Fix Me A Snack

Not too long ago, Serious Eats was kind enough to share a recipe from Thomas Keller’s cookbook Ad Hoc at Home. I have been looking at roasted nuts recipes for a while now and was feeling a little overwhelmed. But Keller’s recipe for Candied Pecans is everything I was looking for. The honey is roasted along with the nuts so it is hardened; my husband does not enjoy nuts that get his hand all greasy. In addition, the amount of honey is small. Therefore, the nuts aren’t converted into sugar bombs. Lastly, and most importantly in my book, the nuts are roasted a long time at a low temperature. From what I gather, this makes for a crispier nut.

Keller’s recipe calls for pecans only. While I used a mix of cashews and pecans just for kicks, I’m planning on going with only pecans next time. They are utterly flakey and smooth. If I close my eyes, it feels like I’m eating a croissant.

1 1/2 cup raw pecans
1-1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/8 teaspoon salt, plus more to finish

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spread nuts out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 5-7 minutes. Transfer warm nuts to a medium bowl. Quickly drizzle the honey and salt over the nuts and stir until they are well coated.

Return the coated  nuts to the parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, rotating once. I took them out of the oven when it smelled like the honey was starting to caramelize – a tiny bit smokey.

Remove the nuts from the oven, sprinkle on a pinch of salt, and quickly separate any clumps as the honey will harden as the nuts cool. Allow to cool completely and serve. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups nuts (easily doubled)
Prep time: 5 minutes
Bake time: 1 1/2 hours

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My first-grader has her 100th day of school coming up. The teachers turn the day into one big party about the number 100. So I thought we could do our part at home and make a snack in honor of the day. We happened to have some chocolate candies, raisins, pretzels and Os cereal. We got them all out and counted out 100 pieces of each ingredient (give or take).

At school, they’re also doing some work with measurements in Math. So we chatted briefly about which ingredient would make the longest row and so on. But mostly it was fun to gather it all up. I think I’ve got school snack covered for next week now!

These taste more like pie crust than store-bought graham crackers (and given the amount of butter in them, I’m not a bit surprised). This is adapted from the Graham Crackers recipe in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook . I’ve looked around for alternatives to try, some of which look amazingly delicious. But Martha’s recipe has less sugar (which I’ve reduced further) and did well with a couple adjustments I made to cut back on time and effort expended.

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I can’t stop eating these. They remind me of BBQ potato chips, which I have a complete weakness for. The secret ingredient is smoked paprika which I’ve seen a few food bloggers going ga-ga over lately.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans, drained

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, paprika, salt, and garlic powder. Add beans and stir to coat. Transfer beans to a rimmed baking sheet (a.k.a jelly roll pan). Bake for 25-30 minutes or until beans begin to appear dry. Allow to cool and serve. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Yield: 2 cups
Prep time: 10 minutes
Bake time: 25 minutes

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This snack idea is from Gastrokids. I’m just starting to warm up to snack mixes for kids as my youngest recently turned three and is supposedly clear to eat popcorn, whole nuts and the like.  More importantly, she is extremely likely to pick all the sweet bits out and leave the rest. But, in this case, at least it’s cranberries and not chocolates. Pepitas are a new favorite thing of mine too.

1/2 cup pepitas
1/4 cup dried sweetened cranberries

Mix and serve.

Yield: 3/4 cup
Prep time: 2 minutes

Yesterday morning my first grader told me out of the blue that Danny (name changed for snacking privacy) has Oreos for snack every day. Her other tablemate has Ritz Handi-Snacks. I have a feeling that her third tablemate eats relatively healthy snacks because my kid doesn’t have an answer when I ask her what Susan snacks on.

So apparently, through the eyes of my child, this is what I’m up against during morning snack:

I think this all came up because I asked my kid to get her snack ready. As she was surveying the kitchen she was not tempted by the usual fruit or crackers (Surprise!). So we started brainstorming and the Chocolate Chippy Roll was born.

I sent her up to school with a much lower tech version than what is pictured below - just cream cheese and normal-sized chips between a couple pieces of bread and cut up into squares. The report back that afternoon was that little Danny actually stole some of my kid’s snack (all in good fun) because it looked so yummy. I’m sure my kid gave it a good sell because she had such a hand in making it. But still, I was happy that, at least for one day, my kid was not the one with freaky healthy parents who send her to school everyday with a bag full of oats.

