Make Veggie Chips and Feel Self-Satisfied

Some delicious veggie chips.

I hate buying things I can make cheaply and veggie chips are one of those things. The seven dollar bags of chips make me want to live in a shotgun shack off the grid, screaming that I will not participate in your system you capitalist pig-dogs.  Making things myself gives me a sense of self-satisfaction that I did not give in and purchase something I can easily make. So this is how I finished my vacation week by  cooking some snack foods for New Year’s Eve. I used some leftover beets, kale, carrots, and sweet potatoes from my fall garden.

Since I had never attempted this before I learned several things:

• Keep the oven at a low temperature 250 to prevent burning and make sure the veggies crisp properly. All other temperatures are wrong and will lead to burnt edges.
• Salt after the chips are baked and not before.
• Slice the veggies 1/8 of an inch.
• Make sure the slices are even all the way to the edges.
• Use a silicon mat or parchment paper to line the baking sheet, especially if you are using a dark pan.
• Put the kale in a separate bowl because it is too fragile to be combined with the other veggies.
• The root vegetables shrink a lot during cooking.
• Remove cooked chips as they finish and allow the remaining chips to finish crisping.
• Different specimens of the same types of veggies can vary in their moisture content and may take more time to cook.
• Since they are baking the vegetables glycemic index will rise because sugars become more concentrated.

I used this recipe as a starting point, but made some substantial changes.

Ingredients:

2 medium beets

2 large carrots – they should be broad carrots so that the peeled strips don’t shrink to puny shards.

1 bunch of kale

2 medium sweet potatoes

lots of olive oil

kosher salt

garlic powder

cayenne pepper

pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 250
2. Using a mandolin, or a knife if you are much more talented than I, slice the beets and the sweet potatoes to 1/8 of an inch slices.
3. Remove the kale from the stem and rip into bite sized pieces.
4. Using a peeler, peel the carrots into strips only on one side so that the slices become broader with each stroke. Cut the slices in half.
5. Place the different vegetables into different bowls and then drizzle with at least 2 tbs of olive oil.  Different veggies absorb the oil at different rates.
6. Mix the oil with your hands until the veggies are coated and glistening. There should not be a puddle of oil left on the bottom of the bowl.
7. Place either silicon mats of parchment paper on four different baking sheets.
8. Place the veggies on their own baking sheet.  With the size vegetables I had, I needed to do this in batches with two different batches for each vegetable. This will vary based on the size and shape of the individual vegetables.
9. Bake the veggies for the following times: sweet potato for 20-25 minutes, kale for 15-20 minutes, carrots for 15 – 20 minutes, and beets for 35 – 40 minutes. Turn the sweet potatoes, carrots, and beets once during the baking.
10. Remove with spatula or tongs if you are removing single chips. Take the baking mats and slide right into the waiting bowl if you are removing a whole batch. When all the chips are done add the salt, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper to taste – I did this by making one pass over the bowl with each spice. Place the kale in a separate bowl because they are much more delicate than the rest.
11. Eat. You should feel self-satisfied because you did not purchase these easy-to-make chips in the store.
12. Store in sealed bag – I’m not sure how long because the chips have never lasted more than a day in my house.

Of course, these directions are specific to my electric (sigh) oven, in which I have a tested thermometer to make sure the temperature is stable.  If you are using a convection oven or an oven in which the temperature varies, I would check on the chips often.