SNACK YOUR WAY TO 5 VEG A DAY

You’ve probably realised by now that I’m a little obsessed with getting in my veg each day. I think it helps keep my diet balanced and my body happy. I find that having vegetable based snacks really helps me do this. This post contains 4 snack ideas and a new recipe for some yummy vegetable crackers, as well as handy information on how many serves of veg these snacks will give you.

I’ve based the ‘serving of vegetable’ calculations on these handy info graphics, this UK website  and this Australian one. But doing your own research is great so have a look at the websites if you would like to get some more ideas about serving sizes.

I started to look into  all this when I decided that I didn’t ever want to diet again. Then promised myself I wouldn’t. Dieting and I don’t mix, it’s not that I don’t stick to them or ‘succeed’ with them, it’s more that I can get a bit obsessive. I start knowing the calorie content of everything I eat and put unreasonable pressure on myself, which results take in me taking it a bit far. That’s not healthy, and neither is yo-yo dieting. Instead of obsessing about this stuff I’m more concerned about making sure I have a varied diet full of vegetables (and legumes), whole grains, protein and fruit + anything else I really want to eat at the time. Focusing on including these things in my diet makes eating fun, and also means that when I’m out (and at home) I’m not obsessing about the calorie content of a meal but making the best choice in terms of what I need to get in my body that day. Like having a side salad with my burger haha. I’ve probably said most of this before!

This probably still sounds a little obsessive but I actually don’t stress about, it’s just something I try to be mindful of as often as I can. When I’m not eating cake or enjoying a wine with some sort of delicious cheese platter. Speaking of cheese… (I want to speak about cheese a lot of the time. Cheese is delicious) Most of these snacks came about to try and replace my afternoon cheese and cracker snacking. As this had started to happen a little more often than it probably should.

The Snacks:

Vegetables and Hummus (a whopping 3 serves of veg whoop whoop)

6 (12 small) carrot sticks, 6 (12 small) celery sticks and 3 Tbs of hummus to dip them in.

Apparently legumes count as 1 serve no matter how much you have… 

Cucumber bites (3.5* serves of vegetables, yeahhhhh)

10 x 1cm thick cucumber slices topped with hummus and pesto

*note this will depend on your pesto serving size, .5 if you use 2 Tbs

Snow peas (1 hand full =1 serve of veg)

These need nothing else, just eat them raw especially during spring – yum. Food doesn’t need to be difficult or fancy to be enjoyable and nutritious.

 

Vegetable Crackers with Dip (2 serves of veg*)

I love crackers, and these are gluten free + full of vegetables and seeds.

*This will totally depend on what type of dip you use, click here for some great recipes.

Ingredients

2 cups raw cauliflower, florets and stalks

1 zuchinni very finely grated

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup flaxseed

3 Tbs sesame seeds

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

3 Tbs Olive oil

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cumin seed

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degree celsius. Place pumpkin, flax and sunflower seeds in a food processor and blend until you have mix of fine powder and chunks of seed , remove and set aside. Place cauliflower in the food processor and pulse until very fine, couscous like granules. Either use the finest grater setting your food processor has or use a grater/microplane to grate the zucchini as finely as possible and add to the cauliflower.

Add the seed mix to the blender along with the sesame seeds , buckwheat flour, other seasonings and olive oil and pulse to combine.

Mixture should be dough like. Sprinkle some extra buckwheat flour on to a baking tray sized piece of baking paper and empty 1/2 the cracker dough (it will be a very wet mix) onto it, top with another piece of baking paper. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough as thin as you can. Using a knife gently score the dough into triangles or rectangles in your preferred cracker size. You want it to break easily into cracker sized pieces when cooked. Repeat with other half of the dough.

Place in the middle rack of the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden and cooked through. How long they take to get crispy will depend on how thin you managed to roll them. Remove from tray and cool on a baking rack. Once cool break into scored pieces.

Dip into hummus, pumpkin dip or any other dip you’ve got on hand – or just eat them naked! (the cracker not you, but do as you please with your rad naked cracker eating  self)

HH. x

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2 comments

    1. Hi Sheri,

      I’ve just edited it out as I used water in an earlier recipe that didn’t have the zucchini in it and was thus drier it, and forgot to remove it from the ingredients in this updated version – sorry!!!

      HH. x

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