Don’t pass the persimmon at your local grocery store or farmers market. This persimmon chips recipe is calling your name!

Persimmons are in season, but many of us would hardly notice. The often-overlooked bright orange fruit gives off exotic vibes, leaving many of us wondering what to do with it?

Originally brought from Japan, today the persimmon is grown all over the U.S. It has truly become an American fruit! So, be a patriot and make these persimmon chips! They are just one of the many ways you can enjoy the fruit.

Nutritional Breakdown

The best way to get excited about any ingredient is to understand exactly the kind of health benefits it’s giving you. And the persimmon does not disappoint.

In one persimmon (3.5 ounces), there are 66 milligrams of vitamin C, which is almost as much as that in an orange and fulfills 110% of the RDA. Persimmon is also low in calories, full of fiber, and a great source of iron and calcium. The same persimmon serving contains 70 calories, 3.6 grams of dietary fiber, 14% of the RDA of iron, and 3% of the RDA of calcium.

How to Choose Persimmon

The persimmon comes in two varieties: Hachiya and Fuyu. Both bear the same sweet, lightly astringent, delightful taste, but appear and feel differently when ripe. The Hachiya is shaped like an acorn and should be completely soft in texture when ready to be eaten — think of the texture of a tomato way past its prime — that’s how soft you want the Hachiya. The Fuyu, on the other hand, is smaller and flatter, and it can be eaten when it is rock-hard — like an apple.

Regardless of the variety you’re choosing from, look for a persimmon that has a deep, rich orange color. While you can buy Hachiyas firm, make sure to keep them out at room temperature to soften over the course of a few days before consuming. Fuyus should be firm and without any blemishes.

What You’ll Need

To make these colorful chips that are a lot lighter (and sweeter) in flavor than regular store-bought chips, you’ll only need a few ingredients, a knife, a baking sheet, and an oven. That’s it! And because these persimmon chips are baked, not fried, as well as free of any added oil or butter, they are practically fat-free.

To accentuate the persimmon’s inherent sweetness, I add a bit of low-glycemic coconut palm sugar to them before baking. The coconut palm sugar’s caramel-like flavor is enhanced with the addition of some fall spices, such as cinnamon and nutmeg. You’ll love every single bite and you don’t even have to share if you don’t want to. They go down easy.

Persimmon Chips Recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 4 large Fuyu persimmons
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1 teaspoon coconut palm sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Pinch of sea salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly spray two baking sheets with coconut oil or line them with parchment paper.

Remove stems and slice the persimmons crosswise into thin, 1/4-inch thick pieces. Place the sliced persimmons into a bowl and toss them until evenly coated with the lemon juice, coconut palm sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sea salt.

Arrange the persimmon slices in a single layer on the baking sheets. Pop the baking sheets into the oven and bake for one hour. After one hour, flip the persimmon chips and bake them for another hour and 15 minutes, or until they are golden-brown and crispy. Some of the persimmon chips that were cut thicker than the rest will be a bit more tender and moist, but they also taste delicious! If you desire more crisp, cook the chips for another ten minutes at a time until you reach desired consistency.

Let the chips cool at room temperature before storing them in airtight containers in your pantry. They have a shelf life of about one week.

Related on EcoSalon
Mustard and Dill Baked Potato Chips
Baked Rosemary Beet Chips with Vegan Mayonnaise Dip
Quinoa Salad with Pomegranates and Persimmons

The post Persimmon Chips are the Crispy Autumn Snack You Didn’t Know You Needed appeared first on EcoSalon.

All that flavor…all that fat.

Cool Ranch Doritos remind me of those days I’d peer into the bag, desperate to find the chip with thickest layer of spices. It was a game with a sensationally savory reward. Little did I know the nature of the gift – or so I thought it was – that I was really giving my body.

One serving, or 12 chips, of Cool Ranch Doritos contains 150 calories, nearly half –8 grams – which come from fat. It also has 180 milligrams of sodium, 18 grams of carbohydrates, and only 2 grams of dietary fiber.

The bottom line is that with ingredients such as sodium acetate, artificial color, sodium, caseinate, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and maltodextrin, not only are you stuffing yourself with 16 grams of empty carbs but also you are ingesting a lot of nothing “real.” Some of these synthetic ingredients are just downright dangerous. Doritos contain MSG, which is a flavor enhancer that can trigger headaches, sweating, facial pressure or tightness, a rapid or fluttering heartbeat, chest pain, nausea, and weakness.

