The Perfect Snack

When you're trying to eat healthier or lose weight it's often the cravings that are your undoing.  You just feel like something a little savoury or something a little sweet and the next thing you know you've eaten a whole packet of chips or a whole chocolate bar!

The trouble is a lot of healthy snacks become very monotonous.  They just don't seem to hit the spot. Salted nuts might do it for me but raw nuts certainly don't.  By raw almond number eight I'm still feeling unsatisfied.  Sometimes we're looking for the feel good.

Then I hit upon the idea of making my own trail mix, full of mostly healthy foods but a good variety.  I make up a large bowl of the trail mix and then divide it into small plastic bags so I remain aware of how much I am eating.   I find the mix gives me a good selection to pick through and there is usually something there that hits the spot to put an end to any cravings.  By the time I've had a few nibbles from it I'm usually feeling satisfied.   

Eating a handful of raw seeds or nuts on their own feels to me like a bit of a chore or even deprivation but when they're in a mix suddenly they seem to take on a new appeal and no longer seem so bland. Variety really does seem to be the spice of life!

I usually put all or some of these into my mix:

Banana chips (dried)
Crispy noodles
Pretzels
Crystallized ginger
Dried apricots
Dried fruit such as pears, apples, cranberries, mangoes, melon, pineapple, blueberries etc (use whatever you enjoy)
Dark Chocolate buttons or dark chocolate pieces
Sultanas
Raisins
Glace cherries
Sunflower seeds
Pumpkin seeds
Brazil nuts
Cashew nuts
Walnuts
Almonds
Peanuts
Pistachios

Other options:
Coconut
Carob buttons

 It is easy to adapt this to individual tastes by making a basic mix that everyone likes, dividing it and then adding particular items.   For example Andrew likes pineapple but I do not, so dried pineapple is added to his portion but not mine.

I limit the dried fruit in mine and usually have more seeds. 

Pumpkin Scones

If you're making pumpkin scones it's easy to go into pumpkin overload and make pumpkin scones.

Simply keep back a cup of that cooled, mashed pumpkin. Alternatively boil and mash a cup of pumpkin especially for the purpose.

Place it in a large bowl with 1 fresh, free range egg and ¼ a cup of sugar. Cream them together (just beating them together works fine too).

Add 2 tbsp of melted butter and mix.

Next add 2 cups of flour, 4 tsps of baking powder and a little salt and mix it all together. Add a dash of milk if necessary to bind it a little more and then transfer the dough to a lightly floured board. Knead very lightly (it won't take much) and roll out till it’s about 2.5 cm or 1 inch or so tall. Use a cooker cutter or glass to cut the dough into round scones. 

Put scones onto a lightly floured cooking tray. Cook in a hot oven (200C or 390F) for 10 to 15 minutes, watch they don’t burn!

Let them cool off a little on a baking rack and when they're still warm and fresh they're just perfect to eat, especially with a bowl of good soup on a cold, winter's day.  Simple, quick, cheap, tasty and really good.  

Course there are other ways to play with pumpkins too......

Pikelets

When I was growing up it was quite common for my mother or the lady of the house to "whip up" (as they said) a batch of fresh scones or pikelets for morning or afternoon tea or for unexpected visitors.  They were quick, filling, very cheap to make and when they're fresh and just cooled - delicious - especially with lashings of butter and homemade jam.  Of course if you were especially impatient or starving as us kids would cry,  you could even butter them hot and have butter and jam dripping all over you!

My sister and I loved convincing our mother to let us use the last of the pikelet mixture to make our own "gingerbread man" - or perhaps she would do it for us.  Either way the "gingerbread man" could range from a reasonably elegant and well defined chap to Mr Blobby!  I also used to enjoy watching the bubbles form in the pikelet mixture as they cooked - you're very easily entertained when you're ten years old!

If we wanted to get really fancy we would whip fresh cream and have jam and whipped cream on the pikelets or scones, at which point - if served with tea - the scones would be designated a Devonshire tea. 

My recipe has changed a bit from my mothers over the years but I still think it's good fun to make fresh pikelets - and I notice they still vanish just as fast as they did forty or so years ago!

To Make Pikelets

Beat 2 fresh eggs, ½ cup of sugar and 1 tbsp of melted butter in a large glass bowl until thick.

Add 2 cups of sifted flour, 2 tbsp of custard powder (or more flour if you have no custard powder), 2 good teaspoons of baking powder and 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix till combined (don’t overstir).

Add ¼ of a cup of sofa-type dry ginger ale (or other soda type drink), 1 and a ¼ cups of milk and 1 tsp of vanilla essence. Mix till combined (again, try not to overstir).

Set a large frying pan on a low to medium heat - a stainless steel or non-stick pan seems to work better than cast iron - and lightly grease it with butter. Drop about 1 tablespoon of mixture into the pan for each pikelet and cook a few minutes on each side until brown. I use my old electric frying pan and usually do 4 at a time.

Eat them as soon as they are cooled, the fresher the better - with butter and honey or golden syrup or raspberry, strawberry or some other kind of jam.

If you want to fancy them up for visitors or just for more of a treat let them cool right down and then spread them with some jam and freshly whipped cream on top, or you could do what I did above - spread them with strawberry jam, add some whipped cream, some sliced strawberries and a sprinkling of icing sugar.

Below : Pikelets in the pan and then cooling off.