Some Garden Harvested: Zucchini Chips

What a lovely thing to find a zucchini ready to harvest!  I brought it into the house two days ago, intending to make it into spiralized zoodles with some sort of sauce.  That did not happen the first day nor the second day.  Now something had to be done or the zuke would begin to lose integrity.

Out of the blue there was a recipe for zucchini chips in my email.  I have lost it so I cannot give credit but this is what I did which is not exactly what the original called for.

I washed the zucchini then cut a bit off both ends.  I then sliced it up.  Sadly, my slices were rather uneven. I do remember that the original cook used a mandolin.  I do not have such a thing so the knife was my tool of choice.

After slicing them, I put about half a tablespoon of olive oil on a sheet pan then laid the zucchini circles very close to each other, touching, actually but not overlapping.  I then brushed then with another half tablespoon of olive oil, sprinkled on a very little bit of coarse kosher salt, granulated garlic, and black pepper.  I actually hit it rather hard with the black pepper.  That was not the best idea I ever had.

The one zucchini made two sheet pans of chips-to-be.  I put them into a pre-heated 225 degree F. oven and let them crisp up for 2 1/2 hours.  The original recipe said 2 hours, I am pretty sure.  I went off up to the work room and left the guys to dry out/cook/roast.  After a while I went to where Dear One was watching NetFlix and asked if he had heard the timer beep.  He said he doesn't hear it when he is in the room next to it, so he certainly had not heard it two rooms away.  As I went down the stairs I could hear it ringing.  SO...it had been AT LEAST 2 1/2 hours!

You can see that the thin inner part of the chips stuck to the pan.  Oh well.

This was not one of my more successful baking projects.  The thinnest ones had sort of laminated themselves to the pan.  The thicker ones were intact when I picked them off the pan.  They all did taste rather good but really, they were overcooked.  I think I will try this again if I get more zucchini.  The original called for a Silpat mat or parchment paper.  I do have a Silpat, but did not get it out.  I think I will next time.  Even the thin chips should not stick to that.