Potato Peel Chips

Here's a quick recipe for using potato peelings instead of throwing them away.
Unless you compost....which I don't.  So my version of composting is to eat them...

All you need are:

clean potato peels

olive oil

seasonings of your choice

Here's a neat little trick to using potato peels.  All you have to do is to be sure to give them a good scrub to get off all the dirt.  Then peel as you normally would.  Sometimes, I'll peel them a bit thicker so I can have a more substantial "chip", but you don't have to.

Here's another little trick, if you're only using a potato or two, you can put the peels in a container, fill with water, and keep in the fridge until you peel more potatoes for baking into chips.  I wouldn't keep them in the fridge for longer than a week.   If you do, I guess you should change the water.

So here's a batch I made using half potato peels stored in the fridge in cold water and half from fresh peels I had from making beef stew.   After baking, I didn't notice a marked difference in the chips.  The only way I could tell the difference is that the ones stored in cold water in the fridge were slightly curled. 

I made sure to rinse the peels in cold water and dried on a paper towel.  You don't have to worry about them being completely dry, but you do want to shake off most of the water.  

In a shallow pan, I took my clean potato peels and tossed in some olive oil.  Just enough to coat all my peels and to help with getting the seasoning salt and pepper to stick. 

Then, using my hands, I just tossed everything around until every peel got a nice coat of oil and seasoning.

Then I threw the pan into a pre-heated oven at 450 degrees.  Bake for 15 minutes.  

To ensure even cooking, give them a toss around and bake for another 10 minutes or so.  Be careful to check them.  You don't want them to burn, which they do fairly easily since they are so thin.  

I like to dip them in my all purpose Green Hulk Sauce or sour cream or Green Sauce AND sour cream. The Indian likes to smother them in ketchup.   You can eat these as a snack or as a side to burgers.  This counts as recycling, right?

I also like to do a nacho version that looks like this:

Just take your potato peel chips and melt cheese on them.  Top with sour cream, chopped tomatoes and sliced jalapenos.  Mmmmmmm.