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“100-Calorie Snack Cookbook,” by Sally Sampson (Wiley, 2009; $18.95)
This author has written 20 specialty cookbooks, including 1998’s “The $50 Dinner Party” and 2002’s “Party Nuts!” (of which I’ve made about half the recipes).
Portion-controlled snacks are hot; what’s not is overly processed food in wasteful packaging. So Sampson has developed more than 250 recipes, grouping them in snack-speak chapters: Crunchy, Creamy and Cheesy, Salty, Carbs, Vegetables, Protein and more.
She told me it took six months to test the recipes. Sampson wanted to make sure the ingredients she used were widely accessible, so she went up and down grocery store aisles, spending lots of time in the produce departments, to see what consumers were buying.
“I learned a lot about snacking, that’s for sure,” she says. “If you’re hungry and need the volume, go for vegetables. If you want a taste of something sweet, keep the amounts small.”
If you like the salty-sweet combo, try her Chocolate Matchsticks. They couldn’t be simpler. Fifteen short, thin pretzel sticks, 2 teaspoons of melted chocolate chips. Dip the sticks, then dip again. Eat right away or allow the chocolate to set. That’s 100 calories.
Her recipes are fairly low in sodium and saturated fat. More important, a majority are in single servings.
Sampson recognizes that snacking is a personal thing. I might want Honey Peanut Butter Bites (made with Kashi cheddar cheese crackers, at that) one day and Green Beans With Tofu or Beef Au Poivre Sliders the next. You could make a meal out of a combo of soup and slider recipes. She also provides several lists of 100-calorie portions of natural foods.
Each recipe comes with a nutritional analysis, and Sampson’s work has been blessed with the endorsement of the director of the nutrition department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.
The following recipe serves 2, and I’m not embarrassed to say I ate the whole thing. Note the sodium’s higher here (542 mg) than in most of the book’s recipes.
Makes 2 servings.
2 1/2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon vodka (may substitute water, but I think the recipe’s better with the vodka!)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon curry powder
Place the tomatoes in a small bowl. Place the vodka, salt and curry powder in separate small bowls.
Dip just the tip of each tomato in the vodka, then the salt, then the curry powder. Snack happy.
– Adapted from Sally Sampson’s “100-Calorie Snack Cookbook”
