snacks

I would love snack ideas.  Snack are not necessarily a standard in our house, but they are occasionally needed.  So far fresh fruits and veggies are popular and include: bananas, carrots, grapes, apples, peas, and citrus.  Also, nuts are something I can have on hand that my husband will turn to without wishing he had chips or candy. 

Yesterday I tried to spice some sunflower seeds and I think it might have worked.  They taste great to me. I didn’t follow any specific recipe, and didn’t measure good but here’s the recipe as best as I can figure:

Spicy Sunflower Seeds

3-4 cups of raw Sunflower kernels

1 tsp good cayenne pepper

1 1/4 tsp curry

1 1/4 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 – 3/4 cup maple syrup (not pancake syrup)

salt

Soak Sunflower kernels in water with a bit of salt for at least 7 hours.  Drain, rinse, and drain again.

While draining, mix spices and 1/2 tsp salt with 1/2 cup maple syrup.  It should be thick, not a paste.  Since not all maple syrups are the same consistency and I know mine is on the runny side this might be a bit of trial and error for you.  It shouldn’t be watery looking, but again, not a paste.  Your going to coat the sunflower kernels with it and you’ll want it to adhere. 

Stir well to coat evenly and spread onto dehydrator sheets.  I dehydrated mine overnight at 115 degrees and this morning they easily broke apart into individual kernels.  A hint of sweet, a bit of depth in the spice with a great after kick of cayenne…I’ll make them again for sure even if husband isn’t fond of them!
A tip to go along with the nut recipe:  To keep over-snackers from indulging too much in snacks, pre-portion your snacks out.  Using the nuts as an example (I also made crispy almonds to be done at the same time) when I remove everything from the dehydrator I divide them out.  A fair amount of the almonds go into a canister for use in cooking while the rest of them along with the sunflower kernels get divided out into snack baggies for husband and children to grab on the go.  Each bag has about a half cup of sunflower kernels or 2/3 cup of almonds…plenty to give you a boost.

What do you do for snacks in your traditional diet?