Snacks Archives - America's Table

Mango Pomegranate Guacamole with Honey and Smoke Mezcal Cocktail

America's Table — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 09:00:20 +0000

Ah! It’s football season and one’s thoughts turn to … guacamole. What I like most about watching football is the food, and this is a super-charged guac recipe. As an added bonus, mezcal is big in the cocktail shaker universe these days, often offered as a tequila alternative.

I’ve included a recipe for a mezcal cocktail with honey and ginger beer and it’s particularly delicious. (I’ve not touched tequila since an unfortunate incident of overindulgence with my suitemate, Sally Yoder, in college. I missed three days of classes and lost five pounds. It was like being poisoned by my own hand.)

Neither of these recipes are dangerous – just delicious. Add some good, salty nachos and you really don’t need anything else for the first quarter. Enjoy!

Mango Pomegranate Guacamole
Adapted from Gourmet Mexico
Prep time: 20 minutes
Serves: 6

Ingredients

4 ripe avocados
1 cup white onion, finely chopped
2 serrano chiles (about 2 tablespoons,) finely chopped and including seeds
¼ cup fresh lime juice plus lime slices for garnish
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
¾ cup pomegranate seeds
¾ cup diced, peeled mango
½ cup chopped cilantro

Directions

Nachos as an accompaniment
Peel and pit avocados, and mash coarsely. Stir in onion, chiles, lime juice and salt. Add pomegranate seeds, mango and cilantro, and an additional squeeze of lime juice.
Guac can be made up to four hours in advance if you cover surface completely with plastic wrap or parchment paper, but it must be refrigerated. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Honey and Smoke Mezcal Cocktail
Prep time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

½ cup honey simple syrup
1 cup mezcal
1 cup ginger beer
Juice from ½ lime

To make the honey simple syrup:

½ cup honey
½ cup water

Directions

Boil water and pour over honey. Whisk to mix together.
Put serving glasses in freezer. Combine honey syrup, mezcal and lime juice in a tumbler and shake for ten seconds. Pour over ice and top with ginger beer.
Remove glasses from freezer (they will be frosty) and garnish with lime slice.

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Baked Apple Slices

America's Table — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 09:00:21 +0000

Apples are such a primal food – satisfying, long-lasting, portable, and good for you. Earlier this year I embarked on a serious diet. Over four months I lost 16 pounds; eating apples helped me do it. I ate a couple a day, whenever I was really hungry or had a craving for sweets. I also started eating dried apples, which I found at the farmers’ market, and then came upon this recipe from Medical Medium for making my own baked apple slices. They have no preservatives, they’re sweet and spicy with a sprinkle of cinnamon (no sugar added, thank you) and they travel beautifully.

Most airports and train stations are food deserts, and finding a good apple at the magazine and junk food stores in terminals isn’t always possible (you know what I mean – those sad, waxy, fake-looking things.) Taking along a bag of baked apple slices keeps me on the dieting straight and narrow. Most of us have ‘cutouts’ when we’re dieting: “If we’re eating out I don’t have to stay on my diet,” or “I’m traveling, it’s okay to eat a can of Pringle’s and a Baby Ruth before takeoff.” (Now you see why I needed to drop a few.) This recipe is easy to make in big batches so you’ll always have some in the kitchen for a quick snack in front of the TV or on a road trip. Enjoy!

Baked Apple Slices
From the Medical Medium blog
Serves: Makes 50-60 apple slices
Prep time: 3 hours, including 2 and 1/2 hours of baking time

Ingredients

5 red-skinned apples
1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Remove stems from apples and using a sharp knife or a mandoline, cut the apples into thin discs.
Place parchment paper on two large baking sheets and layer the apples slices on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon and ginger, turn slices over and sprinkle with more.
Place baking sheets in oven and bake for one hour, before flipping them to the other side. Continue baking at low temperature for another 90 minutes, until apples are crispy. Allow to cool, store in an airtight container.

