Fried Zucchini Chips

Crunchy, salty snacks can be hard to come by on a grain-free/paleo type diet.  Many people resort to eating nuts, which can come with its own set of issues.  Either allergies, or just plain overeating them.  Some salty snacks we like are chickpea poppers, kale chips, the occasional sweet potato chip, green bean chips, root chips, and now, zucchini chips. 

I don't have a suitable picture for posting because, well, they were butt ugly.  Little brown coins.  They hardly looked like zucchini.  But they were crunchy and salty to be sure!  They tasted pretty much like french fries! 

Are these an everyday treat? No.  They were fried in olive oil and quite a PITA to make, from the slicing to the frying, to the gross smoky greasy smell in my house.  But with some (homemade) ketchup, these were as close to french fries as I'll ever get!

Fried Zucchini Chips
4 large zucchinis
2 cups oil for frying
sea salt, to taste

Using a mandolin or your mandolin attachment thingy on your cuisinart, make chips of your zucchinis.  I arranged mine on paper towels and sprinkled with salt about an hour before frying to release some moisture.  Heat your oil in a heavy pot, like a dutch oven, and when it's nice and hot, add your zucchini in batches.  They will take a good 5 minutes to fry and brown up to a crispy consistency.  Do not add all your zuc at once because it will overcrowd the pan. 

You don't need any breading on these, unlike many other zuc chip recipes.  Just hot oil!  Once you remove them from the oil, let them drain on a paper-towel lined plate and sprinkle immediately with sea salt.

Enjoy!

Brussel Sprout Chips

This summer we have enjoyed our fair share of kale chips.  Kale chips with salt and pepper, kale chips with vinegar and parmesan, kale chips with nooch, kale chips with sesame seeds… lots of kale chips.

Kinda over the kale chips for the moment.  So on to the next big thing in faux chips!  Brussel Sprout chips are all the rage on the interwebs right now.  And luckily, even S likes these bad boys.

Buy yourself a big bag and start peeling those leaves off!  Cut off the ends and save the hearts for steaming later.

Once you peel off all the leaves, toss in a big bowl with 2 tbsp of EVOO and a hefty sprinkling of sea salt.  Bake at 350 until the leaves are starting to turn crisp and brown.  This will take different times depending on your oven so watch them closely!

I have yet to find a veggie that doesn't get better roasted.  These are darn good though, and make a yummy salty snack.

Enjoy!

Kale Chips Two Ways

I have been eating tons and tons of kale lately, and not even on purpose.  I was in AZ last week visiting the MIL and they have some really great restaurants in the Scottsdale/Phoenix/Sedona area.  Kale was a staple of my GFG Arizona diet, so upon coming home without even thinking I grabbed a bag of kale at TJ's.

One restaurant I had the opportunity to try was ChocolaTree in Sedona.  It's vegan/local/organic and very very crunchy.  As in, dirty hippies with vibrams and dreads talking about foraging for wild silk thistle or some such nonsense.  The meal was pretty good but what I really enjoyed were the cheezy kale chips I bought to snack on.  So I thought, how hard can that be?

Next time you have a big bag of Kale, try it two ways!

Sea Salt and Vinegar Kale Chips
1 bag of washed/shredded kale
3 T EVOO
2 T sea salt
3 T vinegar

Preheat your oven to 325.  Mix your kale, salt, oil, and vinegar together and coat evenly.  Bake for about 15 minutes CHECKING OFTEN because y'all, burnt kale tastes like butthole.  These have that great tangy flavor of those awesome vinegar potato chips I used to love, the Cape Cod ones.  Yummmmm.

Parmesan Kale Chips
1 bag kale
3 T EVOO
2 T sea salt
1/4 cup shredded parm

Pretty much the same directions- but make sure your cheese doesn't burn in the oven.

We had a blast in Arizona.  I was thrilled to go to Sedona.  It is a magical, beautiful, breath-taking place.  The town I wasn't crazy for, a bit too touristy for my liking, but you can absolutely not beat the scenery.  I'll post some pics soon after I've played around a bit more on instagram.

Have you been to Sedona?  What were your favorite sights?  Can't wait to go back and explore it again!

XoXoGFG