Baked Beet and Potato Chips

veggiechips-063-2I plant long, full rows of potatoes and beets every year. Some might think that is overkill, but I make my mom’s potato salad a lot during the Summer (I told you, it’s great to bring to BBQs) and I usually can my beets, so I like to have a lot.

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My beet standbys also include beet chili and a roasted beet and goat cheese salad. I’m still working on the beet chili recipe and am trying to adapt it for the crock-pot. It’s become a game to me to see how many homegrown or handmade items I can put in a meal, so I will blog about my roasted beet salad when I have beets and spinach from the garden and have made some goat cheese!

Since I am still working on my other beet recipes and wanted to make something different, I became set on making beet and potato chips. You know, like Terra Chips, but better and cheaper. Originally I thought I needed a deep-fryer and momentarily got obsessed with buying a deep fryer (I love appliances almost as much as I love books). I even started considering the possibility of growing my own meat birds for fried chicken. Which is funny, because I said I could never do that, but if it was in the name of homegrown fried chicken (I am food motivated) and it would justify the purchase of a deep fryer, than maybe I could do it. Is that wrong? I have never claimed to do things for the right reasons, so it may still come to that. It eventually dawned on me that I could just bake them, so Matt was temporarily saved from the addition of a new appliance (there was an ice cream maker on it’s way as well, but I will get to that in my next post).

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I borrowed a mandolin from Flower and sliced up some Chiogga Beets (the stripey ones), Early Wonder Tall Top Beets and Yukon Gold Potatoes. I then tossed them with olive oil, rosemary and garlic and baked them in batches.

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The exact recipe is below, but it is super simple. I have listed the times and tempuratures that I baked them at, but the times may vary. The chips will harden a bit after they cool, but if anything wasn’t crisp enough after that I threw it back in for short increments. I did burn a small batch because I put it back in for too long, so be careful of that.  I was also surprised by how much the beets shrunk up, so that was kind of a bummer, but they tasted delicious. They are sweeter and more sugary than the potatoes, so they add a nice taste. These are a really great, fresh, tasty, easy and healthy version of veggie chips as they are not deep fried and use way less oil. No promises that I won’t still someday get a deep-fryer though. You never know when I might need one, right?

Baked Beet and Potato Chips 

Ingredients: 

8-10 medium to large potatoes
8-10 beets (can be different varieties for color)
2 sprigs of rosemary, chopped fine
Lots of Garlic, minced fine (I peeled and chopped a whole medium-sized bulb)
Olive Oil to coat (probably about 3 tablespoons)
Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
Lightly coat a rimmed baking sheet with olive oil (I like the spray kind from Trader Joe’s).
Slice beets and potatoes thinly, a mandolin works best.
Toss sliced beets and potatoes with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper.
Arrange veggie slices in a single layer on the rimmed baking sheet.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, rotating halfway through. There is no need to flip the veggies, but do check for crispness and brownness and adjust time accordingly. You can also remove the done ones and cook the rest a bit longer. You could always add a bit more salt and pepper at this point as well. Cool and serve!

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