The following recipe starts from scratch, using simple ingredients that pack a serious flavor punch. With the right combination of spices and a few minutes to spare, you’ve got yourself a bottomless bowl of your favorite chips. Enjoy!

Homemade Spicy Cool-Ranch Doritos

Servings vary

Ingredients:

1 large potato or 2 small potatoes (white or sweet)

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon cayenne

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/8 teaspoon cumin

2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:

Slice the potatoes into thin strips, just thick enough so they are not transparent.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine all the spices and mix.

Add the sliced potatoes to the spice bowl and toss until all sides of each potato slice are evenly covered.

On a greased baking sheet place potato slices side by side, each with its own place so that they bake evenly and to a crisp. Drizzle with remaining 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and place in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for approximately 40 minutes or until the potatoes have crisped, but not burned.

Enjoy!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

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Easy to make recipes for a 4th of July bbq revamp.

Nothing captures the 4th of July quite like images of outdoor eating with family and friends. It marks the beginning of barbecue season and kicks off the summer with cheer. All is fun and games until you stop by the food table, which boasts fare that is everything but forgiving to your waistline. But there’s no need to miss out on that which makes the 4th of July so special! We’ve revamped typical July 4th barbecue dishes so that you can have a happier and healthier holiday feast without missing out on the tastes you expect from an outdoor summer celebration.

Potato Salad

Mayonnaise makes this otherwise vegetable-centric dish a nightmare for health enthusiasts. One tablespoon of mayonnaise contains some 90 calories, 10 grams of fat, and 5 milligrams of cholesterol. These stats alone are reason why the potato salad actively contributes to heart disease and weight gain.

Switch up the traditional recipe with a Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Herbed Vinaigrette, which includes hearty  dried cranberries, nuts, parsley, sage and arugula. And whistle while you work to a playlist fit for a potato salad maker!

Burgers

We’ve explored the nutritional downfall of the Big Mac, but homemade versions are not always much better. If you are still using white buns and cooking animal protein, there still exists the hurdle of empty calories and saturated fat.

To give the burger a healthy twist, use a whole-wheat or whole-grain bun and cut the saturated fat by using lean cuts of meat and reducing other superfluous additions, such as bread crumbs and egg yolks. For a much healthier alternative, nix the animal protein and opt for a Chickpea Burger. Not only is this variation healthier but also packs a ton of flavor.

Hot Dogs

Hot dogs are severely low on the scale of nutritional value. Hot dogs are processed meat crammed with some 18 grams of fat per serving. They clog arteries and increase the risk for heart disease. Hot dogs are also loaded with sodium – up to 1,000 milligram – leading to weight gain, water retention, bloating and increased blood pressure.

When searching for a hot dog to lay out on the grill, keep your eyes on nutrition labels. Look for a brand with no more then 3 grams or less of saturated fat and 370 milligrams or less of sodium per serving. Remember that the less ingredients there are, the better for your health the hot dog is bound to be. Avoid white flour buns and opt for either a whole-wheat or whole-grain bun or eat the hot dog wedged between lettuce leaves. Avoid sugar and sodium-packed condiments and opt for a topping of fresh vegetables. Check out the My Vegan Cookbook website for an excellent Seitan Hot Dog recipe.

Chips

Original variations often included the preservative, Butylhydroxytoluene, commonly known as BHT. This fat-soluble chemical is also used in petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. BHT can lead to cancer when consumed in high amounts. Other health violations include high levels of sodium, artery-clogging trans-fats and calories. However, there are now so many brands offering healthy alternatives – vegetable-based or baked –without sacrificing the taste and crunch.

Homemade chips may be an intimidating endeavor, but they’re much more hassle-free than you think. Try these simple Sweet Potato Chips and then individualize them with your favorite spices and oils, like as was done for these Mustard and Dill Potato Chips.

Pickles

Pickles are essentially cucumbers that have soaked in vinegar and salt and fermented over time. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the average 4-inch long dill pickle has about 1,181 milligrams of sodium, which is nearly your maximum daily intake requirement. As a basis of comparison, a 4-inch cucumber prior to pickling contains only 6 milligrams of sodium.

