Healthy Snacks

Snazzy Ideas for healthy snacks... just the ticket to grab between meals.

Veggie finger food ideas
The obvious healthy snack first. Just wash, cut and seal well. Squeeze on lemon juice to help storage and taste. veggie snacks

Most veggies, such as: Celery, carrot, red and green pepper, young zucchini, cucumber, cauliflower, broccoli, mushroom, tomato, red and daikon radish, snow and sugar snap peas

Add an occasional olive, pickled onion or gherkin.

Dips and Spreads
For variety, have a dip or two on the side to dig your finger food veggies into. Use the following as they are, or as a base for more adventurous recipes.

Cottage, Ricotta or Quark Cheese

Hummus, Tahini and Nut butters, such as Peanut, Almond and Cashew.

Salsas, mustards, chutneys, French and egg dressings

Something Different Dip
Try this unusual and delicious sauce, and it keeps well, so you can have it by your computer or someplace handy, to dip your dippers in.

2 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste)
1 tablespoon miso (any kind, try a mild one, like natto barley miso, if you're unused to it)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Water – warm to hot
Olive oil (optional)

Mash miso and tahini together in small bowl. Add water a spoonful at a time until nice consistency. Add oil if desired. Also good over salads and baked spuds or rice.

Nuts & Seeds
Brilliant healthy snacks. For a very civilized way to graze slowly on nuts and seeds, and as a way to occupy your hands, buy them unshelled, which also means they're fresher, and set yourself up with two bowls, your teeth, and a nutcracker.

Make up a mix, there are endless choices in the shops, such as:

Brazil nuts, Almonds, Peanuts, Cashews, Hazelnuts, Pine nuts, Walnuts, Pecans, Pistachios, Sunflower and Pumpkin seeds.

A particularly nice way to eat nuts and seeds is with a coating, eg tamari (soy sauce), oil and salt. Here's a good method ...

Spread mix in baking pan, sprinkle with tamari or salt and oil (best are coconut or olive).

Put in oven at about 175°C for approx 30 mins until crisp, stirring every 10 minutes or so.

Or for a healthier way that doesn't actually cook them, but still makes them chirpy, put in lowest oven 8 hrs or overnight.

Cool and seal in container.

Dried fruit - concentrated healthy snacks
Make up your own mix, but take it easy with these, as they are a source of fructose sugar.

Raisins, goji berries, sultanas, currants and prunes

Dates (so many varieties, all with degrees of hardness, texture and size).

Figs (different from each country, eg: Persian dried figs are marble sized, and can be rolled around in the mouth and slowly dissolved and chewed. They're extra good if kept in fridge to keep hard).

Sliced dried papaya, pineapple, apples, peaches, banana, fruit leather etc.

Fresh fruit
Use the seasonal fruits from your area. Some will need peeling or slicing.

Don't let a little messing about with a knife, plate and finger licking, stop you enjoying the abundance of available fruit to eat.

A few ideas:

Berries, grapes, and cherries. (When not fresh, keep a bag handy in freezer to dig into.)

Loquats, lychees and rambutans. (Try rambutans, peeled and eaten with brie or goat's cheese.)

Pip fruit, such as apples and pears. (Can be pre-sliced and sealed ready to eat.)

Stone fruits, such as peaches and apricots. (These soft summer fruits are best raw and eaten whole – they don't stand pre-cutting up well.)

Citrus. Different varieties of oranges are available all year round. Where would we be without oranges? Also mandarins, cumquats, grapefruit etc.

Don't forget melons, passionfruit and kiwifruit for easy-on-the-taste-bud fruits.

Popcorn makes a great healthy snack
Basic recipe is so easy and cheap. Buy packet of popping corn.

In med pot or deep pan with lid, heat oil. Use about 1 tblspn coconut oil as it doesn't form unhealthy by-products when heated. Or use butter, which leaves a nice flavor, but watch it from burning!

Heat and just before it begins to smoke, add popcorn – no more than a single layer.

Put lid on and keep pan on heat long enough to pop the corn, but not to burn. Shake pan every 10 seconds or so, and keep shaking and heating until you can hear no more pops.

Sprinkle with salt. All over in a minute.

¼ cup = 3 heaped tblspns corn, which makes 4 big cups of popped corn.

