Crispy Kale Chips

Oh yes finally a great alternative to potato chips. Healthy, crispy and can be done in a variety of flavours. My first batch came out a bit too salty as I used both sea salt and tamari. Regardless, I really enjoyed the texture and it made a great snack. I'd love to try other variations as the choice of seasonings is pretty much endless. Here is the basic recipe:

Ingredients:

1 or 2 heads fresh green or purple Kale, washed and torn into a slightly larger then bite size pieces.


Simply fresh:
1/2 lemon juiced
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt

Cheesy:
¾ cup Tahini
¼ cup Tamari
1/4 cup Cider Vinegar
½ cup Water
2 scallions
1 clove garlic
1 lemon juiced
¼ teaspoon Sea Salt
1/4 cup of nutritional yeast

Teriyaki Style:
1 tsp raw honey
1 tsp tamari
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp dried ginger

Preperation:
Place kale in a large mixing bowl. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth to get a thick consistency. You may have to add more water. Pour over kale and mix thoroughly with your hands to coat the kale. You want this mixture to be really glued onto the kale so massage it well. Place in dehydrator and dehydrate for 6 hours at 115degrees. Rotate kale occasionally. Enjoy!

Health benefits of kale:
Kale provides an excellent source of vitamins B6 and C, carotenes, and manganese. Kale is also a very good source of vitamins B1, B2, and E, fiber, iron, copper, and calcium.

It's becoming more real.
Entering my 10 week and sharing the news about my pregnancy with all of my students now. Very exciting and of course emotional! Will these emotions ever settle?..its like I am feeling everything 100x more. Last night I told one of my favourite and most special yoga classes. These students are the most devoted group that have been with me since the beginning pretty much. They are more like my family and I love all of them. So I broke the news. They were all great, so loving and supportive. I of course will be their teacher until at least August or so I hope. And then its baby time and time off from teaching for at least 3 months. I am so happy about creating new life of course! Yet I felt sadness that I will not be part of their yoga journey and what if some of them will move on and I won't see them again. So I had to process my emotions and work through them, which I did, who wants a yoga teacher who is sobbing because she will miss her students! I have to be strong and positive!

I sometimes read to my students when they rest in savasana (final resting pose at the end of the class) Yesterday I opened the book "Journey to the heart" at a page that had a message not only for them but also for me. Oh yes big time! I loved the reading so I am going to share it here:

Embrace Change

You don't have to fear change. You need to fear, a friend once told me, is things remaining the same. When that happens, life has stopped.
Life is an evolution. Your life is constantly, quietly evolving each moment into something new, something different, something that adds gracefully, beautifully, and perfectly to what was. You can trust that process with all its insights, clarity, confusion, and emotions. You can trust that process with its peace, joy, laughter, and its side trips.
Learn to honor and love the process of continual evolution and transformation. Its how things grow. Its how you grow. Its how life is. Learn to embrace change.


So appropriate for pregnancy as everything changes and life is transforming in a huge way. This reading has helped me so much to realize that this is exactly what each of us has to do. We need to learn to honour change. We need to let go of fear and we need to learn to trust. This is a great lesson for a mother to be. I know that is how I need to approach my parenting too. I have to trust and honour my baby's path in life instead of living in fear and trying to control the process. Sometimes all we need to do is let go.