To avoid the sodium overload, soak a sliced cucumber in a bowl with red apple cider vinegar for a few hours before serving. The cucumbers will soak in the sourness of the vinegar without the addition of salt. If you are keen on the pickled effect, homemade pickling is a great way to control what goes into the process. Fermented vegetables are exceptionally good for you. The healthy bacteria created during pickling benefits your gut flora when consumed, improving digestion. Try the Healthy Green Kitchen blog’s Spicy Lemon Cucumber Pickles, which keeps the sodium in check and the flavor on high!

Corn on the Cob

Corn on the cob is a health violation that really shouldn’t be. All is well until the butter is slathered and the salt is shaken one too many times. To make this July 4th staple healthier, try brushing the corn with olive oil instead of butter to ensure less saturated fat. Also, dash salt into your palm first, as opposed to shaking it directly over the corn, in order to avoid over seasoning.

To bring some extra nutritional value to the dish, chop some chives, parsley, garlic, dill, or any of your favorite herbs and mix them with olive oil before applying to the corn.

Baked Beans

Beans are full of heart-healthy fiber and plant-based protein, but canned baked beans are often so full of sugar, their nutritional benefits are canceled out. The sugary syrup that canned beans generally come with will only cause an increase in blood sugar and insulin levels, contributing to heart disease and diabetes.

Check out the Homemade Classic Baked Beans from the Recipe Renovator blog to slim down the traditional recipe without compromising taste or texture.

Condiments

Ketchup, mustard, relish, and mayonnaise are barbecue mainstays, and for good reason. We often don’t realize how heavily we rely on them to kick up the flavor, and we often ignore their significance in our daily diets. However, it’s in these condiments where we find those empty calories. Ketchup, mustard, and relish are no stranger to sugar, sodium, and preservatives while mayonnaise has a lot of artery-clogging saturated fat.

Why settle for store-bought sugar and sodium-packed condiments when you can make your own in a matter of minutes? Even if you aren’t slicing the fat and calories, it’s always important to keep the ingredients real and untainted by preservatives, coloring and other sketchy add-ins.

Seltzer with Bitters

Regular soft drinks have been linked to stroke risk, elevated blood pressure, obesity, cancer and kidney failure. They’re full of sugar, and even their zero-calorie alternatives hold some dreaded preservatives and chemicals.

Get the bubbly without the downsides. Prepare a Honey, Ginger Sparkling Lemonade with Rosemary and expect to quench your thirst in a much more refreshing and aromatic way.

Dessert

A lot can go wrong come dessert time. First there’s the obvious bad guys – nutritionally-empty white sugar and white flour – and then there’s the addition of butter that has you worried.

Try your hand at some healthier alternatives, such as Vegan Chocolate Mousse with Sea Salt, Avocado Chocolate Pudding, Fig and Coconut Walnut Cake, Peanut Butter Cookies, and Vegan Strawberry Shortcake. These recipes are forgiving to the waistline and overall easy crowd pleasers.

Photo by The Recipe Renovator. © 2012. Used with permission.

The post Extreme Makeover: Revamping the Traditional 4th of July BBQ appeared first on EcoSalon.

Bag the greasy chips and try out this low-sodium, healthy alternative.

Oh, the deliciously clever ways we have found to sneak in our veggies! Chips made from vegetables are for sure a healthier alternative to the processed, fried and sodium-packed versions commonly found corrupting grocery store aisles near and far. Luckily, our options have expanded in recent years, with the market now offering a variety of baked and low-sodium chips to choose from, including the highly popular Terra Chips that, albeit fried, are made of a mixture of taro, sweet potato, yuca, batata, parsnip and ruby taro.

However, when I want a more rustic version of vegetable chips that allow me to get the best of both worlds – baked and vegetable-based (as opposed to corn-based) – I like to make them myself using whatever vegetables I have on hand. It’s the perfect way to finish off any leftover vegetables from the week that are rounding their last leg. Root vegetables work best, because they hold their shape – using the same instruction below, experiment with beets, carrot, zucchini, and even kale.

For this recipe, I used sweet potato. White potatoes are bashed for their capacity to dramatically tip the blood sugar scale, but if you switch to sweet potatoes, that sugar spike is 30-percent less. Sweet potatoes are also an excellent source of beta-carotene and potassium. They can reduce the risk of breast cancer by as much as 25 percent and are also useful in reducing blood pressure.

