Potato Chips

Have you seen or heard of Pampered Chef's chip makers?  They look like this:

and are meant to make fat free chips in the microwave. 

Being a Pampered Chef fan, I knew about their existence since about the time Monica was first diagnosed.  But for some reason, I was wary of them.  My mother in law kindly made some potato chips in the microwave for Monica, on a paper towel to absorb moisture, and they turned out great!  But they used far too many paper towels for me to love them.

Our local thrift store even had a box of the Pampered Chef chip makers, and I still resisted buying them!  I think they sat on the store shelf for years.  And every time I went in, I chose NOT to buy them.

Until last month.  I finally spent the $2 to get them and feel silly I waited so long.

I think the best part about them is that it's a healthy (enough) snack that Monica can make entirely on her own.  We turned two large potatoes into chips last night to go with a rather celebratory Peruvian inspired dinner (to celebrate St Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo from a favorite meal planning book, Feast!) and Monica did almost all the work!  Since I got the mandolin out, anyway, I cut up most of the potato (with fancy gloves that limit how much I can cut myself on the sharp blade that Luke sweetly insists I wear!), but we also tried just peeling layers with a vegetable peeler that Monica can easily use, and that worked just great.  A sprinkling of salt, a rather ridiculously long time in the microwave (5 minutes), and a fat-free snack is created!

Now we need to try apple chips and sweet potato chips.  Maybe I waited so long to buy it because that way Monica could learn to make these on her own right away!  Or maybe I'm just weird.  Or never eat potato chips myself so I thought this was silly.  But I'm so glad we bought it finally!

The magic maker herself!