snacks

Friday Food – Super Bowl Snacks

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Whether you’re watching the Big Game or the Commercials, a big part of your Super Bowl Sunday afternoon is food. In our family, we always have snacks and appetizers for dinner with the occasional pizza now and then.

Some years we’ve done a nice selection of homemade snacks like pigs in blankets, waffles and chicken, soft pretzels, deep dish loaded mashed potato pizza, and mini cheesecakes.

This year our primary caterer will be Trader Joe’s. The following is our menu for this year’s Super Bowl Sunday.

  • Dill Dip to go along with pretzels, chips, and veggies as well as cheese and crackers. Our favorite veggies are cucumbers, sugar snap peas, raw green beans, baby carrots, grape tomatoes.
  • Trader Joe’s Mandarin Orange Chicken on toothpicks.
  • Hebrew National Mini Hot Dogs in Blankets with mustard.
  • Pork Gyoza Pot Stickers (from Trader Joe’s)
  • Vegetable and/ or Chicken Tikka Samosas (from Trader Joe’s)
  • Chicken Spring Rolls (from Trader Joe’s)
  • Mini Beef Meatballs in Teriyaki sauce on toothpicks.
  • Cupcakes for dessert.
Super Bowl Sunday Snack Foods. (More pics on Sunday.)
(c)2022

Friday Food: Super, Simple Super Bowl Snacks

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With New Year’s just past and the Super Bowl coming up in a few short weeks (Feb. 2), I thought I’d share some of my family’s easy to prepare foods. For New Year’s this past week, we actually cooked very little. Most of our food was simple, store-bought, easy to prepare, easy to clean up, and best of all, yummy.

1. Dip. We love the dill dip from Marzetti. It can be found in the refrigerated area of your grocery’s produce section. We like to pair it up with a variety of items to dip, including: pretzels, crackers, bread chunks, raw snow peas, raw green beans, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, potato chips. If you want to dress up your table, scoop out the insides of a round bread loaf and put the dip inside. Looks great, no clean up!

2. Hot dogs wrapped in crescent roll dough. You can buy these premade (we like the Hebrew National ones) or you can make them yourself. I’d recommend cutting the hot dogs in three, and cutting each crescent roll triangle in two. You get twice as many little dogs and it’s not over doughy.

3. Mini quiches or mini potato puffs. Again, you can buy these premade or make them yourself. For either of these, use a mini muffin tin. Put in a puff pastry square and add your ingredients. For quiches: eggs, cheese, onion, bacon. For potato puffs: mashed potatoes, bacon, cheese. Delicious.

4. Cheese and crackers. In addition to cheese cut in chunks, there are also cheese spreads that are very good on crackers. Add pepperoni to the platter for a little extra.

5. Dessert. Break and bake chocolate chip cookies. Brownie bites. Ice cream. Mini cheesecakes are also an excellent option. Use those mini muffin tins again. Put some crushed graham crackers in the bottom, use your favorite cheesecake recipe, add whipped cream when serving.

Travel – Road Trip Snacks

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In the US, Thanksgiving is the biggest eating holiday of the year. And still, our kids want to eat on the way to dinner or in the days before while we’re traveling to Grandma’s or wherever you spend your holidays.

1. Pretzels. I personally love cheese doodles, but I never eat them in the car. Too messy. Pretzels are simple, fat-free, and easy to brush off when you get out of the car.

2. Bottle of water. The heat in the car can be very drying. Be prepared for complaints.

3. M&Ms. The candy that melts in your mouth, and not in your hands. (TM) Small, easy to carry, not messy if you don’t let them melt, and honestly, who does?

4. Twizzlers. A punch of sugar without the sticky fingers.

5. Popcorn. Also not messy, easy to brush off and clean up, but be sure to remember that bottle of water!

September – Back to School – Recipe

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Lunch Box Snacks

It’s hard to believe that packing a lunch is the easy part. A leftover to microwave. A sandwich to cut – rectangles or triangles? Peanut butter or turkey? Jam or cheese?

Snacks.

Many schools have rules on snacks. Some depend on allergies if the snack will be eaten in the lunchroom or the classroom. Some list “healthy snacks”, which I always find something on the list or prohibited from the the list that I object to. One example is they’ll include raisins, but exclude pretzels. Not sure the reasoning behind that. Raisins are great, and healthy, but not good for your teeth if you don’t have the opporutnity to brush them.

Here is my top ten list (not in preference orderr) for lunch box snacks!

1. Raisins or Craisins

2. Pretzels (my favorite)

3. Baby carrots or carrot sticks. Celery. Broccoli. With or without dip.

4. Granola bars (read the packaging for allergies, though. Same with pretzels. You’d be amazed how many pretzels are made on machines that also manufacture peanut snacks.)

5. Baggie of cereal. Cheerios, Kix, Lucky Charms, whatever your favorite is really.

6. String Cheese

7. Crackers and cheese or peanut butter.

8. Graham crackers with cream cheese

9. Applesauce. (This also goes well with graham crackers.)

10. Apples, oranges, bananas. Fresh fruit is always a good option.

June: School’s Out: Recipe

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​For the past several summers, my kids have enjoyed taste testing. They’ve already asked about it this year, and school isn’t quite finished yet. I would go to the supermarket and pick out three to five new foods to try, usually exotic fruits that they didn’t typically get on a regular basis. I’d only get one of each and cut them into pieces for each of us to have a taste. If we really liked something, we’d go back to the store for more.

This is truly a great summer activity. Try new foods, offer healthy choices, add to our vocabulary, increase kitchen skills, and tick another day off the countdown back to school. At this age, the kids join me about halfway through wanting to return to their friends and schedules.

Not everything will go over well. My son desperately wanted anchovies. We ordered a pizza with two slices only with anchovies. The picture of his face is priceless and still makes me laugh. Just mentioning the word anchovy makes his whole face scrunch up. He did not like them at all.

Here is a list (below the cut) of some of the things we’ve tried, some we’re still thinking about fot this year, and suggestions for your own taste test day.

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Food for Travel

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Our family travels by car 99% of the time. With three kids, they either want to stop to eat or stop to use the bathroom. Anyone who has ever stopped on a highway area rest area will know that their prices are at least one third higher than the nearest exit. Unfortunately, the nearest exit is usually about five miles from the place with the food and/or the bathroom. When our kids were very young, we brought everything with us. It was certainly cheaper to bring a full box of Cheerios and a box of Pop-Tarts, buying a gallon of milk and a pound of cheese from the local supermarket. I also packed goodies for Mommy & Daddy like a 12 pack of soda so we don’t have to spend our money in the overpriced hotel vending machines.
In a hotel, we always ask for a room with a refrigerator. Many come with microwaves. Almost all have coffee makers, which is also perfect for boiling water for tea.

Most of our choices worked for both a weekend or week long vacation out of town as well as a visit out of town to Grandma’s.

Some of our favorites:
Non-Perishable:

Cheerios
Raisins/Dried Cranberries
Granola
Granola bars
Pretzels
Water
Juice boxes

Perishable items to Buy Locally:

Milk
Cheese
Cottage Cheese
Yogurt

Other Items to Think About:

Tea bags (the only place I didn’t bring my own tea was my trip to the UK)
Single serve instant Coffee

I try to avoid chocolate unless you’re going to eat it within the first couple of hours. No matter the season, the car gets very hot, and chocolate will melt, ruining whatever you’ve put it into.

Ziploc or other zipper plastic bags – they have dozens of uses.
Despite all of these snack choices, remember to have some money for a midnight snack and to avoid extra ATM fees.

Add you own must have snacks and/or travel food in the comments.

Tomorrow: Travel Tech