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Grapefruit Poppyseed Baked Doughnuts

America's Table — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:00:49 +0000

To me, the fall is the only excuse you need to make doughnuts, and every year I like to try a different version of a baked doughnut. This one has pink grapefruit (I wish you could smell how fresh and clean the batter smells!) It also has blue poppy seeds, which are produced in Canada and Holland, and though the color is pretty it doesn’t affect the way they taste. And finally, they’re baked instead of fried, dipped lightly in a mixture of melted butter, grapefruit zest, and a bit of sugar – no thick, icky frosting on these lovely girls.

Grapefruit Poppyseed Baked Doughnuts
Makes: 18 doughnuts
Prep time: One hour, which includes baking time for two batches at 25 minutes each
If you don’t have a baking pan for doughnuts, here’s a Wilton non-stick pan I found on Amazon. Or you can also use the same recipe in a muffin tin – just keep an eye on them so they bake only until nice and golden on top. Muffin tins come in wildly different sizes these days so I can’t give you a specific baking time.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons finely grated grapefruit zest
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup plain yogurt
8 tablespoons grapefruit juice
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
2 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons grapefruit juice

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cooking spray on a doughnut baking pan.
Work 1 tablespoon of grapefruit zest into 1 cup of sugar with your fingers until mixture sticks together, about a minute.
Add eggs, oil, and vanilla and beat with a mixer on high speed for four minutes. Reduce speed to low and mix in half of dried ingredients and ¾ cup of yogurt. Mix in rest of dry ingredients and 5 tablespoons of grapefruit juice and 1 tablespoon of poppy seed.
Pour batter into doughnut pan and bake for 20 minutes – only until they are just golden.
Transfer doughnuts to a baking rack, poke a few holes in each doughnut and brush remaining 3 tablespoons of grapefruit juice over doughnuts.
Mix together 2 tablespoons melted butter, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 3 tablespoons of grapefruit juice, and drizzle over tops of doughnuts.
Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon grapefruit zest and serve.

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Cheddar Caraway Crisps and Thyme Gougeres

America's Table — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 09:00:59 +0000

There’s nothing like a warm-and-puffy or thin-and-flaky homemade hors d’oeuvre to go with a chilled glass of rose’ or summer white wine. They’re just so delectable when they’re fresh out of the oven and melting blissfully on your tongue. Here are two recipes I love – and have made many times. They’re both herb-y and very ‘of-the-moment’ in the catering world. And easy – did I say easy? Enjoy!

Cheddar Caraway Crisps
Serves: Makes about 4 dozen thin crackers
Prep time: 3 hours (including chilling)

Ingredients

½ stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
½ pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated coarsely
1 egg yolk
½ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried mustard
½ teaspoon fresh black pepper
2 teaspoons caraway seeds plus 1 teaspoon for sprinkling on crackers before baking

Directions

Mix together butter, cheese and egg yolk in food processor. Add flour, mustard, and salt and pulse until combined loosely. Add caraway and pepper. Move dough to a sheet of wax paper and roll up into a log. Chill in refrigerator for several hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Remove log from fridge, unwrap, and cut into thin slices. Arrange on baking sheet and sprinkle with additional caraway, pressing them gently into the dough. Bake for ten minutes. Allow crackers to cool on a baking rack 15 minutes before serving.
Dough can be made and frozen up to two months. Crackers can be baked and stored in an airtight container for one week, if reheated for 5 minutes at 350 degrees before serving.

