"chip" news and stories

Potato chips are, as a general rule, fried, greasy and unfortunately addictive, as illustrated by the longtime Lay's slogan "bet you can't eat just one. All these traits make them the bane of many health food activists' existences, but those same activists might go a little easier on the popular snack food if they knew you can easily make a non-fried, fat free version that is just as crispy as the "real" thing at home All you need is a microwave.

This Japanese potato chip maker allows you to make chips in the microwave. All you need to do is slice up a potato into fine rounds and place in the stand, then microwave until crisp.

It sounds implausible, but microwaving chips really does work. I've done it myself with great success thanks to the recipe for Uncle Bill's Microwave Potato Chips, which doesn't require a potato chip stand to work. The chips actually do crisp up well, especially if you take care to slice them thinly and evenly. In the photo above, the chips that I made are on the left, while the chips made with the chip-maker (not made by me) are on the right. I cut my potatoes freehand with a sharp knife, but using a mandoline will produce results even faster and guarantee consistency. Make sure to season your chips with salt and pepper or seasoning salt before microwaving them, as it is difficult to get the salt to adhere to already crisp chips.

Yogurt is a great base for dips because it is so versatile, like a blank canvas. You can add it to avocados for an ultra-creamy guacamole, use it tone down hot salsas and use it on its own, as I have done here, to showcase other flavors.

Like many yogurt dips, this one is incredibly easy to make. It has only a few ingredients and requires little more than a stir to bring it together, yet it as at least as satisfying as those "ranch-style" dips that often turn up at parties. It goes well with potato chips, pita chips, crackers and veggies.

Super Bowl Sunday is just over a week away. Almost everyone tunes in to the main event, whether they're watching the actual football game or just the commercials, making it the most-watched few hours of television all year. The Super Bowl is also one of the biggest snacking days of the year, and while pizza, hot wings and chili all popular choices, nothing flies off the supermarket shelves faster than chips, salsas and dips. You're probably better off using those store bought chips if you're going to be entertaining a crowd, but homemade dips can be even tastier and not much more difficult to make than store-bought. Here are eight great ideas for your Super Bowl munchies from around the blogs, but we'll be counting down a Dip a Day until the big game here, too:

• The Quick and Easy Artichoke dip from Simply recipes has four ingredients, is served hot and is ready in under 15 minutes.
• Mango Salsa has a fresh, Southwestern flavor from mango, corn, red onions and chilies.
• Similar to the salsa above, this Black Bean Salsa has corn, onions and peppers mixed in with black beans, for a heartier dip.
• Roasted Strawberry and Tomato Salsa is another fruity, but savory, dip. It features deep flavors from the roasted berries and heat from chipotle peppers.
• Susan's Artichoke Hearts and Roasted Red Pepper Dip is almost like a variation on hummus, made with tahini and blended until smooth, though it includes no beans.
• Spinach Parmesan Dip is always a hit at parties. Serve it with crackers or blue corn tortilla chips.
• French Onion Dip (pictured) is made from packet mixes all too often. Even though it's easy to use the pre-mixed spices, those versions won't compare with this homemade one.
• Too Many Chefs' Spicy Peanut Sauce is a great choice for dipping crudites, providing something a little different from standard ranch-type dips. It can also double as a dip for chicken wings.

The snack company Lesser Evil is known well for their, well less evil, but still tasty Kettle Korn, which comes in a variety of flavors. The Kettle Corn, although it has the sweet/salty addictiveness that kettle corn lovers expect (especially the flavor), is essentially a sweet treat and is not going to really cure the craving for salty snacks. This, combined with the lack of availability of a decent but lower fat potato chip, is what prompted the company to develop Krinkle Sticks.

Krinkle Sticks are krinkle-cut potato snacks made from real potatoes. Light and crisp, the sticks are baked, not fried, and have at least 75% less fat than the regular potato chips with only 2.5 grams of fat per cup. They are free from saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, gluten and preservatives, as well. The Krinkle Sticks come in four flavors: Classic Sea Salt (salt with a touch of pepper and garlic), Sour Cream and Onion (just what it sounds like!), Old School Bar-b-Que (garlic, paprika, tomato, onion, mesquite and red pepper) and Cajun Kaboom (lots of black, white and red peppers).

The brand-new products aren't available in many stores yet, but you can order them online from the company.

Source

When Kettle Chips decides to introduce a new flavor, they often create a "party pack" of unreleased flavors and let you - the consumer - vote for your favorite. The downside to this is that if your favorite flavor isn't the one that is chosen, you know exactly what you're missing out on, but it's still interesting to try the experimental flavors. The Passport to Flavor Pack is their newest selection. It includes five 5-oz. bags of chips in Royal Indian Curry, Dragon 5 Spice, Aztec Chocolate, Island Jerk and Twisted Chili Lime flavors, as well as a world music sample CD ("A Taste of Putumayo: Music for Every Palate"), food and drink pairing ideas and a chip clip so that you can seal up any uneaten chips. The pack is $19.95 and after you've tried the different flavors, you can go to Passport To Flavor to vote for the one you'd most like to see on store shelves next summer.

Source