Not So Perfect Chips

I'll admit it. I love potatoes. Baked, boiled, fried, or distilled into vodka those starchy bundles are among the best things on earth and a constant source of eating pleasure.

Last night I decided I needed potato chips to accompany the fried shrimp we were having for dinner. I also thought that since the shrimp was fried it would be nice if the potato chips were baked. So I turned to Food Network.com for some help with time and temp. settings. Of course Ellie Krieger had a recipe for baked potato chips and all was well. Well, not quite. Being the genius that I am, I decided that the 1/8inch slices she called for wouldn't get really crispy, so I used my vegetable peeler to shave off lovely, uniform strips of potato. I then tossed them in lots of pepper, a little salt, and olive oil - but not as much as E.K. suggested because about half as much oil looked like the right amount. I know, I know ... foolish me. I spread them across a couple of baking sheets and into the oven they went. But with little success.

Apparently, if the chips are too thin and don't have enough oil, they stick - horribly. On top of that they don't really get crispy until they are DARK brown. I kept a close eye on my slices of heaven (After all, wasting a potato would be sacrilege!) and pulled them out about five minutes before time was up. The dark brown parts were yummy - light and crunchy. The rest was soggy. My husband came to the rescue and peeled all the potatoes off the aluminum foil and separated the soggy from the crunchy, at which point I fried the soggy pieces into crispy submission. Oh well, so much for healthy chips.

On a brighter note, I received a dehydrator for Christmas and played with it yesterday, too. The apple slices are wonderful. The slightly chewy, sweet apple flavor made them a fabulous after school snack. I had room for a couple of mangoes in the trays as well. They were good, too, but I had the slices a little small so they weren't as chewy. I'm trying again with a couple more mangoes this afternoon. I wonder how potato chips would work in the dehydrator. Hmm...