I've talked about a few of my Paleo culinary successes (the Pad Thai I love, the easy "orange whatever is on hand" stir fry I eat for lunch almost every day, the banana pancakes that delight me but horrify my family). But haven't mentioned as many of my dismal—what do the kids call them these days?—fails.
Just last week, I fell under the spell of a "chicken enchiladas" recipe. Of course, with no tortillas and no cheese, I should have realized it's nothing but chicken with sauce on it. But still, I spent 45 minutes chopping and simmering various things and then put it all in the blender to make it smooth. It looked like enchilada sauce, but when I poured it over chicken, it did not make enchiladas. It was chicken with some sauce on it. Weird-tasting sauce.
Then, the other day, armed with a few different almond flour bread recipes but no actual almond flour (that stuff is more precious than palladium, apparently), I tried to invent my own apple cinnamon bread. It was fun to make. I used blenderized walnuts, cashews, and flax, a couple of eggs, coconut oil, salt, baking soda, apple cider vinegar, and lots of apples and cinnamon. I was shocked that it came out of the oven looking like bread (it had even risen) and that I was able to slice it without it falling apart. Then I was shocked again when I put it in my mouth and it was a salty, greasy, disgusting mess. Albeit with tasty little apple chunks.
And just today I decided that no Paleo diet experiment would be complete without trying these kale chips I keep hearing so much about. They sounded weird to me, but every person I've ever heard mention them just raves: So much better than potato chips! Once I have one, I just can't stop! But it doesn't matter, because it's only kale! And a drizzle of olive oil and sea salt and perhaps a squeeze of lemon! In other words, they're a culinary litmus test as to whether or not you're cool.
So I made them. They're light, crispy…and taste like seaweed. Sort of like you'd expect them to taste, actually.
It was disappointing. I can handle the "learning experience" kind of fails. But being so vigorously off-trend, that burns a little.
I have not been swept into the kale chips trend yet, but kale is for sure one of my number 1 favorite foods ever. I never ever get enough. Does that make me cool? That would be so exciting.
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