Monday, March 28, 2011

Snacks! What do you eat?

One of the toughest things when I went to my current diet is figuring out what to eat when I want a snack. A lot of my go-to snacking stuff used to be wheat-based: crackers, cookies, cereal with milk. I can't drink milk any more, most gluten-free cereals have something in them that bother me, and I haven't been happy with many gluten-free ready-made products such as cookies and crackers (that's a nice way of saying they're mostly really bad.)
My husband is a bit of a kitchen wizard, and he's started to whip up simple things in the kitchen to help my snack attacks.
Here are some of the things I snack on now, and I'd love to hear from you on the "quick snack" solutions you've come up with.
--grapes cut in half, broiled, and drizzled with honey
--banana slices frozen and then whipped in the food processor to become ice-cream-like in texture. (Thanks to friend Michaela Eaves for that tip!)
--gluten-free cereals: Nature's Path Crispy Rice and the Nature's Path Honey'd Corn Flakes are the two best-tasting with the simplest ingredient lists
--Glenn's homemade vanilla marshmallows (Sometimes dipped in melted Sharffenberger chocolate, dairy and gluten-free) (occasionally combined with that crispy rice cereal!) Glenn says he uses Thomas Keller's marshmallow recipe, which was reproduced here. Try it out!
--Glenn's vanilla meringue cookies. He doesn't even use tartaric acid, he just whips egg whites with confectioner's sugar and a little salt in the food processor and then uses a pastry bag to pipe them onto parchment paper. 2 hours at 200 degrees.
It's not as tricky as you think to make your own food. That's what I keep realizing. Well, especially when your husband does the hard parts and the cleaning up!

3 comments:

  1. Those are the same corn flakes I buy!

    For snacks, I eat lots of fruit, dried fruit, Greek yogurt, potato or tortilla chips (fortified with hummus or other dips as necessary), dark chocolate, and gummi candy. And Kind and Lara bars. I'm also more likely to have a beverage as a snack now -- before I wouldn't have wanted to waste the calories, now I don't give a shit. If I'm hungry and there's nothing I can eat, I'll have some juice or a soda or something.

    Sushi makes a good snack too! (Reminded by an ad below the comment box.)

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  2. Yes, bars of Sharffenberger dark chocolate are never far away from my desk, I'm afraid. And you're right about the drinks! I don't drink a lot of soda anymore but I make a lot of mixed fizzy-water, cranberry, and other juice drinks as well.

    There's supposed to be a new bar coming out called "Pure," all gluten-free, supposed to taste pretty good too. I'll keep my eye out for them!

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  3. Oh wow! I'd love to go to a gluten-free bar.

    I'm obsessed with club soda. I believe it is more thirst-quenching than water.

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