Back in January, I, like many of us, watched the docu-series on Netflix from Marie Kondo called Tidying Up. I totally downsized a ton of my closet, folded all our clothes in our drawers in her cool, upright way and months later, those two things are all about I have to show for her influence.

Recently, however, I came across a book from Dana K. White. Now, the difference between Dana and Marie is that Dana is your typical American who goes along with the typical American idea that we should have lots of stuff. And she liked purchasing things that were "a good deal" and spent a lot of time and money at thrift shops and garage sales. And she has a lot of crafty hobbies and interests (aka--hobbies that fill your house with a lot of junk you'll never use), just like me. She calls her whole process a "deslobification' process and admits that she can be a slob. She doesn't want to be, but cleaning and organizing are not things that she really enjoys doing, or that come naturally to her. Marie is so adorable and apparently she would come home from school as a little girl and be so excited to organize a drawer in the bathroom. She has always had a passion for things to be super tidy and organized. Dana (and me...and plenty of others like us) are not naturally this way at all. We are busy and have too much stuff and are overwhelmed and don't know where to start.

Well, long story short, I listened to Dana's whole audiobook and it has truly changed my home in the last month. She really helps you understand what you truly should keep and what you should give away. (Spoiler alert---you can get rid of TONS of stuff and not even notice it's gone! It's amazing!!!) Her book I read is called Decluttering at the Speed of Life. However, this article is not about either of their books or methods. I highly recommend you read that book if that sounds like something that would be helpful to you and your family, but this article is about stale potato chips, not decluttering books.

With my new Dana methods, I was just cruising through decluttering my pantry and things were going great! Since it's the end of summer and since we had many barbeques and summer meals with chips, potato salad, and watermelon, we had 3 half empty bags of stale potato chips. I grabbed those bags feeling absolutely confident they were an obvious trash item, when my hand was about 6 inches from dropping those babies in the trash, I STOPPED because I had an epiphany that surely I could use those up (and promised myself I would use them up quickly!). That night I researched a few ways that I could use them up and make some yummy dishes and not waste these delicious chips.

There really are some really cool ways to use these up. I had a bag of regular Ruffles, a bag of chili verde kettle chips, and Korean barbeque kettle chips. I used them in different ways and couldn't be more happy with the results!

Here are a few ways for you to also polish off those stale bags from these days of summer fun! First step, though, is to smell the bag. Make sure they smell fine and not rancid, because the oil can go rancid and you don't want to eat those! So if they smell and look normal, go ahead and move on and try one of these ideas.

SAVORY OPTIONS:

*The first option if you just want some crispy chips that are not stale, just pop them in the oven at 375 degrees F for about 10 minutes, or checking every 3-4 minutes until they reach desired crispiness.

*Use instead of bread crumbs as a coating for chicken breasts or tenders. We used these to make easy, crispy tenders. I used the Korean bbq flavor and they turned out awesome!

*Use instead of cornflakes as a topper on casseroles, like funeral potatoes.

*Empty a bag onto a baking sheet, douse with blue cheese sauce, broil, and eat for dinner.

*Put them as a crunchy addition to sandwiches or even burgers.

*Sprinkle generously over roasted vegetables, like you would do with breadcrumbs.

*Mexican food. Mexican food is always my go-to answer for all life's problems. You can make a simple kind of scramble with leftover chips, tortilla or potato, eggs, cheese, and green chiles or other peppers. You can add these to a pan and make sort of an omelet or scramble. Then when it is done top it with little dabs of sour cream, cotija cheese and salsa. I used the chile verde kettle chips and this was delicious!

SWEET OPTIONS:

*You could keep things really simple by adding some chips to a pan, drizzling melted chocolate over it and either eat it fresh and melty like that, or let the chocolate harden. It is delicious either way.

*Potato chip cookies. Add in some crushed potato chips to your favorite chocolate chip cookie or that perfect salty and sweet combo.

*Make rocky road wedges. Add pieces of chips, along with marshmallows and peanut butter to melted chocolate a freeze. Break off into bite size wedges for a little something stored in the freezer when that sweet tooth hits! This little recipe is very adaptable and you could add anything else you'd like, such as pecan bits, pretzels, etc.