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Everyone's got their favorite snacks and secret addictions. The only criteria for eligibility in this thread is that if any preparation is required, it must be less than 60 seconds to be considered a 'fast snack'.

I'll kick it off with one of my many favorites ... Indian pappadams. They're thin wafers of spiced lentil flour dough that are either grilled or fried.

The fastest way to make them is to put one large one (or 2 small ones) on a paper towel and microwave it on high for 60 seconds ... it'll puff, ripple, and turn golden and crispy ... like a giant potato chip made from lentil flour. They come in a variety of flavors, including cracked black pepper, cumin seeds, dried green chilies, and plain. I like all of them. They're also much healthier than potato chips - since the flour comes from ground lentils they're a very complex carbohydrate and thus have a very low glycemic index, they're low in fat and they're high in protein.

If you have a little more time, they're even better toasted on a hot grill or a heavy griddle.

Tastier still, if you dont mind a little fat, is when they're fried in oil ... they puff up much bigger, and the flavor is richer. Think of it as the lentil equivalent of making tortilla chips out of corn tortillas. Great stuff, and very party friendly. People love them, and they're fascinated at seeing how they're made.

Great plain, with hummus, with chutney, or with pureed herb sauces.

Not to sound lowest common denominator, but:

1. Raw broccoli with LIBERAL portions of cream cheese

2. Toast and peanut butter

3. Mozzarella cheese gratings and turkey breast coldcut, all melted on whole wheat toast.

4. WATERMELON...WATERMELON...WATERMELON....

Saltine cracker and peanut butter mini sandwiches, while they are fast to make I tend to make one eat on, make one , eat one, make one eat one …

Take a hollow chocolate Easter egg fill it with peanut butter – a much better peanut butter cup

Plain Pistachios - not the red or white dyed ones.

FELON: Oooh, I have some tips I learned on two of those to share:

1. "RAW" BROCCOLI FLORETTES: When cut as is, straight from the supermarket, they're very bitter and they have a turquoise tinge to them. One of the secrets I've learned about good crudites, when it comes to broccoli, is to briefly blanche the florettes for 15 seconds in a large pot of boiling water ... then scoop them out immediately, drop into ice water, and then strain them. Doing that takes away the sharp powdery-tannic bitterness, brightens and 'fixes' the color to a deep green, and yet still leaves the florettes raw and very crisp ... perfect for dips and salads. It's not practical for solitary snacking, but it's a great trick to know if you're doing a crudite platter for a party.

4. WATERMELON: As is the case with good tomatoes, only more so, you'd be surprised at how few people know the basics on how to pick a good watermelon at a supermarket. If you like your watermelon really sweet, look for the following ...

* A large yellowish discoloration on one side ... that's a good indication that it was probably ripened ON THE VINE, on the ground (i.e., the blemish is where the melon was laying in the dirt). Melons that lack it may have been picked too early (before they were fully ripe), and ripened further off-the-vine in cold storage ... those tend to considerably less sweet. If you've ever had an underripe honeydew or cantelope, you'll know what I'm talking about.
* You want a melon that feels as heavy as possible for it's size, but not so ripe that it sloshes when you shake it. If it sloshes, there's a decent chance it may be overripe (or damaged from mishandling) and starting to turn mealy/mushy/watery inside. If it feels underweight, it may have been picked too soon.
* For watermelon, you want a dense hard, brightly colored rind. For cantelope, you want the opposite ... a rind with a slight give (but not to the point of being spongy) and a faint bouquet of the flesh within.

GHOST: Oooh, I love pistachios too. Agreed about the undyed and lightly salted ones being best. I've also got an addition to mint-pistachio ice cream. I can get them fairly cheap at a local indo-pak market, and then I store them in a vaccum-sealed canister ... they stay fresh about 4-6x longer that way.

More favorites, in no particular order:

* Beef Jerky (the only thing limiting my consumption is the cost, jaw fatigue, and the excessive salt ... I'm addicted)
* Gourmet Olives (definitely NOT pre-pitted)
* Marinated artichoke hearts (snack jar size)
* Werther's Original Hard Candies
* Flour tortilla with whatever shredded or sliced cheese that's handy, and a generous dash of hot sauce ... microwave 35 seconds or until melted, and roll into a burrito.

Here's my list:

Salted Cashews
Roasted and salted almonds
Toast and Peanut butter--sometimes I think I subsist on it
Peanut Butter Crackers
Spicy BBQ-flavored pork skins--plain ones do just about as well
Pan-warmed flour torillas slathered with butter (it has to be REAL butter) and salsa and rolled up like a burrito--very tasty. I also eat the torillas plain--love 'em! When I buy them, I usually eat them all in a couple hours--if not less.
A good loaf of pumpernickel bread--I eat it plain. I love the stuff.
Dry Cheerios or dry Raisin Bran--a very tasty and easy snack.
Pimento Cheese Sandwhiches--yummy.
Fresh pears w/sharp cheddar cheese--the sharper the better.
...and I can't think of any more at the moment.

