Visit to the Farmers Market & Kale Chips!

We took a trip to the City Center Farmers Market today. Before we even got home we ate an entire container of HUGE raspberries in addition to a bag of blueberries. I always have a hard time purchasing raspberries because I know in a few weeks my Grandmas garden will be absolutely overflowing with sweet red berries that she gives away to anyone willing to pick them (in bucketfuls). These raspberries, however, were freakishly huge, bright red and perhaps perfect. I managed to take a picture with my phone of one of them before the whole container was gone:

 Here's the rest of our market purchases:

A bag of radishes.. these must be in season right now as they were at all the veggie booths we passed. I'm not a fan of the super tangy radishes but these were very mild. Yum

One long sweet red pepper. It was a toss up between this one and a purple pepper, which I've never tried. This one won the competition due to aroma. 

A little container of mixed tomatoes. There was one super funky one in the package:

Flavor-wise, it was not that funky. Pretty much your average tomato but perhaps a little more firm than the others. In case you're curious, here's what the inside looked like:

In addition to what's pictured, and the eaten berries, we also got some mini cucumbers. We had plans of a major salad for dinner.

From our very own garden we picked lettuce, spinach, kale & some tiny beets with the greens:

Chef Jason was set up at the vegetable chopping station:

While he was busy chopping I steamed the beets, made salad dressing and began my experiment for the night. I've read so much about kale chips and how easy & additive they are. For quite some time now I've been wanting to try them. I didn't exactly follow a recipe but here's what you need to make them how I did:

kale leaves, washed and ripped into bite size pieces
olive oil
kosher salt
parmasean cheese

So what I did was toss my kale leaves in a bit of olive oil, kosher salt and some parmesan cheese. I spread them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and cooked them for ABOUT 12 minutes at 375F... just until they were crispy when I moved them around the pan. Here they are:

And the ever so colorful salad once it was finished:

MY REVIEW: The kale chips were bizzare but good. They kind of turned to dust in your mouth but had an interesting flavor and texture that I would make again. Definitely a good snacking substitute for chips! Very easy to make. I loved the salad and was once again reminded that veggies from your own garden taste so much better than any other veggie.

JASON'S REVIEW: The kale chips were melt in my mouth magic. The salad was an epic win for vegetables everywhere.