This recipe is a foundational one. You can add whatever spices you’d like to appeal to your own tastes. One potato makes enough for one person, so multiply the amounts in the ingredient list depending on how many people you are serving. You can assume a 1/2 potato per person if making this for a large party.

Serves 1

Ingredients:

• 1 large sweet potato
• 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Directions:

Slice thin discs along the width of the sweet potato. Don’t slice too thin so that the sweet potato is transparent and don’t slice too thick so that the sweet potato bakes and softens much like a full-sized potato would.

I recommend using a mandoline to cut the sweet potato into same-width pieces. However, be very careful – the mandoline only looks harmless. In my experience, regardless of how skilled and attentive you think you are in the kitchen, the mandoline will prove otherwise, leading to an unintentional slip and cut. Having learned my lesson(s), I avoid using it altogether and revert to knife skill instead. As long as all pieces come out with the same width, you’ve done well.

Assemble the slices in a medium sized bowl. Coat with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss with your hands until all the pieces are evenly coated.

Place the slices on a baking sheet so that each has its own space. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 25-30 minutes. About 15 minutes into baking, flip each piece. Keep an eye out on them for the last 10 minutes, making sure none burn.

When they’re finished, remove from the pan and let cool. They will harden as they cool.

These don’t last very long at all. I would say one potato is equivalent to one serving, but that’s really an understatement. Did you question why only 4-5 chips are left for me to photograph? Yum. These chips are so worth making.

Bon Appetit!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post Recipe: A Dose of Vegetables with Sweet Potato Chips appeared first on EcoSalon.

A couple weeks ago, my dog Lucas dashed out of my backyard. He thought it was the best game ever: He’d sprint toward me then swerve past, trying to entice me to chase him. Because he was running in circles around me, I felt confident he’d eventually come to me when he realized I wasn’t playing. Unless a deer ran by. Or a car turned down the street. Or the neighbor’s cat was out.

Though the whole situation was frightening, the worst part was that he wasn’t wearing his collar. Yes, that’s irresponsible on my part, though whenever I have multiple dogs playing together – which is fairly often – I remove their collars because dogs can accidentally strangle each other during play.

However, I have a safety net in place: Lucas is microchipped.

A microchip is a small device – about the size of a grain of rice – that is inserted with a syringe between the shoulder blades. If your pet becomes lost, vets and shelters can swipe a scanner past the chip to gather all your contact information to reunite you with your pet.

According to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association only 1.8 percent of all stray dogs and cats taken to participating shelters have microchips. That’s a pretty small amount of chipped pets. The same study also found that lost pets that had been implanted with a microchip were reunited with their families in almost three out of four cases.

Betsy Banks Saul, the co-founder of Petfinder.com, is working with HomeAgain, a pet recovery service with the first universal microchip database in the country. Both Lucas and my other dog Emmett have HomeAgain chips they received when they were shelter dogs. Most likely, if your pets came from the shelter, they’re chipped already. Saul pointed out that most chipped dogs and cats from shelters are still registered to the shelter, not to their new owner.

“Is your microchip registration up to date?” asked Saul. “You already have a chip in, when was the last time you checked your registration?” Of the strays turned into shelters, 35 percent of the microchipped pets who were not reconnected with their families remained in shelters because their chip had an incorrect or disconnected phone number.

Yes, there are health concerns associated with microchipping. There is one known case of a dog dying from cancer caused by his microchip. In addition, microchips can migrate. Emmett’s chip was implanted between his shoulder blades. A recent x-ray showed that it’s now in his shoulder.

Despite the health concerns, Saul stressed the importance of microchipping your pet – and updating the chip he or she already has. It’s crucial in the case of a disaster or forced evacuation, or an old dog who may get confused and wander off, or a stubborn and mischievous dog like Lucas who loves to sneak out to play.

“Check their chip registrations, and make sure they get registered into the universal database,” she said. “Most of the chip manufacturers in the U.S. all are participating in a centralized database, but it’s only as good as the data.”

After my conversation with Saul, I called HomeAgain to update my dogs’ chips. Unfortunately, the phone rep wasn’t aware of the universal database, though I was able to update their veterinarian contact info and my home phone number.

The bottom line? Every medical procedure, no matter how small, has an inherent risk. It seems that the risks associated with microchipping are pretty slim and are outweighed by the benefits (but definitely consult with your vet before deciding if one is right for your dog) – as long as you take the extra step to keep your pet’s microchip updated in a universal database.

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