Food Friday - Snack Attack!

from Tracey G.

Yep. I am still in a love affair with almonds. They're a great food item for many reasons, but, my main reason for them being a major player in my diet, is in helping me by providing me something good and good for me to snack on. I'm not happy with the numbers the scale is throwing at me when I get the courage to step on it, so after being annoyed about it for months, I started complaining about it to Kris. I then found out, as things usually go with the two of us, she seemed to be having the same dilemma and issues. We went back and forth enough to figure out, that, our snacking and eating habits were likely the culprits, or more directly the lack of forethought before the snacking and eating etc. It's been a busy past few months and that I know is my issue - too many other things on my brain rather than eating well. It seems when life gets busy, my eating habits get worse. I am honestly one who forgets to eat, but instead of losing weight, it's that opposite reaction my body has - thinking it's in starvation so it hangs onto every calorie I take in as it doesn't know when it's next meal is coming!

So, since I love grab-and-go foods - something to eat that I don' t have to stop what I'm doing to prepare during the day etc., I told Kris I really need to come up with some homemade versions. And versions I can live with - I've done all the so-called diets, I've gone the deprivation route, and all that has ever garnered me was failure. Every. Time. But in the times I've approached it realistically, I've achieved my weight-loss goals. Every. Time.  Even though I desperately want to see it go away immediately, I know I have to be smart about it. That means eating. And eating well, not junk, not live off totally prepackaged foods (but some do have their place, as there are good ones out there!)

First up in the grab-and-go realm for me, are snacks. I love to snack on stuff. Usually when I'm bored, so I've taken the approach of asking myself if I'm really hungry or just bored. And just by doing that alone, I've really cut down on snacking! Second is not jumping into all "diet" foods - that's a trap I get bored with and generally fail with. It's not realistic to think that "diet" treats are going to be always as satisfying as the "real deal" for me personally. This I know. It gets to the point where I've said "heck with it, I want to real stuff!" and that itself becomes a slippery slope right down into the failure pit. I know enough now, to know that I have to find alternatives I can actually live with. Plus, build in enough leeway that I can still enjoy the foods I love. So, I'm tackling snack foods. And when it comes to good-for-you snack foods, almonds fit the bill pretty well. High in protein and taste yummy, plus a whole host of other benefits.

Here's the recipe I chose this week - last week it was sweet, this week it's savory. And they are pretty yummy and so so so easy! Just enough spice and heat to be addictive and of course as usual, totally customizable in that respect. Make it as mild or spicy as you like! The recipe originally called for curry powder, but I'm not a big fan of it, nor have I found a curry blend that I like, so I used smoked paprika instead of it. Of course I'll provide measurements for both! I found this recipe through my SparkPeople "SparkRecipes" app, and it's originally from the California Almond Board, again. But, I couldn't find it at the almond site, so I am linking to the SparkPeople Recipes site. It can be found here:Firecracker Almonds

And now, the recipe!

Firecracker Almonds

Serves 8 (1/4 cup servings)

2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp curry powder - this is where I substituted 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp olive or almond oil

2 cups toasted whole natural almonds ( I did use salted)

1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce, or to taste

1 tsp ground red pepper (cayenne) or to taste

Combine chili powder, curry powder (or smoked paprika), garlic powder and oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat. Heat until hot and bubbly. Stir in almonds, tossing until almonds are evenly coated and heated through, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Stir in pepper sauce and red pepper. Allow to cool fully before serving.

Nutritional information:

1 Serving: 218 calories; 19 g total fat (2g saturated fat, 3.9 polyunsaturated fat, 12.8 monounsaturated fat); 0 mg cholesterol; 11 mg sodium; 268 mg potassium; 8g total carbohydrate (5g dietary fiber, 0g sugars); 7g protein

Oh! And by the way, this week I used my phone for my shot of the almonds on the sheet pan. It was a busy day, so to me the phone can be a real life-saver, it allows me to snap the shot and edit all at once on the same device, and that can be extremely handy! I used the Camera+ app to take the photo, did the filtering in Hipstamatic (I used the Loftus Lens and the DC Film), and then hopped it over to the Rhonna Farrer app "RhonnaDesigns, for the text and graphic (sticker)! Easy peasy! 


from Kris B.

 After only five days of logging everything I eat into Spark People and having it spit back all of my daily nutritional information, I have noticed a trend that needs to be addressed.  I don’t get enough protein in my diet.  Who knew?  Also, because my days start early and often go late, there comes a time during the day when I need a snack.  My husband would say that I need a “happy meal.”  Yep, I am one of those people that gets ridiculously grouchy and irritable when I need to eat.

