A ramble about snacks and easy meals

I got really into ants on a log recently - celery sticks spread with peanut butter and dotted with raisins. I'm not even particularly into raisins but I found this a very satisfying snack. The crunch of the celery, the creamy salty-sweet of the peanut butter, and the pops of chewy sweetness from the raisins really checks all the boxes. It's not time-consuming to make - if you turn a bunch of celery into sticks ahead of time, especially - and it feels like a treat.

I read an article once that said the key to a good snack is produce + protein, so you have fiber and bulk from the produce, and protein to make it stick longer. I would make the friendly amendment that it's produce + protein + a little fat. If you want to feel satiated, a little fat with your protein makes a huge difference. Most protein sources come with their own fat, of course, cheese and nuts and meat and even hummus, but if you've got some skim dairy or protein powder going on you might need to add some fat in.

Ants on a log certainly fits that description. Apple and peanut butter or almonds - if you want to make it special, slice the apple and sprinkle it with pumpkin pie spice blend. Carrots and hummus; get a flavored hummus or sprinkle it with salad dressing for variety. A ways back I was doing cucumber slices with chocolate hummus, which is a...particular taste that I don't know I'll go back to, but can work when you really want dessert but need something that's going to stick with you a little better. A common weekend breakfast for me that is also kind of snacky is plain yogurt with frozen cherries, almonds, and granola on top.

This blog has been dormant because my desire to try out new recipes and cook things that excite me has run up against limitations of time and energy, as I deal with a to do list that has felt like it never got shorter for the past several months. Which is something that will just happen sometimes, and I'd like to be able to weather without resorting to unsatisfying food. I did definitely resort to uninspiring food sometimes, and it had a noticeable negative effect on my contentment beyond just food; it sends a message to yourself if you feed yourself things you don't particularly like. The dawn is breaking now and I have plans to cook a few things this week, which has brought me back here to the blog and this post I started drafting quite some time ago.

So, on the topic of easy food that I still like - brie-apple melts have shown up multiple times; I've made shakshuka once or twice; I haven't been reducing the batch size as much for whatever I cook, so as to have more leftovers. Beans and rice with tomatoes and other vegetables freezes well for quick dinners. Lentil soup with sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onion, and chard is great, especially with lemon juice added right before eating. Grilled cheese with butternut squash soup (which is excellent garnished with cashews) can be more than a weekend lunch. I discovered that a salad with celery, carrot, cucumber, and a little shredded cheese is fantastic topped with chopped rotisserie chicken that has been heated in a non-creamy salad dressing (I've been using Newman's Own Sesame Ginger). A few nights I simply had cereal - I made the pleasant discovery that although cereal is not something that typically holds me for more than an hour, if I only have it when it really, really sounds like exactly what I want for dinner, it works.

I got a premade veggie and hummus wrap at the grocery store one night for dinner and realized, wraps are very similar to salad + crackers, but in a different form factor that I find very satisfying. So my work lunches now have variety, after many years of being the same salad five days a week. I pack one container with vegetables and a broken up slice of cheddar, a second with hummus and a little salad dressing, and I save the bags the wraps come in so I can use them to transport single wraps. The vegetables are some combination of lettuce, spinach, and other greens if I have them, with whatever's on hand of thin-sliced bell pepper, cucumber, carrots, radishes, and red onion. I expect both sprouts and matchsticked jicama would be good, and I am soon going to try my beloved Stonewall Kitchen Spicy Corn Relish as the "seasoning" in place of salad dressing.

I'm still in the market for low-effort meal ideas, and snacks and breakfasts as well. But I think I am also ready to start making meals again that merit individual blog posts!