Tonight I made potato chips. Lots and lots of them. Like, the whole bag of potatoes.

Here’s a tip. A whole bag of potatoes makes way more chips than you can eat in a couple of days. If you do this yourself, you may want to bring it down a notch. But, that’s what this cooking real food is all about. Learning.

To make any kind of veggie chip, it’s really the same basic recipe. Here’s how I do it….

Prepare your chips. For potatoes, beets, sweet potatoes, etc., a mandolin that slices them thinly is really helpful. A slicing blade of a food processor would probably work too. You want them thin. For kale and other greens, break the leaves into chip-size pieces.

Preheat the oven to 350°.

I put all my chips in a mixing bowl and add some oil—only enough to thinly coat the veggies, otherwise they will be too soggy. I distribute the oil with my (clean) hands. Let me reiterate. You really don’t want a lot of oil. Only enough so that the veggies won’t stick to the pan and the salt (and other spices) will stick to them.

Then I put lay the veggies in a single row in a pan. And sprinkle them with the desired spices.

Put the pans in the oven and watch them. It’s kind-of an art getting them just right. They will be brown if you want them to be crisp. It can help to flip them partway through.

Pull them out when they are ready, remove them from the pan, and put them on a plate to cool. If you want to just leave them in the pan to cool, use parchment paper when you bake them so they won’t stick.

There you go. Real veggie chips. Have fun with them and play around with spices for funky flavors. These chips above are salt and pepper chips, and the pepper adds a little bite!

Recipe:

• chipped veggies (sliced or broken into pieces, depending on the veggie)
• oil to coat (not too much!)
• salt and any other desired spices
• 350 degree oven
• 10-15 minutes, or until sufficiently crisp