Because I am also kind of lazy, I decided to try and remedy my protein and snack issues in one move - a protein heavy snack.  The first ingredient to come to mind that fit the bill was peanut butter.  I have mentioned before that I am a huge fan of peanut butter.  However, I wasn’t sure what to DO with the peanut butter.  I remembered a recipe that I had read on a blog awhile back for peanut butter and quinoa patties.  By some miracle, i was able to find it!  The original recipe is from the blogger Blissful Basil.

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups puffed quinoa

6 TBS peanut butter

6 TBS coconut butter

2 TBS coconut oil

1 1/2 TBS pure maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

First, a few notes on the ingredients…

Admittedly, puffed quinoa and coconut butter may not be pantry staples at your house.  They are not at my house either, but quinoa and coconut are.  Though both of these ingredients can be purchased at a grocery store like Whole Foods, with quinoa and coconut they can both be made at home at much less expense.  In her recipe, Blissful Basil tells how to make the puffed quinoa.  Heat a large stock pot over medium heat.  Once the pot is hot, pour a small amount of pre-rinsed and dried quinoa over the bottom of the pan.  Gently move the pan so that quinoa swirls around as it pops.  The process is much like that of making stove top popcorn.  Keep things moving so that they don’t burn.  Once all of the quinoa has popped, a minute or two, Transfer the “puffed” quinoa to a bowl and repeat this process until you have a 1 1/2 cups of puffed quinoa.  During the process you will here small crackles from the quinoa as it in creases only very slightly in size.  There is not the dramatic change that you see with popped corn.  I “puffed” 1 1/2 cups and ended up with roughly 1 3/4 cups.  (The extra 1/4 will perhaps be used to top a loaf of bread.)

On amazon.com, a 16 oz. jar of coconut butter costs $13.99.  That is ridiculous when you realize what coconut butter really is.  Like peanut butter, coconut butter is made by processing the meat extensively in a food processor.  Translation…dump some coconut in your food processor.  Turn it on.  Let it run until the coconut is liquefied.  This took about 8 minutes.  I used 12 oz. of Red Mill shredded unsweetened coconut.  Because it was fairly dry, I also added a tablespoon of coconut oil to the food processor.  Again, the process is much like making homemade peanut butter.  I did use homemade peanut butter in this recipe as well (because I have it on hand), but any unsweetened commercially available peanut butter will work just fine.

Once you have all of your ingredients, these Peanut Butter Quinoa Patties are super easy to make!

In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine the peanut butter, coconut butter, coconut oil, maple syrup and vanilla.  Cook for 4-5 minutes, whisking continuously, until the ingredients are completely melted.  Pour this mixture over the puffed quinoa.  Gently stir to evenly coat.

Place 16 muffin liners on a baking sheet.  Drop heaping tablespoons of the quinoa mixture into the muffin liners.  Tap the mixture down with the spoon if necessary.  Place the tray in the freezer for about an hour to allow the patties to set.  Once set, they can be store in the refrigerator.

These Peanut Butter Quinoa Patties are not particularly sweet, but they are sweet enough that I feel like I have had a treat.  My daughter, who doesn’t really have an over active sweet tooth like I do at times, said that she thinks that these need to be half dipped in chocolate.  There is no doubt in my mind that this would be a really good idea, it is not absolutely necessary, especially if you eat one with a glass of chocolate almond milk.  There’s my secret. :-)

Here are the nutrition facts for these based on having put the recipe into Spark People’s Recipe Calculator.

In addition to agreeing to support one another along this weight loss journey, Tracey and I also agreed to take and process this week’s photo on our phones.  As she said, sometimes this makes the whole process go a little more quickly.  It also adds a little spice to our food and photography life as well as gives us a reason to play with all of those apps on our phones.

I shot my image using the resident camera on my iphone6.  I lightened it a bit using the phone’s basic editing capabilities.  In then used the Rhonna Magic app to apply a filter and the Rhonna Designs app to add the text.  The final touch was the border (frame) which was done using Rookie Cam.  

Rookie Cam is a new app to me.  Tracey suggested it because I was telling her about the fact that I wanted some simple borders for my photos but couldn’t find them in any of the apps I had.  I’m not sure how that could be, but was the truth.  Rookie Cam is a free app, sort of, so I downloaded it and there were borders exactly like a wanted - simple and clean.  If you like the more fancy type of frames, they are there too!

We hope your days are filled lots of pretty pixels, healthy plates and lots of laughs!!  Enjoy the weekend.