Raw Chips

This post is dedicated to James who loaned me a dehydrator in January in hopes that it would help me test out a 30 day raw diet. Obviously that has yet to happen. In fact, I took the dehydrator home and left it at my door... until tonight.

I thought I would start slow and make something easy that I was pretty sure I would love. I have made kale chips many times in the oven. These are similar, but take a helluva lot longer. However, you get a better chip from it, so if you can spare the time, it is worth it. Since kale chips are pretty well known, I thought I would attempt to use a different green and see how it does in the conversion to chips. Tonight, I chose collard greens. They are super good for you and I love them. They are seriously one of my favourite vegetables... actually most leafy greens are on my fave list. I don't know if that is a vegan thing, but I know for me, before being vegan no dark leafy greens were on my fave foods list. I didn't hate them, more indifferent of them. Now, I find that I crave them.. I think my taste buds changed after cutting animal products.. Definitely for the better.

Back to collard chips... I did a little searching on the internet to see what recipes were out there. There are many recipes for a wide range of veggie chips. There are so many ways to make them... so if you like these, just Google raw chips and tons of stuff comes up. Normally when I do these in the oven I keep it simple with some olive oil and salt, but thought I would maybe change it up a little bit. For the kale I am making a herb cheeze chip and for the collards, salt and balsamic vinegar.

Herb Cheeze Raw Kale Chips

• 1 bunch of kale (any kind, I used curly)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
• 1 - 2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp fresh thyme (optional)
• 1 pinch each of salt and pepper

Salt and Balsamic Vinegar Raw Collard Chips

• 1 bunch collards, sliced into bite size pieces
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (I used white)
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp ground sunflower seeds

For each of these the steps are the same. First rip or slice the greens into large bite size pieces. They will shrink a bit when you dehydrate them, so don't slice too small. Next throw them into a large bowl and combine the other ingredients. toss and stir until everything is coated. lay out flat in your dehydrator and try not to let them over lap so they dry evenly.

This is the kale pre-mixed

Now to dehydrate, I think the temperature is somewhere around 120 F.. Mine doesn't have a temperature setting, so I just turned mine on and crossed my fingers. I left mine in for about 5 hours total. If you turn the temperature up, they probably would only need 3-4 hours. I have seen some recipes that need up to 10 hours to dry. First time making these, I would allow lots of time in case they need more than you think.

Kale ready to be dehydrated

Collard green chips, pre-dehydrated. I needed about 3 trays for each bunch.

So I tried both of these chips, and I tried to save some to bring for work snacks. First, they were awesome. I liked both, but I kind of like the collards flavour better, but the kale makes a better chip. Just holds together a little better than thing collard greens. If you are going to try and save these, don't use zip lock bags. I did and they kind of softened up on me. Paper bag or Tupperware would probably be better.

Like slow cooking, turn on the dehydrator and then in a few hours you have chips ready to eat.
Takes a while, but I think I prefer to the baking method.

These were so good, I ate so many, I didn't need dinner. Such a good snack. Healthy and tastes good. Can't really get better than that.