A most excellent veggie dinner

Tonight, I had one of my favourite vegetarian dinners. It isn't vegan, as egg plays a major part, but it's light, relatively cheap and extremely nutritious.

I had: a soft boiled (free range) egg, asparagus and kale chips (excuse the rubbish picture -- I was extremely hungry, so the fact that I managed to snap this at all shows, in my opinion, a serious act of willpower).

The soft-boiled egg was a large egg and fresh today. I boiled it for about 4 and a half minutes. It probably could have taken another 15 seconds - the white was just a bit watery near the yolk. The asparagus was on the old side - I got it cheap as it was pretty clearly on its last legs, so it had quite a pungent flavour - not as sweet or delicate as the English asparagus coming in at the moment. Had I been feeling a) meaty and b) profligate, I might have bought myself some thin streaky bacon or even pancetta, and frizzled up three strips to have on the side. Instead, I ground some sea salt and black pepper onto the yolk. SO GOOD!

The kale chips were on the side to add a much-needed crunchy dimension - I wouldn't have needed them if I'd had the bacon. As usual, I rubbed torn up, de-ribbed kale pieces with olive oil, sprinkled on some coarse sea salt and baked in a 175^oC oven for about 10 minutes until the kale was shiny and crisp, with the edges just turning brown.

Hints for making kale chips:
- Wash your kale first, but dry it really, really well. Use a salad spinner if you have one, and pat with a clean teatowl. The less extra water there is, the faster your kale will crisp and the less risk there'll be of overdoing it and burning it.
- Cut the ribs out, or tear them out like I do. They don't go crisp, instead going stringy, floppy and gross. If you don't want to waste them, suspect they'd either work well cut into small chunks and used early in a stir fry. Alternatively, use in soup.
- If you suspect your oven might run hot, turn it down and cook it for longer. What you're really doing here is dehydrating the kale.
- If you've a sweet tooth or particularly enjoy crispy seaweed with a Chinese takeaway, add a little fine brown sugar when you add the salt. Yum.

Next up: Catch-your-breath fruit salad -- my new favourite!