Cat Approved Kale Chips and Celeriac Noodles

Everyone in our family loves Kale - even the cat it seems. Guess he's trying to make a statement that I'm not giving him enough greens, because I turned my back for all of 30 seconds and came back to find him chowing down happily on the kale. 

This is no aberration for him - I used to buy these nice containers of sprouts fairly frequently. Sadly, I have yet to taste even one sprout from the lot- I would leave the plants sitting on the counter and within an hour all sprouts were residing in his happy belly.

 I could not let that happen to my kale (at least not all of it) as it was destined for these awesome looking kale chips from Hallie's fabulous Daily Bites Blog.

I fully intended to make them exactly as written, but to my horror discovered that my tahini jar was covered in mould! Has this ever happened to you? It was a first for me and the jar is only a couple months old - bizarre! At the last minute, I ended up subbing sunflower seed butter for the tahini.

They were delicious anyway and I will definitely make them again (perhaps when I actually have tahini). Next time, however, I will reduce the salt a little and add a pinch of chili powder or cayenne. We used 3/4 tsp but it was a little salty for our tastes (this is 100% preference here as we aren't really used to very salty things). Next time I will try 1/2 a tsp instead. 

I love, love, love Hallie's recipes! Every one is sure to be a hit :-)

For dinner, I was inspired by Sarah's My New Roots blog and her recipe for Celeriac Pasta With Puttanesca Sauce. I have seen posts for zucchini noodles, butternut squash noodles and more, but never celeriac noodles before. How could I not try it (especially with pictures as pretty as Sarah's to entice me)?

I made the recipe pretty much exactly as written, adding in an extra tsp of crushed chili flakes as I was craving some heat. The recipe is simple, but oh so good :) Celeriac noodles are pretty awesome and I will most certainly be trying them again, although next time with a mandoline. This time I used my julienne peeler, which was a huge pain (very time consuming and I also managed to peel my fingers).

I was surprised that even my gluten eating family were a fan of the celeriac noodles, noting that they liked the texture and taste. These are definitely something I'd like to experiment with more :-).

Yum! Pasta without the heaviness - what could be better?