I've been in such an awful food rut recently I decided to just go to Trader Joes and pick up a couple items that I have never tried before, then think of ways to use them.
Enter vacuum fried banana chips. Honestly, I was mostly attracted to the bag. It's silver and shiny and you can't see what is inside so it's kind of mysterious! I love shiny things and mystery.
These bad boys were $1.99 at trader joes for 4oz, which according to the bag is 4 servings. I ate half of them on the drive home from the store. Ooops. They are 140 calories per servings and only contain two ingredients: bananas and palm oil. I know palm oil is controversial, but I WAS glad to see that there was no added salt, sugar or artificial preservatives/colors/what not.
Supposedly they have half of the fat of "other banana chips", but honestly I've never tried other banana chips. I could taste a bit of oily-ness too them, but definitely not as bad as most "chips". That's about the only negative thing I can say about them, though. They are super crunchy and naturally sweet (but not too sweet!). I really, really love them. Probably why I ate half on the way home from the store. :-)
I did manage to control myself for a little bit and use some of the chips for something OTHER than just snacking. :-)
For instance, I love bananas on my yogurt or oatmeal in the morning. The flavors really compliment each other, but they can kinda seem like, mush topped with mush and more mush (when I use peanut butter). So, I crunched up some chips and use them instead of a fresh banana. While more calories/fat than a normal banana, I LOVED the crunch they added! They even stayed crunchy throughout the entire bowl.
Mmmmm. I'll be buying these again to use in peanut butter sandwiches and in the morning, but I probably won't buy them every time I go to the store because I would certainly eat them all too fast. :-)
Vintage Maeby!