Everyone that knows me, knows I am hopelessly addicted to Potato Chips. I have no problem juicing till dinner, then having a big salad, some cooked veggies or fish, eschewing nuts, grains, goat cheese or chocolate for days on end but every couple of days, I end my meals with a bag of potato chips. I like it. No excuses. Even as a chef, I can’t find a decent replacement. (Not talking Terra style chips either; Salt and Vinegar kettle chips, to be frank). Also, I don’t want to be perfect. What will I give up then? (Yes, that was excuse #1)
Well, I have been making this for months now and I have managed to keep my chip craving under control by replacing it with this recipe. Originally it was a Pizza Kale Salad but I made too much so I dehydrated the rest. So make a lot and eat half and chip out the other half!
• 1 head of kale, remove stems but keep leaves intact as possible (shrinks up in dehydrator)
• 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
• 1 cup sundried tomatoes, rehydrated
• 3 to 4 garlic cloves1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• sea salt/pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
Put both type of tomatoes and garlic in food processor and pulse a few times keeping it rustic, not smooth. Massage the kale with the tomato spread and add in the dried herbs and spices. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast but DO NOT let it get absorbed and disappear into the kale. You want it touching the surface of the kale so when it dehydrates, the cheese flavor is pronounced. This also allows you to use less yeast……if you don’t like or do nutritional yeast, you can use 1/2 cup cashews instead (throw it in with the tomatoes)… if you don’t do cashew, just omit entirely but then consider a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil to make it all cohesive….
I use cherry tomatoes because I like how the tomato skin dries and clings to the leaves. Sundried tomato is optional but it does make the tomato flavor more intense. You do need to rehydrate it although you wind up dehydrating it only because you don’t want the sun dried tomatoes all pruny while everything is still losing moisture.
I put my dehydrator on full blast for the first couple of hours and then lower it to 110 degrees for a technically “raw chip” but if that is not an issue, keep it on full the whole way (6 hours).
For conventional oven setting, just put on the lowest possible setting and keep an eye… I can’t say I’ve tried it this way but others have and worked well.