Chocolate Chippy Rolls

1 slice whole grain bread
2-3 teaspoons cream cheese
1 teaspoon mini chocolate chips

Cut crusts off of bread and roll flat with a rolling pin. Spread on cream cheese. Sprinkle on chocolate chips. Roll up the bread and slice into 5 or 6 pieces. Pack it up in an airtight storage container.

Yield: 1 serving
Prep time: 5 minutes

½ cup cooked sweet potato (with skin)
1 cup cooked brown rice
½ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/3 cup cottage cheese
1 tablespoon wheat germ (optional)
¼ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Place sweet potato, rice, Monterey Jack cheese, cottage cheese, wheat germ and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Process for 45 – 60 seconds or until smooth and a ball starts to form.

Roll sweet potato mixture into tablespoon-sized balls with your hands. Place balls on baking sheet and bake on the center rack of the oven for 15-17 minutes or until the bottoms are golden.

Allow balls to cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes. Gently remove balls with thin metal spatula and serve. Store leftovers in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Yield: 20 balls
Prep time: 10 minutes
Bake time: 15 minutes

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1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup lowfat milk
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375 F

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, Italian Seasoning, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together, egg, olive oil, sugar, buttermilk, milk, tomato paste, cottage cheese and parmesan cheese until almost uniform in color. Small bits of tomato and cheese are actually a good thing so do not over mix.

Transfer batter to a muffin pan sprayed with oil. Fill each muffin cup up to ¾ full with batter. Bake on a rack in the center of the oven for 15 – 17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Allow muffins to cool for 5 minutes in pan and then transfer to a cooling rack. Serve or store in an airtight container.

Yield: 12 muffins
Prep time: 20 minutes
Bake time: 15 minutes

Note: If you don’t have any buttermilk, you can make a substitute. If you don’t have any white whole wheat flour, I’d suggest replacing it with 1 cup of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour.

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I need to make these again sometime soon because I might have eaten most of them myself and my kids might not have really gotten a chance to taste them. Poor little souls.

4 apples, coarsely grated (approximately 1 1/2 cup lightly packed)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons wheat germ
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch salt

Preheat oven to 250 F.

In a medium bowl mix together the apple, brown sugar, wheat germ, butter, cinnamon, and salt. Place heaping tablespoon-sized scoops of the apple mixture onto parchment lined baking sheets. Make sure the scoops are 2- inches apart. With the back of a spoon, flatten the scoops until they are 1/4-inch thick. Pay careful attention to achieving a uniform thickness as the cookies will require more time in the oven if they are too thick.

Bake for 1 1/2 – 2 hours or until the cookies are dry yet pliable. Allow to cool before serving. Store in an airtight container.

Makes 20 cookies
Prep time: 10 minutes
Baking time: 1 1/2 hours

Note: These “cookies” will cook differently depending how thinly they are spread out on the baking sheets. So after an hour and a half, check in on them every ten minutes or so. They may brown a bit and that’s fine. They dry quite a bit after they cool down so if they’ve been in the oven for two hours and no longer feel squishy, they are most likely done.

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Cookies are a personal battle when it comes to making “healthy” snacks. When I first started investigating and experimenting, I tasted a lot of low-fat, low-sugar baked goods that were cookies in name but definitely not in spirit. Therefore, my official policy is that cookies should not be tinkered with and be allowed to do what they do best: deliver a luscious combination of fat and sugar.

I am nonetheless tempted to experiment from time to time. And simply because I’ve never eaten an avocado cookie before and avocados are so high in good-for-you fat, I’ve come up with this “healthier” cookie that I feel a little bit better about putting in my kid’s lunch box. Its taste is no where near a Toll House. But I feel like they are probably as close as I am going to get to a “healthy” cookie that my family still enjoys eating.

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

1 ripe haas avocado, pitted and skin removed
½ cup butter (1 stick), softened
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 large egg
½ cup low-fat milk
1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, oats, coconut, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Mash avocado with a fork in a large bowl until there are no large chunks remaining. Add butter and mix very well with avocado. Add sugars and stir well. Add egg and stir. Finally add the milk and stir until incorporated. Add the flour mixture and stir until combined. Fold in chocolate chips (if desired).

Drop heaping tablespoons full of batter onto ungreased baking sheets or jelly roll pans two inches apart. Bake for 15-17 minutes near the center of the oven, rotating once if necessary. Once the edges of the cookies start to brown, remove from oven and transfer to cooling rack with spatula. Allow to cool slightly and serve.

These cookies will soften considerably if left out overnight. They are best stored in the freezer in an airtight container and thawed on demand.

Makes 38 cookies.
Prep time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 30 minutes

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