She asked for "Sun Eggs"

So that's what she got!

Kale Chips, part 2

It took about 45 minutes all told. I used too much salt, I think, (I adjusted it for the recipe below) but it's still delicious, even salty. You may prefer to use less oil than I did.

Kale Chips

Ingredients

1 head of kale, de-ribbed, well washed and dried
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon unrefined sea salt

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Salt and thoroughly oil the kale leaves. Spread on a big cookie sheet or pan with enough of a rim that the oil won't drip off. Bake until done, or about 45 minutes, stirring and turning after each 10 or so.

Yum!

Kale Chips!

I don't know why it never occurred to me - Little Moo loves those little snack packs of nori, which are my only concession to packaged snacks. I love the idea that she's eating seaweed, getting all those trace minerals and a good dose of iodine to combat the radiation from Japan that our government has refused to admit has been hitting our shores.

On her second day of camp, Little Moo's camp teacher made kale chips, then told me how. I was surprised at how amazingly easy it sounds. It's not seaweed, but good detox all the same, and has that same salty tastiness. She used a 325 degree oven for 5 minutes, but with olive oil, I'm going down to 250. It will take more time, but I think it will retain more nutrients that way. Evidently, Little Moo just kept munching the kale all afternoon. The teacher was very impressed. That's our Little Moo. She's a good eater. She's got a mother on GAPS and she's had nutritionally dense food since she started on solids. What can I say? The kid knows what's good. Here's what it looked like when it started. More pics to come...

Cardoon

Yes. It's called "cardoon." It looks like a giant piece of celery, or a stalk of rhubarb that has just seen a ghost. It tastes a bit like a cross between celery and artichoke and I found one single piece of it at one of my favorite vendors at the Fort Mason Farmers' Market today.

Little Moo was fascinated. She thought it was called "cartoon," which was fine by her.

I cooked it up tonight just to see what it did.

Peel the top, not the bottom. 

It seemed very hard, so I pulled out the leeks that we got today, as well and sauteed them in ghee for 12 minutes. I threw the slices in, and discovered that they required about 25 minutes plus a dousing with hot broth to get them to soften up decently. Not the prettiest vegetable I've seen, but nice-smelling. Little Moo wasn't having any of it, but Snackboy and I decided that it was very nice paired with leeks. I think next time I'll use it in a slow cooker recipe. Interesting taste.

Was jam, now...?

So, the jam had too much gelatin in it, so it's pretty solid. If you'd like to make this jam, I'd cut the gelatin amount at least in half.

Meanwhile, it's still tasty, so here's what was for dessert tonight.

Burger with ketchup

Here it is...the final result! So far, so good. No rashes.

Blueberry Jam...?

I had no intention of actually making real jam, but we did, and in almost no time, too. It's technically GAPS-legal, since it has honey in it instead of sugar, and I'm not sure about pectin, so I used gelatin. I say "technically" since it's so sweet that, at least for this GAPS person, it should be saved for a tiny treat and not eaten all the time. On the other hand, Little Moo has been clamoring for jelly for ages because her best friend lives on PB&J and she wanted her own. I just couldn't stomach getting jars of whatever for her, especially the jams, since they're such mystery foods, and so full of sugar. Organic mindfully sourced almond butter is evidently something like $20 a jar, so I got good organic almonds, soaked, roasted and blended it into butter.

This jam has about 1/2 cup of honey in it to 4 cups of blueberries (about 3 cups from the farmers' market, 1 from our freezer), 1/2 a lemon's worth of juice and 1/4 cup of Bernard Jensen's gelatin. That's it. I simmered it down until it went all thick, then added the gelatin melted in a bit of boiling water at the end. 4 cups of berries plus other ingredients fit nicely into a pint jar in the end, that had been sterilized by boiling 10 minutes.