Thyme Gougeres
Serves: Makes 4 dozen
Prep time: 1 hour

Ingredients

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup flour
1 cup water plus one tablespoon water
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of sea salt
½ cup Asiago cheese, grated
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons Gruyere cheese, grated
2 teaspoons thyme leaves, finely chopped, plus leaves for garnish
5 eggs

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put butter and cup of water into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
Remove from heat and add flour, cayenne, and salt. Mix well.
Return to heat, and stir constantly at medium heat until mixture forms a ball and a dry film forms on bottom and sides of pan.
Transfer mixture to a mixer with a paddle attachment and add Asiago, 1 cup of the Gruyere and 2 teaspoons thyme. Add four eggs, one at a time, scraping down sides of bowl to ingredients are fully incorporated.
Spoon dough into pastry bag (or use a teaspoon to drop quarter-sized dollops of dough) onto parchment-lined backing sheets.
Whisk together last egg with 1 tablespoons water. Brush egg wash lightly over the gougeres, to smooth tops. Sprinkle with the rest of the Gruyere and thyme leaves.
Bake until puffed and golden, with moist centers – about 20 minutes. Serve while warm.

Note: These do not reheat well – they’re great cold – but reheating them will make them greasy.

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Halloween Popcorn Balls

America's Table — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 00:47:06 +0000

When I think of Halloween, my mind always turns to popcorn balls, those salty-sweet homespun sweets of my childhood. Our neighbor, Mrs. Snider, was a cheerful old lady with a little white bun on the back of her neck and sensible lace-up shoes that had been fashionable during World War II, and I never saw her without a cotton “farmer’s wife” apron like the ones my grandmother wore. When we showed up on her doorstep on Halloween, she would invite us into her kitchen and give each of us a brown paper bag filled with two enormous popcorn balls and a couple of pieces of her homemade peanut butter taffy. No matter what other booty we acquired on our trip up and down Chester Road, the popcorn balls were the first thing we ate when we got home.

We made such a fuss about them that my mother got the recipe from Mrs. Snider and we started making them ourselves. It wouldn’t have been Christmas at our house without popcorn balls, and I used to send batches to the girls in care packages when they were away at school, where they were wildly popular in the dorm. These are completely different from any commercial popcorn balls I’ve had, and though a little messy to assemble, (you have to spray your hands with kitchen spray to keep the popcorn from sticking to your hands) they are quick to make – and I promise they will disappear as soon as anyone gets a taste of them. So thank you, Mrs. Snider for all those popcorn balls and good memories!

POPCORN BALLS

Ingredients

2 gallons of popped corn (requires a large, lidded pot, one cup of unpopped popcorn and 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil)
1 ten-ounce bag of mini marshmallows
8 tablespoons butter, plus a little extra for rubbing on your hands to assemble the popcorn balls
salt to taste

Directions

Melt butter and marshmallows together in a large saucepan, over very low heat. Stir regularly.
Pop the popcorn in a large lidded pot, pouring the vegetable oil into the pot and heating to medium-high heat.
Pour the unpopped popcorn into the pot and put the lid on. Shake the pot when you begin to hear the popcorn popping, and lift it slightly off the heat and continue to shake as popping increases.
When you hear the popping slowing down, you should also hear the popped popcorn filling up the pot. Remove from heat immediately, and spread warm popcorn onto two baking sheets.
Remove any unpopped seeds or burned popcorn. Salt to taste. Microwave popcorn does not work for this recipe.
When marshmallow mixture is completely melted, pour mixture over popcorn, dividing it as evenly as possible between the two sheets.
Allow marshmallow mixture to cool until it can be touched without burning yourself, then rub hands with butter and plunge hands into the popcorn, mixing the marshmallow into the popcorn as thoroughly as possible.
Take a double handful of the popcorn/marshmallow mixture and squeeze tightly into the shape of a ball. Some of the popcorn will come away on your hand, but keep squeezing until the popcorn mixture holds together well enough for you to put it down.
Do the same with the remaining popcorn mixture, rubbing more butter on your hands as needed, to keep the popcorn from sticking to your hands.
Wash hands thoroughly, then go back to the first popcorn ball and squeeze it together tightly again. It will become more compact this time and will hold together more effectively. Give all of the popcorn balls a second squeeze to make sure they hold together well.
Store in airtight container. Keeps several days.

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