One of the most marvelous things about Southern California is its year-round growing season.  It’s hard to have too much hate for a place that can provide you with citrus in December – and from your neighbor’s tree, no less.  After my first year here, I decided to take advantage of the bounty by joining a CSA.

If you’re not familiar with CSA’s (although I’m sure you are), the acronym stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  I buy half a share in Morning Song Farm, a local farm, and in return I get a box of fruits, veggies, herbs and nuts every other week.  I love knowing that what I’m eating is grown locally, organically and is in season.  It takes the stress of trying to buy sustainable produce off my shoulders and I feel great supporting the farm.

When I first began the CSA program, I did not cook that much.  Honestly, I still don’t cook half as much as I’d like, but a fridge full of fresh produce has spurred me to cook more.  I had been quite bad about having leftover veggies, though, and that has inspired me to take a look at the produce I use the least and share some of the recipes for how to use them with you.

This week my project is kale.  Kale is such a neat green.  It’s not exotic by any stretch, but I never grew up using it.  It does grow year-round, so if you’re in a colder climate you still can have kale coming up, even if there’s snow on the ground.  As such, I get it in my basket almost every week and almost every week I end up wasting half of it.

I’ve cut up bits and pieces to add to eggs, pastas, salads and soups, but I can never use it all so this week I decided to search for a dish where kale was featured so I could reliably use up my portion whenever I receive it.  After a bit of searching, I found a some super simple recipes for kale chips.  I wasn’t quite sure about how much I’d like them, but figured giving it a try would be better than wasting the plant.

Turns out, they’re great.  The first batch wasn’t perfect, but definitely enjoyable. I only used about half the bunch of kale since that’s all that would fit on the baking sheet pre-cooking.  It was positively overflowing.  I didn’t take into account the fact that the kale would shrink so much and used a bit more olive oil and salt than I should have.  Some of the chips were wilty and all of them were too salty.  Still, I couldn’t stop eating them!

Here’s my version (which is really close to everyone else’s version) of the recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350.
Drizzle a bit of olive oil (not too much!) on a baking sheet.
Take your kale and rip the leaves into tortilla chip-sized pieces, discarding the stalk, and add that to the baking sheet.
Sprinkle some salt over the kale.
Mix the salt, kale, and olive oil together on the sheet so the kale is coated.
Bake for about 15 minutes.

And that’s it!  The resulting product does not look beautiful, but the texture and saltiness make a great substitute for unhealthy potato chips.  I ate about half the batch the first night and brought the rest to work, though it tastes better right out of the oven.  Besides, I probably ate more kale in those two days than I had in months.

Stay tuned for more adventures in CSA cooking.  I’ll be looking at dandelion green recipes next time.

CSA programs are all over.  If you’re interested, visit www.localharvest.org to see if there is a farm near you.