one, as we enjoyed some healthy, chocolaty beet cupcakes after a long day of school-time and errands.  

A few years ago when our African beets were abundantly showing up in every foot of our garden, this awesome recipe fell into my lap.  I've never let it go since.  Look up the health benefits of beets and you will be quite proud of trying this recipe for yourself.  When these cupcakes are packed with all sorts of locally-fresh produce, it's hard to say no to seconds...

 

Chocolate Beet-Apple Cupcakes

* This recipe can be made dairy free and/or gluten free!

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups pureed beets (I usually wash, roughly chop, boil, and mash. But microwaving works, too. Make sure you save the greens for a different healthy dish!)

2 cups all purpose flour (One to one gluten-free flour works, too! Check out these local g-f flours!)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup cocoa powder

Wet Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup applesauce (I just cook down some chopped, peeled apples and mash them.  This was a local element that came from our trees during our fall harvest.)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 large eggs (always available locally!)

3/4 cup chocolate chips (To make this recipe dairy-free like my family does, just use dairy-free chocolate chips. We like Chatfields!)

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

-Line 24 cupcake/muffin tins with liners or an olive oil/dusted flour coating.

-Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl.

-Mix all wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

-Combine two bowls of ingredients together, mixing out all lumps.

-Gently fold in the chocolate chips.

-Spoon batter into prepared cupcake tins.

-Bake 15-20 minutes, inserting a toothpick or fork to check for doneness.  

-Cool before frosting.  Yum!!  Enjoy!

* The FDA recommends not eating raw batter that has uncooked ingredients such as eggs or flour.

*These cupcakes can be frosted with your favorite dairy-free or cream-cheese frosting, or eaten plainly delicious!

Local Flour for a Local Cake!

I don't know why I feared it; I have gone through re-learning how to cook oodles of times with every move to a new country.  And yet when my family decided to go gluten and dairy-free, I was intimidated.  It is one thing to look for new ingredients that can be put in place of particular ingredients in familiar recipes. It is a whole other thing to relearn the chemistry behind baking from a new angle that requires new recipes never tried.  Then I came upon gluten free all-purpose flour.  And life has never been the same.

I am pretty sure if I were trying the dairy free gluten-free thing thirty years ago, I would be pulling my hair out and running to twenty stores to find food necessities.  But one of the amazing things about living in 2015 is the easy access to alternative foods that has literally gotten ten times easier in just the last five years.  Today I am featuring two well known flour companies, both of which have alternative gluten-free options right on my average-run-of-the-mill local grocery store shelves just down the road.

Arrowhead Mills, a company manufacturing gluten-free flour in Lake Success, New York*, has been a pioneer of organic food products for over fifty years.  Started under the premise that chemicals like herbicides and pesticides pollute the food chain, Arrowhead Mills is now a passionate voice in the push for environmental commitment and an integral part of the NON-GMO project.  Though their home base is located in Texas, the company pushes local resourcing throughout the country and boasts an 80% American grown ingredients rate in their products.

Don't be fooled; the second company I am also featuring as part of this love letter to gluten free flour is just as fantastic!  King Arthur Flour, now headquartered in Norwich, Vermont after its renowned start in Boston, MA, is nothing but committed to social responsibility.  At over 220 years old, America's oldest flour company and 100% employee-owned Vermont gem knows a thing or two about environmental-footprints and local community care.  I will definitely be popping into the flagship store the next time I'm near Norwich!

SO, now that I've introduced you to two awesome companies making some great gluten-free flour, let me introduce you to one of my favorite New Englandy recipes for the fall, featuring nothing but the most local New England apples, twenty feet out my back door.  Could there possibly be anything better than New England apples in the fall?  Perhaps New England apple cake!  ...  DO try this recipe.  Gluten free or not, you will enjoy!!

This funky "Appul cace," as he spells it,
  has been decorated by my fantastic 6 year old sous chef.

New England Apple Cake

2 1/2 cups of Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour

3/4 cup (organic is best!) brown sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of baking powder

¼ teaspoon of salt

3 eggs

1 tablespoon of lemon juice (and a bit of lemon zest if you want an extra lemon punch!)

1 cup of oil, I like either EVOO or coconut oil at room temp

3 cups of grated sweet apples (I’d say about 4-5 large apples)

1 cup of chopped pecans, or raisins/craisins if preferred

Confectioner’s sugar (optionally sprinkled on top)

Bake 350 or 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. I have made this cake in all shapes and sizes; even muffins turn out well (though cook for a shorter time period).  The cake is dense, but super moist, and perfect with a bit of powdered sugar sprinkled on top! I like it better cooled, but who can wait?!

* Please note that although I do recognize New York is not actually part of New England, it IS local when food miles are concerned from geographical New England. For this reason, products made in New York are also featured on this blog.  (No corrections needed!)