Twelve Simple Snack Ideas

Snacks for people with allergies are crucial, don't you think? These are the things we can take with us, or enjoy quickly without a lot of cooking time involved. It means a lot when a typical meal may take a few hours to make.

I've been getting in a rut lately, often because I'm tired and can't use my brain well. Even simple snack ideas get forgotten and I'll stare at my fridge and cupboard with a vacant expression and an inability to remember what tastes good. So, I'm starting a Snack Idea section, now. Any time I remember a snack idea, I'm jotting it down. When I get twelve, I'll put 'em up. I imagine that at least a couple of them will work for most people with allergies or intolerances.





12 Simple Snack Ideas

1. Pecans. A handful of pecans. Or pecans pan fried with a little honey/water mixture to make candied pecans. Or pecans fried with a little oil and chile powder.

2. Baked potato with: roasted bits of meat, bean chile, cooked mushrooms, roasted veggies on top.

3. Baked sweet potato. Also baked sweet potato with roasted pecans on top, or honey, or ginger, or concentrated citrus juice (homemade)

4. Fresh fruit of any kind. Apple slices, orange slices, berries, melon cubes, grapes, and so on.

5. Homemade nut butter. Can use as dip for fruit, or even mix up to make a dip for meat, like satay sauce (with lime and GF soy sauce added, maybe).

6. Potato or Sweet potato fries, or cubed and fried. Add seasonings like salt, sage, ginger, honey, crushed chiles. I very much like to get fresh jalapeño peppers, slice them up, and then soak them in water, lots of salt, and a lemon's worth of juice. Soak 'em anywhere from 30 minutes to overnight, and eat them with fried potatoes. Awesome.

Hannah (pale yellow) Sweet Potato Fries

7. Smoothies. Any fruit, mixed with any liquid, and a sweetener if desired. Sometimes a protein added, too. Or made with homemade rice milk added, or homemade nutmilk added. Chia seeds are nice, and veggies work too. Carrots, tomatoes, whatever.

Fresh squeezed orange juice, frozen oranges, rice milk, agave syrup (I think)

8. Small amounts of leftovers, mixed together. Make into a funky casserole, or a stir fry, or a lettuce wrapped sandwich.

9. Fresh veggies, chopped up. carrot sticks, celery sticks, broccoli florets, jicama, zucchini strips, cucumber slices.

10. Salads. I like to mix bitter veggies with very sweet fruit, if I can. Or add a homemade dressing with, say, some citrus, oil, sweetener, and something fun, like chopped peanuts I chop in a blender. Soy sauce and vinegars would likely be great too, if you could have 'em. Or have greens with meat, or greens with beans.

11. Leftover meat. Just some cold roastbeef with a little salt, cold fried chicken (it can be made fairly nicely with potato starch), a little fish, that sort of thing. If you add a little chopped fruit that you cook for a few minutes into a fruit sauce, that's very nice.

12. Roasted seeds. Squash seeds are good. I've tried kabocha, pumpkin, butternut, spaghetti, and acorn squashes' seeds. It was all good. You can also eat some melons' seeds, like cantaloupe and honeydew - roast these and then break them open and eat the inside, like sunflower seeds. You can do the same for watermelon seeds (like this recipe: http://mideastfood.about.com/od/appetizerssnacks/r/watermelon_seed.htm )



And that's the snacks for today. :-)