Kale Chips & Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

I may have a Kale thief. 

The other day I came home from doing groceries, and came out back to see what Guillermo was up to, and noticed one of my Kale plants stripped bare in the middle….

Hrmmm. Not mentioning any names, but I think I’m related to her.   🙂 

A few years ago I had a rhubarb thief.  I knew exactly who that was too.  They left golf cart tracks all the way through our wet lawn from beside my garden right to their house.   That particular thief actually cut the rhubarb stocks off with a knife, which kinda irked me just a little.  I’ve always been taught, you PULL rhubarb.. never cut it.  Pulling strengthens the root, and more grow back.  So…. harnessing my passive aggressive tendencies, I pulled some of the best and reddest juiciest stalks, washed them, and personally delivered them in a nice basket.. just so they’d have enough.  Don’t laugh.. I’m not proud of it. Honesty I’m glad to share from my garden- it’s not mine anyways… it’s all God’s. He’s the one that makes it grow- I’m just the gardener.

I dunno if you know this about me… but passive aggression is a very strong trait in my family, and somehow I got a triple dose of it.    It’s something I’m working on..  and working on….

Back to the Kale…. I harvested several leaves from a couple other plants (they are all going to seed now) and brought a bin full inside to wash up and break into large chunks. 

I don’t have a salad spinner, so I wrapped them up good in 3 tea towels and left them to dry over night.   Today while I was making soup and quiche for a dear friend going through cancer treatments, I decided to make kale chips in the oven. I had enough for 4 full cookie sheets.

If you’re new to my blog.. let me say.. i’m not your typical ‘recipe blog’… I look for recipes all over the interweb.. and when I find one.. i give credit to where I found it.. and typically don’t write out the whole recipe, unless I’ve done some major changes to it.  Please do go visit the original blogs where I’ve linked if this is something you’d like to try.

I found THIS GREAT RECIPE on line from “Oh She Glows” for All Dressed Kale Chips.  They turned out FANTASTIC.   Here’s the “dressing” (from Oh She Glows site)

 

I did 2 trays at a time in a 300F convection oven as she directs – and turned the trays halfway through.  My oven tends to run low/slow.. so I did a full half hour.  (She suggests 25 min total)

I will say this.. the process of rubbling oil on the kale and getting my hands all oily was the very best thing for my hands that are so dry and chapped from all the gardening I’ve been doing.   I’ve never used Nutritional Yeast before, so i was really curious about this recipe. 

I had bought some a while back hoping to use it sometime, and this was the perfect recipe to try it out on.   I didn’t have cayenne.. but these kitchen staples of mine were what I rubbed in before going in the oven. One thing I learned last time I made kale chips.. go VERY easy on salt.. kale has a natural saltiness that comes out when baked.. you don’t need hardly any added salt at all.

They turned out so crispy and yummy… even Guillermo (not a chip guy) said they were “not bad”… (that’s high praise coming from him!) LOL

While the kale chips were in the oven, I got going on the Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup – a recipe I found HERE several years ago.  I love this soup.  It’s so easy, Springy, and zesty flavourful. 

I spent some time on the deck yesterday cutting up the carrots, celery & onion (I couldn’t bear being stuck inside!) and put the prepped veg in the fridge for today.  I like making “flowers” with the carrots for some interest in the soup.  Some of them look like windmills.. but they’re still cute.

 

This recipe calls for boneless skinless chicken legs.. but I only had breasts – which I cut up in 1″ small pieces and fried up with a little Avocado oil and garlic in my cast iron Dutch oven.   

After the chicken was cooked through, I removed it, and put the celery, onion, carrots in to cook.  Then thyme for about a minute, then 2 tetras of No sodium organic chicken broth. (1800 ml)  The recipe calls for 5 cups, but i’ve found that the orzo sucks up a LOT of liquid, and I always do more veg/meat than a recipe calls for anyway..   

With the chicken broth, I added in the cooked chicken and a fresh rosemary sprig.  (from Bill & Amy’s garden!)   Once it boiled, added in 3/4 cup of dry orzo, and simmered for 10 minutes.   Then I turned it off, removed the lid – and stirred in the juice of one lemon, 2 tbsp of fresh chopped parsley and about 1 tbsp lemon zest – and let it cool so I could portion it out for freezer/reheating.  it’s BEST when served immediately.. but it’s good later too. Here’s a closeup of the soup in a bowl. See those cute carrots wheels?

As for Bill and Amy’s garden… the rhubarb/squash bed is done and ready for me to transplant.. and the pole bean bed is well on it’s way!  We’re having the BEST week of weather here in Niagara.. today it’s about 21 C with perfect blue skies and no humidity.

 

We are SO thankful to have our backyard to work in while we’re isolating during Covid.. to have this time now to work at home.  God is GOOD.  All the time… God is good.

This morning, before heading into the kitchen, I spent a couple of hours working on recording one very small 4.5 minute devotional video for our kids at church.  We have a really great summer intern who’s been doing some on line devotionals, crafts and other things for our kids at church while we’re not able to worship together. 

She asked me to do a short video for next week.. and wow, it is NOT easy.. i was happy to do it though.  My hats off to her and our Pastor who do this every week! I look forward to sharing the finished product with you next week when it airs… but in the meantime.. enjoy this blooper..