Fat-Free Chips... Hurray!

I have just discovered the most wonderful little kitchen gadget and I want to share it with you!

A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies who attends the same Weight Watchers meeting I occasionally do, on Fridays, announced that she had found a device that cooks vegetables in the microwave oven, turning them into crispy chips.  She has done potatoes, zukes, carrots, and yams.  Really?

Several of us who were there that morning ordered from her and a couple of days ago she delivered the goods. I paid her my 11 $CAD and could hardly wait for the meeting to be over with so I could go home and make lunch!

The Micro Chip Crisp'r comes in a nice, compact little package. 

One side...

and the other.

Upon opening it, I found some simple instructions, a shallow clear plastic bowl and slotted lid, a mandolin (slicer), and another plastic piece that allows you to push the last of your vegetable through the mandolin (and save your finger tips).

The bowl is about 6 inches across the top.

We decided to make potato chips to go with our lunch burgers, so I scrubbed and dried a russet potato and then The Captain got busy.

He cut the potato in half crosswise.  Then he set the mandolin on the shallow bowl and started slicing. 

The mandolin fits on top of the bowl, which will catch the potato slices.

The slotted cover holds 12 slices so he filled it up and placed it in the centre of the microwave oven.

Ready to pop into the mike.

The instruction sheet recommends 4 minutes on HIGH for a 1250 watt microwave oven.  We decided to be cautious and started with 4 mintes.  We could see that the potato slices were cooked, but had not changed in color, so we decided on 2 minutes more.

The slices started to puff up and turn brown so we took them out of the mike.

Puffy and golden, crispy chips!

The Captain removed them from the rack and placed them in a bowl, and then quickly sprinkled salt over the top and set about making another batch.  6 minutes later, they were cooked perfectly.

Mmmm...

The longer they cool, the crisper they get.  Lovely golden, puffed, CRISPY chips and not a hint of fat!

No problem with portion control here... there are only 24 slices per batch!



Today I decided to try zucchini chips.  For the first batch, I sliced the medium-sized zucchini straight across the grain... the slices fit nicely into the slots.

Perfectly round sllices.

But when they cooked, they were small enough that many of them fell through into the bowl...  they turned out really nice and crispy though!

Crunchy and golden.

The second batch we sliced slightly at an angle so they would be larger and therefore not fall through the slots... but not a great idea as the zukes are such a wet veggie to begin with that the larger slices took about 8 minutes to cook.  They were all right, but not as good as the smaller ones.

This item is in the Regal catalog and available online.  I highly recommend it.

And for my American friends, I found this on 2 web sites... bedbathandbeyond.com and also simplygoodstuff.com  and for even less $$ than in Canada.