Another one I do like, though it takes longer than 60 seconds to prepare, is Bacon, Pickle, and Mayonaise sandwiches...One day I had an urge for a BLT but as I was cooking the bacon I suddenly realised my roommate had used up all the tomatoes and lettuce the day before...frantic, I looked through the fridge, hoping to find something...And my eyes lit upon the unopened jar of Kosher dills in the back and inspiration struck. To my suprise, it was pretty tasty...I've been eating them ever since...

/me improvises an upscale version of Aunflin's snack ...

Today's special ... ahem ... "Toast points of artisan bread, with crumbled applewood smoked bacon, and dill pickle remoulade".

Hey, that actually sounds pretty good.

Oh, and amen to toasted cashews.

I also like hazelnuts (filberts) ... roast em (in the shells) on a baking sheet for exactly 23 minutes at 350F, or until the shells darken slightly, then let em cool. The flavor is about 3x more intense, and the nuts are nice and crisp. I toast a fresh batch every other week or so, for as long as they're in season.

I also love walnuts (in the shell), in season ... opening then with your bare hands helps keep your hands strong all winter long. They go great with sliced pears, gorgonzola or stilton cheese and late harvest reisling (the classic pairing of roquefort and sauterne is doubly French, and therefore subject to my household boycott).

HEY!

French Cooking kicks a**, whether it's French or not!

When I'm starving and in a hurry, I like to peel a banana, spread peanut butter on it, and then drizzle some honey over top.....yum!

I like fried cheddar cheese.

Heat some oil in a pan, thinly slice some cheese, then fry the cheese for 7-20 seconds. Frying time varies on a few things: how hot the oil is, how much time is left, and how crunchy/crispy you like it. Fried cheese tastes similar to Cheez-it's(sp.?) but much more flavorful. I don't know the average time to prepare this but I've done it in less than 60 seconds on a few occasions(not quite sure how).




Norseraider

My snack appetite is pretty basic - a bag of Fritos, some garlic-flavored dip, and a handful (or 3) of Hershey's Kisses (milk chocolate only) as dessert. (and no, I am not overweight!)

Chop up raw vegetables into slices, my favourites
*Carrots
*Celery
*Swede (rutabaga) (Brassica napus ssp. rapifera )

Make your own sour cream dip with
*real sour cream (not the light sour cream- an abomination to mention light or low fat and cream in the same sentence)
*a bit of salt
*ground white pepper
*dried origanum sativum
*dried paprika (dried bellpeppers from Hungary)

Okay, it may take longer than 60 s. to cut all the vegetables you'll need, but you may taste from the pile as you go along, so you've in essence already started snacking when you start preparing. The dip may be enjoyed at once and tastes good even then, but the taste gets better after a little while.

KEE

Hunter B wrote:I like fried cheddar cheese.

Heat some oil in a pan, thinly slice some cheese, then fry the cheese for 7-20 seconds. Frying time varies on a few things: how hot the oil is, how much time is left, and how crunchy/crispy you like it. Fried cheese tastes similar to Cheez-it's(sp.?) but much more flavorful. I don't know the average time to prepare this but I've done it in less than 60 seconds on a few occasions(not quite sure how).




Norseraider

Fried cheese! That just made me think of the Opa! (or is it opah...the ol' minds blanking out ATM) I had a little Greek restaurant a couple weeks ago--it was awesome! So was the sauce made from smoked cod :drool: They have really good food there.

An old Greek lady does all the cooking, her son waits tables/manages the place, her husbands sets around doing a whole lot of nothing...and they have one waitress and a dishwater--it's a real small place. But the food is excellent! It just opened three months ago. I think I need to go there a few more times before everyone else finds out about it--then it'll be so packed it will be impossible to get in.

When me and my friends ate there, we sat at the employee break table, talked to the owner, his mother, and the waitress...it was a rather interesting experience.

One thing I love to eat is dessicated apricots. Those are yummy.

plain Brazil nuts--the kind intended for baking, not the dry roasted and salted kind, though those are good too. They're even better when you can get them in the shell and crack them open yourself.

black olives, chilled

sardines and saltines. Delightful.

toaster waffles.

toast with butter and low sugar apricot jam.

cheetos--baked is better than fried.

cream cheese wontons made with the really light rice flour shell. yummy

"Ice Cubes" little squares of truly amazing chocolate wrapped in blue and silver foil. AAAAahhhhhhh. HEAVEN.

Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia Ice Cream (The frozen yogurt's not bad either.)

KEE wrote:Chop up raw vegetables into slices, my favourites
*Carrots
*Celery
*Swede (rutabaga) (Brassica napus ssp. rapifera )

Make your own sour cream dip with
*real sour cream (not the light sour cream- an abomination to mention light or low fat and cream in the same sentence)
*a bit of salt
*ground white pepper
*dried origanum sativum
*dried paprika (dried bellpeppers from Hungary)

Okay, it may take longer than 60 s. to cut all the vegetables you'll need, but you may taste from the pile as you go along, so you've in essence already started snacking when you start preparing. The dip may be enjoyed at once and tastes good even then, but the taste gets better after a little while.

KEE

I like broccoli that way too, but it's very bitter/tannic if served totally raw. For that reason I like to 'shock' it - which (as a friend of mine trained me to do) involves flash-blanching in boiling water for 3-5 seconds (just long enough to fix the color and kill the bitterness), and then instantly transferring them to ice water, to stop them from cooking and turning rubbery. It's a neat trick. You can do the same with carrot sticks and cauliflour, but it's not as essential for them.

In the summer, I adore freshly grilled seafood. Sometimes, I'll leave work a little early ... just to grab something and get home in time to grill before the sun sets. Give me some cold white wine (or a good dry pilsner), some lemon or lime wedges, some seafood (it almost doesnt matter what, as long as it's fresh and clean), and a hot grill, and I'm good to go. It doesnt get much better than that.

Heck, sometimes I've even been known to do it for breakfast, BEFORE work. Breakfast on the grill, with or without seafood, is a treat too ... esp on weekends.

p.s. Thread re-titled.

my favorite snack food is grape tomatos, when I can get them for a reasonable price/get them out of the garden.

While I was very little, I mis-took strawberries for tomatos, and have never liked them since.

Another favorite is teh sugar-coated peanuts (which I get ~$2 apound).

Or cheese & chrackers (I pre-cut the cheese, and use it as a snack in the car, easy and not to un-healthy, compared to french fries :p)

magicfan241

Vegans, avert your gaze ...

One of my biggest guilty pleasures is goat curry. After a hard workout at the gym this morning, I stopped by a nearby indian restaurat for lunch on my way to work ... ostensibly to graze the buffet. Lo and behold, one of my favorite dishes was in the day's rotating lineup: a rich goat curry, slow-simmered, on the bone, and by bones I mean BONES ... marrow bones & neck bones, which, when slow simmered, impart a lot of richness and gelatin to the sauce. Yum. What can I say - there's just something ancient and primal about sucking tender meat, directly off the bone, and then afterwards sucking the marrow-goodness out of what's left.

After 2 large plates of naan, goat curry, saag paneer, some chickpea curry, herbed potatoes, lentil soup, and a nice chilled bowl of fresh house-made yogurt, and a 187 ml mini-bottle of sparkling cava, I was a very happy and contented camper.

mmm one of my favorite quickie snacks is a sliced bagel with grainy mustard, slices of kielbassa (sp?) and sharp cheddar cheese melted on top. You can either eat it as an open-faced sandwich, or just put the good stuff on one side of the bagel and eat it as a traditional sandwich.

Ah ... I'm fortunate to have an authentic Polish deli on one of my alternate routes to work. About once every other month or so, I'll give in to a kielbasa craving, and stop by there on the way to work (or on the way home, if I leave early enough) ... kielbasa, mustard, and fresly baked soft rye. Mmmm.

I like to take the crust off a slice, cut a 4" chunk of sausage, wrap the bread around it, and squeeze it until the soft bread forms a pig-in-blanket ... then you just dip in mustard and eat as you go.

Tollbaby and Brad

STOP! You're making me hungry and I just ate!

Sue

/me sneaks out to Taco bell, when nobody's looking.

BRAD! I'm shocked LOL

Actually, lately, my snack of choice (and no wonder my jeans are tight) is a broccoli and cheddar stuffed croissant (or a spinach & feta). DELICIOUS, but terrible for the waistline. Can I pretend they're healthy because they've got leafy greens in them?

Hey, I was starving, and I'd forgotten to brown bag a dinner ... but a fresco-style half-pound beef combo burrito, and one of those new 'crunch-wrap' thingees (think flat round grilled burrito with a big corn tortilla chip in the middle) did the trick ... and a palmful of fire sauce packets to wash it down. Yes, I'd rather have waited til I got home so I could make something healthier, but I'm not stubborn enough to starve on principle.