Mediterranean Diet Tortilla Chips

When I started changing my diet to include more healthy fats, less processed foods, and to eliminate fried foods to whatever amount is reasonable I very quickly realized that I’d be embracing good fats from guacamole as a common snack or additive.  It also seemed logical that hummus would be a huge part of my new snacking habits too.  Both of these items I’m used to eating with tortilla chips.  That crunchy goodness in the background, the flavors from these items being used as a dip in the foreground, always wonderful.  All too familiar was buying a giant bag of corn tortilla chips and eating several “recommended servings” in one sitting.  I’m the typical human being that loves to aimlessly shove chips in my mouth while watching TV.

Trying to alter my habits and be more adjacent to the Mediterranean Diet led to the exploration of alternative chips.  Quickly I found some “organic blue corn” tortilla chips, and they even claimed to be baked.  Unfortunately they sucked and the texture was so flaky that they’d crumble in hummus.  So all that accomplished was knocking out the “fried” element of chips and diminishing the joy of normal chips.

I found some other baked chips made of quinoa, flax and chia seeds with a light dusting of red pepper.  They’re great, but the main ingredient is still highly processed corn and even though the ingredients that stand out are considered healthy, it still comes down to being a lot of carbohydrates and little else of value.  I keep these chips around now as a backup plan.

I tried slicing cucumber into thin chip shapes. But I rather disliked the texture, taste and cucumber is boring.

Some people are able to enjoy using carrots as scoops for dips, but in my opinion they have too much flavor on their own that doesn’t sync with guacamole at all.

Enter celery!  As a kid most of us learn to toss peanut butter on celery and are conditioned that it can be a scoop for said peanut butter.  That was myself as a child, and later in life I’d learn to like it with ranch dips and other sour cream based things.  But hummus and guacamole surprised me.  Celery has the crunch factor, isn’t distracting flavor wise, and of course has a good amount of fiber so it’s got a lot of what one should be looking for if they don’t want to do much damage while snacking.  So that’s the “Mediterranean Diet Tortilla Chip” I use.  You can’t really expect real chips when you’re trying to behave, so that’s the key thing to get into your head.  That said, it works better with hummus than it does guacamole.  My favorite for guacamole, which is way more expensive than celery and I can’t always find is dehydrated plantain chips.  The flavor syncs well and plantains are loaded with goodness.  I’m cheap though, so celery in bulk rules in my kitchen.

Speaking of cheap, hummus can be pricey, so here’s my father’s hummus recipe to make it super cheaply.

HUMMUS RECIPE

1 large can of garbanzo beans/chickpeas (same thing)

5 medium cloves of garlic

Half cup of balsamic vinegar (My dad is really into vinegar.  Try a quarter cup instead.)

Half cup of olive oil (“EVO” aka Extra Virgin Olive oil is a huge thing for Mediterranean Diet fans.)

Add salt, pepper and unspecified Italian spices to taste.

Directions:  Throw it all in a blender until smooth.

TIP:  I buy most of my hummus anyway and like the “roasted red pepper” types.  There’s no reason you can’t take this recipe above as a base recipe, forget the very unclear “unspecified Italian spices), and instead blend a pepper or anything else into it to try and give it a new theme.