Dried zucchini.

I had read a food preserving book that said it was very easy to dry zucchini to make chips that you can snack on or throw into stews. I thought, "What a great and healthy way to save my produce."
Then I thought, "I wish I would have read that before I made the 15 loaves of zucchini bread."
Then my hiney thought, "Yeah, I wish you would have found a healthy alternative to all of the butter you bathed the zucchini bread in."
Then I told my hiney to shut up. It was not pretty.

Moving on, I decided to try and dehydrate the veggies in my oven. I had done so successfully with peppers just last week. So why should it not work with zucchini?

I began by picking some of the small and tender squash. I really wanted to go the way of my ancestors and cut the slices by hand. It just felt right and organic.


But then this happened. I was hurried along by my sleepy baby boy.


So the food processor went the way of my ancestors for me. Perfect slices. Why do I think more work is better? The processor did great!


I put a thin layer of slices on to parchment-covered cookie sheets. Then I sprinkled them with fine salt.


I had the oven preheated to 170 which was as low as it would go. They cooked very low for several hours and the moisture started seeping out of them.


Unfortunately, I forgot about them. I mean, it takes FOREVER! So I forgot, left home, and came back to slightly over-done zucchini chips. They weren't too bad! Kinda tasted like pumpkin seeds.


I am storing them in a canning jar to eat when we please. Isn't that pretty? And it was very easy.


Now to be honest. Some of the chips were so over-done that they had a burnt taste. I hate that so those were trashed. Second, I did oversalt them a tad. Okay, so I oversalted A LOT! They might just be a little gross. And I might just be throwing them away. Or maybe I will put them in an unsalted stew. YUCK. It's always sad when stuff doesn't turn out. But I will definitely try this again. They could replace potato chips for me! They really are that good. (When done correctly :)