Conventional Chip Alternatives

Are you thinking of having a few friends over? Or perhaps you’re throwing a birthday party? Well it’s always important to serve foods that inspire, but that are also healthy and very easy to make.  For those of you that haven’t seen my BIGOVEN posts yesterday on Sweet Potato Thick Chips and Kale Chips, I wanted to make sure that you too had them for your friends and family.  Kids totally love these by the way. 🙂

So for starters, remember our post on March 29, 2010 on Plantain Chips: you can throw them into today’s line up; they are a bit more work than these two, but are worth it.

For the sake of today’s post I am only going to share straight recipes.  You can already check out some food wisdom on sweet potatoes on the March 14th post.  And we’ll save the nutritional benefits for Kale for another day.

Sweet Potato Thick Chips

Ingredients 4 small Sweet Potato sliced 2 sprays Olive oil 2 pinch Sea salt to taste

Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 375 °F.

Wash and dry sweet potatoes, chop of the very ends on both sides. Cut each potato into ¼ inch slices and place on a non-stick cookie sheet. Spray with olive oil and salt very lightly. If you’d like to add some pepper or cayenne feel free to so so. After about 10 minutes check to see if the bottom is beginning to get a little golden brown, if so flip with a spatula or tongs, spray with olive oil and bake for another 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve immediately as a side dish, or as an appetizer with a healthy sauce or dip. We enjoyed it with some of Henry’s spicy Chimichurri.

Total crowd pleaser!

*****************

Kale Chips

We like ours very simple so not to distract from the kale. You could also rub them lightly with melted butter for a slightly different taste (cayenne is always optional too). Play around with these, just be careful not to burn them. These have been a favorite in our house for some time. The best part is that you can prepare everything in advance and then just shove them in the oven so that they’re perfect for when your guests arrive.

Ingredients 1 small Kale bunch washed 1 spray Olive oil 1 pinch Sea salt

Instructions
Tear the leaves off the stems in chip sizes. Wash well and dry with paper towel. Be certain to dry the leaves completely, otherwise your chips will be wilted and not crispy.

Place them on a cookie sheet spray with olive oil, we use a refillable Misto sprayer. Sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt and bake for 15 minutes on 350 °F. It’s as simple as that.  Check to see if they’re crispy and light, if so plate and serve. Yummmm!