Weekend Post: Kale Chips + Gardens

 I've finally got a great crop of kale growing in the garden - from little wee seeds all the way up to big bushy plants. I decided to try making kale chips from some of the leaves. They turned out pretty delicious so I thought I'd share what I did to make them.

Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius on bake.  

Remove stalks from the kale and place on a baking tray. 

Drizzle with olive oil and some garlic salt. Try and keep the leaves as elevated as possible to they can go crispy. 

Bake for 8 - 12 minutes or until they go crunchy and delicious. 

I also fake tanned with Loving Tan - my legs below turned out pretty well (I haven't washed off the colour guide layer yet) - please ignore the feet. My hands turned out hilariously, I thought I'd done pretty well getting between my fingers but by the time the tan had developed overnight I had ombre little brown paws haha.

Finally this afternoon mum and I went to the local garden centre - I'd wanted to get some more plants to replace the ones that got munched up by accident (I was very sad, they were the only seeds aside from my kale that were still living...). So as I drove in my car, mum paid me back for the gas with plants instead - I was more than happy with that!

I bought a little aloe vera - I'm jumping on the blogging bandwagon with cacti. This little guy in the middle will only get about twice the size he is now so will be perfect for my office. I also chose out a few marigolds as they're very pretty flowers to have in the garden as well as attracting insects away from your veggies. If you have snails and butterflies eating your plants, put some marigolds in, the bugs will eat the marigold leaves instead and the flowers add some real colour to the area - let alone the fact that the bees love them!

Above on the left is a little cactus I plucked from our garden, we have so many of them around at the moment and they sort of just fall out their roots are so small. So, I picked a cute little one with a bit of a root on it and shifted it into its new home. On the right is my aloe which will be coming to work with me tomorrow and the radishes are what I picked from the garden this afternoon - dipped in a little salt and they're delicious.

Lilah is my little "helper" and by this I mean he stares at me while I de-pot and re-plant things. Occasionally he'll follow me around if he's feeling espeicially energetic.

My marigolds planted and some lovely bunches of wild flowers - they were all going a bit mad so I just kept them as they were. This is the pollinator mix, made especially for bees. I love bees and having them in the garden is lovely so hopefully these will grow into some beautiful flowers that help draw more bees to the veggie patch and give the bees something to eat!

For a weekend that seemed like it was going to be pretty quiet it turned out quite nicely - now all I have left to do is bring in my laundry to make my bed and do the vacuuming (sigh).

Claire x