Kale Chips

Baked Kale – Kale Chips

Have you ever wanted to track your calorie intake, but do not have the time to do all that math and figuring? Well, there is an amazing website called Spark People. At www.sparkpeople.com you can pick a goal weight and date and the site will give you detailed guidelines, informative information and amazing software all for FREE! I LOVE Spark People. Currently I am getting back into the groove after having my Ah-Ha moment and realizing I need not only a diet, but a lifestyle change. I love this site because not only is it free, it works and you can choose to build a spark page to become friends with other spark users as support and motivation.

With all of that being said I am overhauling my life and my family's life. I have been introducing and re introducing new foods to everyone in my house. The latest adventures have been Grapefruit, in witch my children loved with a tablespoon of sugar on top. I also made Kale Chips. I have never eaten Kale in my life so I did not know what to expect when making these. Here is what I did.

Gather One bunch of Kale

Tablespoon of Olive Oil

Sea Salt or Kosher Salt

This is the bunch of Kale to start.

First you will start with pulling apart your kale and ripping the leafy part from the thick stem. Tear or cut the whole bunch into smaller sizes. Rinse and dry the kale very well. If you do not dry the kale well after washing it will take a lot longer to bake.

Rinse and Dry Well.

Pile it all right up and bake.

In a large bowl toss together the Kale, Olive Oil, and Sea Salt together. Preheat your oven to 350*. Grab a large baking sheet and pile the Kale right on that bad boy. Don't worry about it looking over crowded. The Kale with shrivel tremendously while drying out. Set your timer for 10-15 minutes. Make sure to check around 10 minutes to see how it its baking. I cooked mine until it was nice a crispy. I was impatient along with my children to taste this goodness, so we took it out a couple times and picked out the finished bits. Make sure not to over cook or it will result in a not so pleasant taste of burnt greens.

Wha-La! Your Done!

Go ahead step out of the box and try it. Feel free to season with anything not just salt. You could use ranch packets, garlic, curry, onion, salt and vinegar anything really. A bunch of Kale cost me $1.79 so it is very friendly on your wallet to try something new... tastey and healthy.

I would love to hear other healthy snacks that you like to eat. So please leave a comment and share!

Until next time...

Simple Solutions

Finally!

Have any of you heard of the website Pinterest? Well if not, immediately after reading this post it is a must to add to your to do list. It is pretty much a virtual pin board of all your favorite things. You can organize it anyway you way and “follow” as many people as you would like also. They even give you an option to add a button to your favorite bar so you can “pin” anything you want. Simply said..I am in love :)

I have tried many things I have found on Pinterest that are purely genius. I wish I would claim that I discovered them myself. Be prepared these will change your life.

At some point you have had nasty fruit fly's that would just not go away. You spend hours searching for whatever the cause is, and you find nothing. Well I have a cure!

Pour roughly 1c of Apple Cider Vinegar and a squirt or two of dish soap into a bowl. Place the mixture where you are noticing the most fruit fly's hanging out. Now prepare to be amazed.

Check back in a couple hours and you will notice your trap is taking care of your little problem. Works like a charm. I swear I will never stress about fruit fly's again. I have even left out a bowl of this mixture out for a couple days at a time and it will still continue to attract the little pests.

Ah. Maze. Ing!

All of us busy parents have juggled getting dinner ready, picking up the house, going though school paperwork, listing to Mom,mom...mom,mom...then we notice the pasta we are cooking is boiling over everywhere.

Well for ages my resolution was to blow on the foam make it go down and turn the water down...well worry no more.

Just simply place a wooden spoon over your pot of boiling water and once again, be amazed. I actually tried this one out tonight and it was shocking. I purposely tried boiling my water over and it would not happen. Go ahead cook that pasta, clean the kitchen, get through all that backpack paperwork. Just make sure you don't forget about your noodles so they won't turn to mush. :)

I would love to hear what fun tips you might have that will save all of us our sanity in the simplest ways.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Who Lives In A Pineapple Under The Sea??

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!

This is the background party setting. I purchased this online at Oriental Trading. Yes, we made a mustache for Spongebob :)

Well the kiddies combined birthday party has come and gone. Everything turned out fantastic. We had a full house and tons of yummy food to eat. The weather turned out to be amazing. We had games set up for this kids, but they were having so much fun we never even played them.

I had stations set up around the house to ease congestion and have different areas for everyone to hang out.

In the dining room I set up a coloring table for the kids to enjoy. I went online and printed out free Spongebob coloring pages. I picked up a couple boxes of crayons from the dollar store and it was complete. I ended up putting the leftover stickers on the table as well for the kids to use.

I put together adorable “Chum Buckets” for guests to pick up for a sweet snack. We filled them with s'mores and cupcake goldfish (which everyone raved about.) I purchased clear punch cups from Meijer covered the cups with card stock and hot glued pipe cleaners on for handles. They still seemed kind of plain to me so I created a Chum Bucket label on Picnik. I cut ribbon and tied them around the handles to make them a little more festive. They were simply adorable!

We had an assortment of drinks such as lemonade, ice water and soda. Since this party was for a little girl and boy I decided to incorporate pink into the mix with the cups.

On the beverage table I also had krabby patty cookies set out on a serving tray.

To make the Krabby Patty Cookies you will need:

Vanilla Wafers ( I purchased mine at Dollar Tree)

They were fantastic and tasted great, no one knew any different.

Coconut dyed green for lettuce (also purchased at Dollar Tree)

Red Frosting

Yellow Frosting

Keebler Grasshopper cookies for patty.

Place a small dot of icing on the bottom of a vanilla wafer. This will act as your bottom hamburger bun.

Place a grasshopper cookie on the vanilla wafer. Place a small amount of red and yellow frosting.

Cover your “ketchup and mustard” with the coconut lettuce and top off with your “top bun” which is actually a second vanilla wafer.

These are so easy to make and they were gobbled up in no time. Everyone was very impressed and I was not had to do at all.

For an hor dourves that was simple, cheap and something everyone loves I came up with popcorn :) I made my classic stove top version. I put it in three yellow CLEAN sand buckets and placed them around. The shovels were used as a scoop.

For the main dish we set up a burger bar. We had options for everyone and each person got to create their own Krabby Patty. It was also a hit.

The kids requested Krabby Patty Birthday Cakes. I whipped them up the night before. I was on a tight budget and actually was running out of fondant! Oh well...I rolled that baby thin and patched where I needed too. The cake tasted great and they were so fun to look at.

We rented a helium tank from our local True Value. The cost was $38 including tax and we filled well over 100 balloons! I once again purchased the balloons at The Dollar Tree. This rental not only saved me money, it was a huge stress relief knowing I did not have to haul 100+ inflated balloons to my house in my car. That alone was worth the money.

I did have plastic lays for everyone to wear if they choose so. I purchased those at Party City. Each child went home with their own treasure box filled with goodies. I got sparkly tissue paper and put a piece bunched in the bottom for a filler. I had a variety of candies such as Nerds, Laffy Taffy, Smarties, Bottle Caps, Fizz Suckers and Tootsie Rolls in each box.

I passed these out after we opened gifts and this kids went crazy!

Everything was smooth and turned out great. My kids actually are talking about combing a party again next year and that sounds like success to me <3

Until next time. Party On!