The verdict on Sweet Potato chips

I came home from work and my sweet potato chips were done.  I did a taste test.  I decided the chips without oil are fabulous.  I just sprinkled a little salt on them and they taste great.  The ones with oil taste okay, but they are not better than the oil-free version, and I'm getting plenty of fats from nuts and avocados at the moment, so I'm happy to keep my chips healthy and oil free.

Here's a picture of the non-oiled version.  I used "yams" this time and they tasted much better than the white "sweet potatoes" that I used last time.  I will definitely make these again!

I was up late last night because my adrenaline was so high after a little scare with my dogs when they tipped over the treat jar and not only ate half a bag of treats but also bit into the "Do not Eat" oxygen absorber that was packed in with their treats.  I ended up calling animal poison control.  Long story, but they are fine, however I don't want to stay up so late tonight to soak the cashews for the cheesy onions, so I'll do those tomorrow.  The onions are sliced, so I don't want to wait too long to make them, but I think they'll keep just fine until tomorrow.

Tonight I made a marinara sauce for dinner to top some zucchini noodles that I already had prepared.  That was delicious, but I'm very interested in trying Kelp noodles.

I've seen reviews of Kelp noodles on Amazon where the reviewer said that the price charged online was outrageous given the Korean grocery store in NYC (H-Mart) has them for about $3.  Well, there is an H-Mart across from my office, so I headed over there to look for Kelp noodles.  Navigating any section other than the produce section is a bit tricky for me since I don't read Korean!  But I was able to find a bag of Kelp noodles and two bags of "Sea Tangle" noodles.  (the type of seaweed, not the brand).   I wasn't sure if sea tangle is the same as kelp - I suspect it might be.  But since I was not sure I decided to get the 1 kg bag of Kelp Noodles.

Now I need a nice recipe idea!!  I really like the pesto and marinara on zucchini noodles, so not sure if I want to change that up.  But I'm thinking maybe a pad-thai sauce might be nice for Kelp noodles.  But I'm really open to suggestions. I'm going to want some variety if I'm going to eat a whole 1 kg bag on my own.  I hope I even like these!  but if not, it was really just over $3, so no big loss either way.  I hope I like them though!  I will let you know.

Please feel free to post sauce ideas for me in the comments!

Still amazed at the power of raw foods

Today at work, my colleague mentioned that Christie Brinkley looks amazing for 57.  They wondered what she ate to look so fabulous.  I said, I'll bet she's raw, or at least vegetarian.   I did a little Googling, and sure enough, she is vegetarian:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Supermodel-Legends_1/2

So interesting that I was having that conversation today at lunch time and when I came home and logged into facebook, I saw this video posted by Uncooking101.com.  I don't really remember Sunny Griffin's name, but her face certainly is familar to me.  According to the video, Sunny was the "original" super model and guess what?  She's 70!!!

This is actually the second of a two part video but this one goes into a lot of detail about how Sunny's vegan/raw diet has helped her continue to look and feel so young at 70.   If you have a few minutes, I encourage you to take a minute to watch it.  It's inspiring.  I am bookmarking this video and if I ever have any doubts that I'm on the right path staying raw, I'm going to watch this video. 

I haven't needed to prepare a lot of food the last couple of days - just my green smoothies that I have for breakfast.  I've been having raw tacos for lunch and cucumber salad with Kale & Avocado salad for dinner.  I get the Kale and Avocado salad from whole foods - it's delicious!

All that said, I'm having tacos for lunch again tomorrow but will need to think of something for dinner - it might just be another green smoothie.  But tonight I took out the mandoline and sliced some onions and sweet potatoes.  The mandoline is sort of a pain to clean, so I cut them both although I'm only dehydrating the sweet potatoes tonight.  I think the sweet potatoes will fill up the dehydrator anyway.   Tomorrow, I'll make the cheese sauce to make cheesy onions. I cut up three medium size Vidalia onions because the large ones don't fit in the mandoline.  My sister and coworker really like these so I'll share some of my goodies with them once they are done 

The sweet potatoes are a little tricky.  I've cut them and have them soaking right now to remove the starch, but I'm confused about whether I should coat them in oil or not.  Alissa Cohen's book "Raw Food for Everyone" does not mention oil (although it mentions vanilla beans which I do not have).    I like the idea of leaving out the oil if I can because I'd rather cut out the extra fat.  But I want to make sure they turn out nice and crispy and almost all the other videos and recipes I've seen include coating the chips in olive oil.  so, I think I will do most of them with salt and pepper and no oil as Alissa has in her recipe (minus the vanilla beans), and then I'll try to put a little oil on some of them and dehydrate them as well so I can decided how I like them best.

I'll let you know how they turn out!

Day 7 - Sweet Potato Chips

Sweet Potato chips are done!!!  I think they turned out pretty nice.

I didn't really follow a recipe.   I just took one large sweet potato and sliced it on the thinnest slicing on my mandoline.  The setting on mine is 1.5 mm, which is actually perfect for chips. 

The step that I missed, that I will make sure I do next time is rinse the "chips" under some water to remove the starch.  I didn't do that step, but just read that I should have.  I think they'd be even better if I did, but they still seem pretty good.

Next, (after the rinsing step I missed), I massaged in some Olive Oil, making sure each chip had at least a little oil on each side.  Then I put in the dehydrator for about 22 hours or so until they are really crispy.   My understanding is you cannot over dehydrate sweet potato chips.   I plan to save some to bring to work on Monday, so I might put them back in the dehydrator for a couple minutes when I wake up to make sure they are staying crispy.

No big dehyrator plans for this evening.  I think I might give my dehydrator a night off.  It's been serving me well ever since I opened the box.   The next thing I'll be making is corn chips and perhaps some bread and eggplant bacon.  Ever since I saw the recipes for Eggplant bacon I'm wanting a nice fresh BLT.  :-)

I guess I need to find a recipe for raw mayonaisse as well ...