Early Retirement Extreme Forums

One major expense that shows up in our shopping is salty crunchy snacks, mostly in the form of potato chips and corn chips. Carrot/celery sticks take care of the crunchy, but don't do much for the salty side of life.

Since I've got lots of potatoes, I've considered making my own chips, but the time & mess factor have kept me from attempting it. Plus the storage factor as commercial chips are very stable until you open the bag which home chips would not be. Making home fries works, but, again, is messy. Best compromise so far for small batches with less mess are seasoned potato wedges with leftovers tossed into the fridge for a few days.

I've eaten other people's kale chips and enjoyed them. Surplus kale is growing in the garden, so will likely try it out. Major dislike of the process is the high energy input of running the oven for the low volume of kale chips produced. Any tips to help that?

Nuts are enjoyable, but expensive to purchase. In the future, our young filbert trees will produce the raw material and I already have experience with preparing filberts (hazelnuts), so nuts will be covered, but not for a few years. I'm considering adding hardy almonds to the tree mix, too.

Found a recipe online for making "goldfish" crackers. Still need to try it.

Anyone have other ideas or experiences?

Pumpkin or sunflower seeds are my go-tos on that. I eat a lot of nuts, though, too and we buy in bulk whenever possible.

For chips --

If you have a way to slice potatoes really thin (e.g. the thinnest setting on a mandolin -- like 1/16"), you can make them in the microwave with very little mess. Just put the slices in a single layer on a plate in the microwave. Give a quick spray of cooking oil, and a pinch of salt, and let it go until they start to turn a little light brown. It usually only takes a minute or so in the microwave until they get crispy... If the slices are too thick, it won't work. I'm not skilled enough to slice them consistently thin enough with a knife, but I do have a mandolin.

I like potato chips, a lot. Can't eat just one. I don't like the expense or consuming an unhealthy food.

Popcorn popped in an air popper with a little salt and butter added is my cheap, healthy replacement.

I always forget about popcorn. Weird.

Dragline wrote:Pumpkin or sunflower seeds are my go-tos on that. I eat a lot of nuts, though, too and we buy in bulk whenever possible.

Make sure you're freezing those bulk bags when you get them. We got an infestation of meal moths from a bulk bag of nuts 2 years ago. It took 6 months to get rid of them.

If tortilla chips are acceptable, commercial tortillas are easier to process and fry than whole potatoes.

I got meal moths from a bag of bird seed a while back. Not fun.

I love toasted chickpeas. Easy to make at home.

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-cr ... chn-219753

I've made homemade hard pretzels before, too. I only made them once, and I think I needed to work on my recipe, but if you like to experiment.... There are a few recipes around. Mine turned out more like breadsticks... but that's not so bad, either.

I like roasted peas. You can buy them in cans in oriental markets either with or without Wasabi seasoning. Not sure, but I'd assume a home made version is doable.

As said in above posts, popcorn is cheap, especially when air popped.

+1 to popcorn (from whole kernels) and pumpkin seeds.

Back when we carved Halloween pumpkins, I'd always roast all the seeds. You can roast squash seeds too.

My local Korean market has salted seaweed and kimchi which I like, but are not for everyone.

For a while I was making jerky out of cheap London broil roasts. Which is only moderately cheap.

Alternatively, instead of snacks, you can get your salt fix from stuff like bologna, bacon, and chili.

When I was pregnant with my oldest, I had terrible cravings for red can Pringles in the first trimester. It was literally the only thing I wanted to eat. My OB told me my body was saying that it needed salt, which meant I was dehydrated. He put me on a water regimen and told me to salt some iceberg lettuce and eat that instead of Pringles to get the salt + crunch I wanted without all the unhealthy crap. And that worked! I was back to wanting other food in a week.

I still occasionally salt iceberg lettuce and eat it when I'm craving chips. It has pretty much no calories, so I can eat it until I'm sick of it... win. And I still make sure to drink extra water while I'm doing it, because that's what my body is actually saying whenever I'm craving salty chips.

KevinW wrote:
My local Korean market has salted seaweed and kimchi which I like, but are not for everyone.

+1. Avoid the fried version. Seaweed is the ideal way to satisfy a salty craving because that craving can be caused by a variety of things, not just salt. Seaweed has high amounts of iodine, potassium, selenium, iron, and magnesium as well as a non-animal source of b12. There is also some interesting speculation that the prebiotics of seaweed polysaccharide is a contributing factor in the typical lean body mass exhibited by those cultures who traditionally consume it.

Experimentally fried some potato wedges in olive oil tonight, only about 3 smaller potatoes, on medium low heat because olive oil smokes at higher temps. Wanted the fruitiness of the olive oil so a little salt, pepper, & season-all would be a good match. Wedges are probably not the best way to cut them as the corners cook faster, sometimes sticking in the pan; rounds would be easier to cook, provided you don't try more than one level. Wife pronounced them good and complained that I didn't make enough (earlier she said she didn't want to eat any when I asked her what kind of seasoning she'd like, LOL). They were good. I should have made more...

Sorry to be the party pooper here, but you should not be eating salty crunchy things. If you just stop, and starting eating more healthy foods that taste great, you will eventually have few or no cravings for salty crunchy things.

I am swimming in vegetables & fruit. Today: Deluxe hashbrowns for breakfast (potatoes, bell pepper, onion, diced tomato, & reduced fat feta), tomato sandwich, green salad for lunch, pea pod grazing while in the garden, sliced apple with raisins, blueberries. Still, for myself the salty crunchy desires do not go away.

+1 to C40. We buy unsalted peanuts simply to avoid the salt. I think the only salted food we buy regularly is savoritz (aldi brand ritz) crackers. Once you pop, you can't stop!

Over the years we have trimmed down the amount of processed food we buy, but it can definitely be hard. I still buy a box of cereal when I go to Aldi.

Listening to the You Are Not So Smart podcast this week, one segment he talked about salty/junk food addiction (I think it was the video game cast). One comment rang true - that for tens of thousands of years we didn't have these things available at all (salt was available but scarce). Now that salt is widely available we are afraid of it becoming scarce again.

Miss Lonelyhearts wrote:If tortilla chips are acceptable, commercial tortillas are easier to process and fry than whole potatoes.

+1 to this. I like taking store-bought flour tortillas (usually very cheap, depending on the brand), cutting them into eighths and frying them up in a medium-large pan with a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil until browned on each side. Sprinkle with salt (and other spices!) to taste. The resulting chips are delicious, warm and crunchy.

Helps use up any leftover dip, too. We usually have tortillas around for taco-day anyways.