Variations
Throw some sunflower seeds in the pan to toast after taking out popcorn, then tip them over popcorn.

Spicy Hot Popcorn

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp garlic salt or 1 big crushed garlic clove

½ teaspoon black pepper

Good shake cayenne pepper or chilli -how hot can you take it?

2 tablespoons oil or butter

4 cups popped corn

Melt oil or butter. Stir in seasonings. Toss with popcorn, coat evenly.

Cheese Popcorn
Tip hot popcorn into a bowl (otherwise cheese will stick to bottom of hot pot). Drizzle with butter and sprinkle over grated Romano cheese, or fine powdered Parmesan cheese. Mix well whilst still hot.

Peanut Butter Popcorn

½ cup peanut butter, smooth or crunchy

2 cups popped popcorn

½ -1 cup chopped roasted peanuts

2 tablespoons oil or butter

1 tablespoon currants (optional)

1 teaspoon xylitol or 2 drops stevia sweetener (optional)

Heat peanut butter, oil or butter, currants and sweetener in a pot over low heat. Stir together and allow to melt, then pour over popcorn and peanuts.

Mix until combined, best stored in freezer or fridge as this can be
sticky – but delicious.

Sweet Cinnamon Popcorn

4 cups popped corn

3-4 tablespoons oil or butter

4 teaspoons xylitol sweetener

2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt oil or butter. Stir in sweetener and cinnamon. Toss with popcorn and mix well.

Coconut
Praised by many, the coconut has come back into health fashion.
Here's how to enjoy it as a chunky healthy snack:

Buy fresh. It should feel heavy, and when shaken there's a sloshing sound from within. Drain this juice by piercing the soft one of the three eyes on top. Use for drinking or cooking with.

Put coconut in hot oven for about 10 minutes until the outer shell cracks. Then holding it in one hand, break into pieces by tapping with the back of chopper or hammer.

The white coconut meat should now lift out easily using a knife point. Quickly plunge it into cold water for a few minutes to prevent it from cooking.

Eat as is, including the brown skin, or use a knife or potato peeler to remove if desired.

Variations
Cut in chunks, or grate coarsely and seal in bag in freezer to snack on later.

Coconut chips
Cut coconut meat into thinnish flakes, layer in shallow oven dish and sprinkle lightly with salt and parmesan cheese.

Cook in medium oven until golden brown.

Muesli, Snack and Health Bars
If one of these stands between you and starvation, well then grab it. Otherwise, sadly to a T, they are mostly junk.

If you can read the tiny print, the eye-popping list of sweeteners, additives and various grains, will show you how a 'health' bar means just filling up a space in your stomach and coating your teeth with sticky stuff.

Got a food processor? This healthy snack is for you...

No Bake Fruit & Nut Log

1 cup raw almonds

1 cup other raw nuts and seeds, eg: 1/2 cup sunflower seeds, 1/4 cup walnuts, and 1/4 cup Brazil nuts OR any combination of mixed nuts and seeds, including sesame seeds, cashews etc.

1 cup any dried fruit or combination, eg: raisins, dates, prunes, etc.

Raid your local health shop or good supermarket and look at adding such delights as: 1 tablespn spirilina powder, or carob, cocoa, bee pollen and so on.

First do nuts in processor, until reasonably well chopped, then put in dried fruit and whirl until it sticks to everything.

Take out and shape into roll, then slice it up. Store in container or bag in freezer to harden.

Delicious and healthy to grab when you have the munchies, great for afternoon tea visitors, and perfect alternative for a sweet dessert. cracker biscuits

Pappadums, crackers and crisp breads
Occasionally you might like to snack on a wholewheat, rice or other starch crunchy type cracker, but otherwise these are not recommended, as most of them are made from refined flour and will just load you up with valueless, weight producing carbohydrates.

Try this for an occasional change...

Pita Crisps

2 x 15cm wholemeal Pita breads

2 tblspns Butter

2 tspns dried Oregano, or other such as sesame seeds, chives or parsley

4 tblspns grated Parmesan cheese

Separate top and bottom of pitas and spread each round with butter on the rough side.
In small bowl mix oregano and parmesan, then sprinkle over buttered pitas.
Cut into wedge shapes (kitchen scissors are best), then grill about 5" from heat until crisp. This takes about 2 mins and needs careful watching!

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