How I got my kid to eat kale

Kale Chips!

I don't know what took me so long to try these. I've heard about kale chips for quite some time. They sounded intriguing and easy to make. Just do an internet search for kale chips and you'll find oodles of recipes. Here's what I did:

Baked Kale Chips

1 small bunch of kale
2 tbsp olive oil
sea salt

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F. Optional - Line a cookie sheet with foil for easier clean-up. Wash the kale. Cut or tear the kale off the thick stems in "chip-size" pieces and arrange on the cookie sheet. Dribble the olive oil over the kale and toss to coat. Generously sprinkle sea salt over the kale. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

All the recipes I found said to bake until the edges of the kale were brown. I first tried 10 minutes and it looked like they weren't done yet. So I put them in for another 5 minutes and a lot of the kale along the sides of the sheet were burnt. I'm thinking about 12 minutes would have been about right. I recommend checking every couple of minutes after 10 to make sure they are cooked to your satisfaction but not completely brown.

Here's a picture of my chips cooling. You can see the ones on the edges are completely brown and overcooked. The brown ones aren't bad, but the greener ones are definitely better.


How they were received by my 3-year old
SchmoopyBoy is going through a period where he's pretty much been avoiding all cooked vegetables except corn on the cob. Most of the time pretty much the only veggies he will eat are plain raw carrots, cucumber and occasionally peas. As much as I'm all in favor of him eating fresh raw vegetables, there's not a lot of variety in the mix. I keep putting whatever veggies I've cooked on his plate, just to eat them myself when he is done with his meal. I do know that he likes to snack on chips on occasion when we have them. So when out of the blue I offered him chips, he was all excited. That is, until he looked at his plate and saw green crinkly things. His face was very skeptical. I think I did a pretty good job of selling them, if I do say so myself. "Look! They're green! We get to eat green chips today! Isn't that fun?" All it took was one bite and they were declared "Mmm, yummy!" with a bright smile.

This one is a keeper.