Sweet Tater Tots and Kale Chips

I had some left over sweet potatoes and kale- and this was born! I have made kale chips before and they are so good! Kale is awesome, if you haven't tried it, you should.  It's like spinach but can withstand more heat basically and still maintain its integrity.  So good just lightly crisped up in a skillet or baked as chips.  I would suggest don't let them go too far- because otherwise it kind of tastes like you are eating air.

And these tater tots were awesome, I kind of made up my own recipe for these and was hoping they came out good! And thank god they did because I will definitely be making these again.


Kale Chips

• A bunch of kale, stripped from the stem, washed and dried and cut/pulled into bite sized pieces
• salt, pepper, and cooking spray

Directions

1. Oven preheat to 475 degrees F
2. On a baking sheet or wire cooling rack arrange the kale pieces



new salad spinner too!

3. Spray with spray and sprinkle with salt and pepper
4. Put in the oven for 5-10 minutes- you want the leaves to be wilted and just a bit brown and crispy on the edges.  Try no to let them cook too much.

Sweet Tater Tots

Ingredients

• 2 sweet potatoes
• 1 regular baking potato
• 1 tsp of garlic powder
• 1 tsp of salt
• freshly ground pepper to taste
• pinch of celery seed (optional)
• about 2 cups of panko bread crumbs
• cooking spray

Directions

• Oven should already be at 475 degrees for the kale chips (and almond crusted chicken, if you made that too)
• In the microwave, in a microwave safe container put all the potatoes peeled and stabbed a couple times with a fork in and press the "potato" option (should be about 10 minutes)
• Meanwhile in a food processor (or you could just do this in a mixing bowl) add the spices.
• In another shallow dish add the bread crumbs (I added them a cup at a time)
• When the potatoes are done combine them with the spices and taste to make sure they taste good.  Adjust spices to your preference.
• When they are cool enough to handle, take a ziplock bag and fill with some of the mixture.  Snip the corner to make it into a piping bag.  

• Pipe out small (tater tot size) pieces into the bread crumbs, a couple at a time.  They kind of look like baby carrots.  Try not to make them too big. 

• After the are in the bread crumbs, shake the dish to coat.

• YOU MUST HANDLE THESE VERY GENTLY. They are super soft so gently pick up and roll in your hand a bit to get off excess crumbs.
• Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with spray.  Line up your tots and then when they are all done spray again with spray.
• Pop in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until they are golden and crispy.
• In hindsight I would flip them half way throw cooking so they are nice and brown on both sides.
• This made all these in the picture with about 1/2 cup of potato filling left over- I just let my fiance eat the rest lol

Lemon Garlic Broccoli Sidedish

Yum broccoli- I used to hate broccoli when I was younger- now I love it.  You can roast it, eat it raw, steam it, stir fry it etc.  When fresh broccoli goes on sale, I buy a whole lot of it because I just bring it home and freeze it myself- it turns out to be cheaper than if I bought it frozen already (try and get it on sale like 99¢ a pound.  Not a bunch, by the pound!). 

First, start a big pot of water boiling.  Then while you wait for that to boil take your broccoli and cut it up into regular floret pieces and rinse them.  When the water boils we are going to blanch* them.  Dump them in the water and keep them there for about a min or so- when they turn a really bright green strain them and you can either run them under cold water (which I do because I'm lazy) or you can do it the right way and "shock"** them.

(*Blanching is boiling a vegetable for about a min or two to bring out all the bright green color, take away that raw taste, but still keep it crisp-ish.  It also helps to prep it for freezing.  I have tried freezing it raw- and believe me it just does not work)
(**"Shocking" is taking a blanched item and putting it directly into an ice water bath to stop the cooking process to keep that bright color and crisp texture)

Let the broccoli drain and cool, then pop in ziplocks and put in the freezer!

Then when you want to use them, you can either let them defrost and use however you want- If I'm roasting I using squeeze some water from them first.  Or you can just put them in a microwavable dish and enjoy steamed- just like from the frozen food section! And that is what I did with this super easy recipe:

Ingredients:

• About 2 to 3 cups of broccoli
• a lemon (zest* and juice)
• salt & pepper to taste (about a 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp pepper)
• a clove of garlic peeled
• 1 to 2 tablespoons of butter (or the butter substitutes)
• extra virgin olive oil-EVOO (optional)

Directions

1. If the broccoli is frozen- put in your microwave dish and put in the microwave for about 4 mins to get them going. 
2. Pop the garlic out of its skin and lightly smash- trying to keep it intact- we are going to pull the clove out later, just using it a bit to lightly flavor the broccoli.  This dish really is about the clean lemon taste. Or you can just totally omit this step.
3. When the broccoli can be easily mixed up and is not frozen solid, take all the ingredients (except the oil) and mix all together.
4. Put back into the microwave and cook until done.  Drizzle with a bit of EVOO if you want and serve next to whatever's for dinner or all by itself! Just don't serve the garlic clove.

*Lemon Zest: what an awesome flavor booster- and you already bought the lemon, so why not use all of it.  The zest is where the essential oils are.  Use only the colored part, because the white part (the pith) is bitter and no good for eating.  You need a zester, but they are cheap and good for other things like cheese, nutmeg, garlic etc.  A zester was one of my very first kitchen gadgets. There are different types of zesters- try and get one that is a microplane one- because the citrus zester is (obviously) just for citrus. The one below is what I have- a microplane

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