It has been way too long since I’ve made banana chips, and I don’t really know why. But I got a hankering for them last week while I was at camp. I bought some slightly-green bananas yesterday, but with all of the post-trip busyness I didn’t get the chance to do anything with them today, and they had ripened a bit. I still think they’ll be OK.

Check the ingredients of your commercial apple or banana chips and you will find oil as a key ingredient; either the chips have been fried or else sprayed with oil for some other flavoring or preservative reason. Homemade dehydrated apple and banana chips don’t have any added oil.

I use a hard-boiled egg slicer (the kind with the wires which opens on a hinge) to slice my bananas; this gives you nice even slices which all get done at the same time. As I slice the banana, I drop it into a solution of Fruit-Fresh to keep the slices from turning brown. (Fruit-Fresh is mostly sugar and Vitamin C.)

Sometimes, around the holidays, Wal-Mart sells a super-cheap dehydrator for about $25. Do not try to use this piece of junk for apple or banana chips; it doesn’t have a temperature control, which means it’s set at a high temperature for beef jerky. You need a dehydrator with variable settings, because fruits and vegetables work best at a somewhat lower temperature than jerky.

The slices will still be warm when you take them out of the dehydrator, which can fool you when you’re checking for doneness. Take a slice out of the dehydrator and let it cool completely before checking to see if it’s crisp.

My chips are drying even as we speak.

By the way, an update on my refrigerator pickles: I think they turned out great, although some people might find them just a little too tart or salty. The pickle I tried a week ago, before leaving for camp, still had a little raw-cucumber flavor, but it’s all gone now.