I had seen a blogger post about Mastrad maybe about two months ago and thought I needed to try their TopChips out myself. How could a potato chip in the microwave taste good and yet be healthy? No way! I was pleasantly surprised by TopChips.
I saw it was even featured on Dr. Oz today as a healthy gadget for under $30. The Mastrad TopChips comes with one tray, care guide, food pusher, and mini mandoline (slicer). The slices produced are 1 mm thick. The use and care guide has eight recipes that are for healthy foods, not all using TopChips. You can also order it through TopChips with what looks to be a few extras, like seasonings.
The trays are made of silicone so they are top dishwasher rack safe or to be hand washed. The instructions say to wash before use. I have been just rinsing off the pusher and mini mandoline under warm water. Careful, the blade is very sharp!
After using TopChips about a month, I saw Mastrad TopChips featured on a Woot Daily Deal and had to purchase more trays. I kept having to make more and more to replenish the empty plate left by my family of five when make the potato chips.
You can stack up to three trays at one time in the microwave. We have had potato chips in the past with a bit of grapeseed oil spritzed on to hold sea salt. They were pretty good even unseasoned.
Today, I made apple slices for the kids.
I was using an organic apple so I left the peeling on. It is my plate in the upper left. This one apple produced three trays worth of slices. You want to leave a little space between each slice when placing on the trays.
I put a plate underneath and use the pusher to move the apple across the mini mandoline. The slices are super thin.
Apple with pile of slices from one side being cut.
I had a little help from my three-year-old so a few slices are over lapping. They will be stuck together after they are done baking if you leave them this way. No worries, just break apart.
Cooking in the microwave…
Here is a completed tray. The apple slices are listed as taking 3 mn 30 seconds. You have to play with the listed time a little bit, especially when adding more trays to provide adequate crispness.
A completed apple chip. Yum! These were plain, but cinnamon would probably be good on them too. No need to pull out the food dehydrater and wait sometimes overnight for dried fruit or having the oven run a long time for a pan of slices.
The listed foods with TopChips in the use and care guide are: potato, carrot, sweet potato, apple, pear, and mango with suggested times listed for one TopChips tray. The longest time listed is 6 minutes 30 seconds and this correlates with mango. When doing the fruits and veggies, it is best to dry them off well if you wash them before use and I did pat dry the potatoes with a paper towel when making potato chips just to really get them crispy. Otherwise, TopChips are a breeze to use and the results are delicious!
