Leftover round up!

Tonight is the dreaded night before the grocery store trip. You all know the night I'm talking about. The one where you look in the fridge aimlessly and yell across the house "Should we just order a pizza?" because you can't fathom making any sort of meal from what's left in the fridge. Somehow you pull it together and make a decent meal all while doing a happy dance inside your head knowing that tomorrow you get to be a pretend gourmet chef once again!

If you're like me, this night is also the night you look through your fridge and see if anything needs to be taken out to make room for all the delicious, mostly healthy food you plan on stocking up on tomorrow. Well, tonight I found myself staring at the last 4 carrots sitting in my crisper wondering what the heck I was going to do with them other than chop them up for snacks. I had already gotten creative and started experimenting with beans in desserts...yes, you read that right (stay tuned for that new original recipe once I perfect it) so my culinary wheels were turning. I decided to grab the mandolin and make some veggie chips!

We buy dehydrated vegetable chips from Publix frequently and I love the variety of veggies in their blend so I don't often find myself wanting to buy 6 types of vegetables, slice them up, and bake them for 4 hours. Who has the time for that?! But tonight, with only one veggie in the mix, it was a breeze. It seems like a no brainer to bake your veggies if you aren't going to use them in time, but even the smartest of us can find ourselves with a sub-prime vegetable wishing we had done something before it was too late. Well, go ahead. Take a look in your fridge and save that vegetable tonight. You can use carrots, sweet potatoes, zucchini, parsnips, any variety of squash really. And if you don't have a mandolin, just slice very thinly so they don't take too long to bake.

Here are my carrots:

Wash and peel the carrots

Cut the ends off

Use your mandolin on the thin setting or thinly slice. Note: If using another vegetable or even thicker carrots than the ones I used, I would recommend cutting the veggies diagonally. It makes larger chips and looks pretty. My carrots were just too thin for that :(

Here is my pile of soon to be chips...minus one or two that I ate

Behold the misto! I love that I can use whatever oil I like and I don't have to worry about any propellants in my spray because it's pump action! This one has olive oil in it.

Spray the pan and then lay your veggies in a single layer on a baking sheet. Spray again with your oil or drizzle and toss to evenly coat. It should be a very light coating of oil!

Sprinkle with whatever seasonings you like. I went with a simple salt and pepper and baked them at 375 for about 20 minutes. Give them a shake about halfway through just to prevent any burning.

The finished product! The carrots are quite small but they would be great as a salad topping to add some veggie crunch. I ate them like chips regardless and they were great!

These store really well in a bag or a container in the pantry and I'd be willing to bet you are more likely to eat these colorful and flavorful veggie chips than you are if they are sitting at the bottom of your crisper!

Happy eating!