Healthy Super Bowl!

For those of my readers not in the United States, a brief explanation.  Super Bowl Sunday (today) is the final, championship game of our football (meaning American football, not football meaning soccer -oh, never mind) season. People gather to drink lots of beer, eat lots of snacks, gorge on mass quantities of fried chicken wings with caloric sauces, and watch commercials that cost millions of dollars.  And, somewhere in there, there is a sports match and a half time show featuring celebrity singers.

"Healthy" and "Super Bowl" normally do not go together. And, if you aren't careful, "delicious" and "healthy" variations of high fat items do not go together, either.

The first time we tried to make healthy snacks, it was New Years Eve, 2012, I was new to Weight Watchers and much of the food my spouse made was inedible.  Dry. Tasteless  Ugh. We decided that, in the future, we would not try to do "healthy" makeovers of fatty food, but rather, forge our own trail.  I've repeated this post several times, updating it each year, so here goes:

So, we have (no pun intended) lightened up a bit.  It's a splurge day.

We will have guacamole, although we won't make it in this device.  It is so simple - peel ripe avocadoes, mash (we like ours a little chunky), add chopped sweet pepper (orange, yellow, red), garlic, scallions, a little salt, a touch of homemade ground chili pepper (my spouse's own secret mix, so I can't tell you) and a touch of lime juice. Just don't eat too much.  Easier said than done.

We serve with chips, one of our splurges.  Or, make your own baked ones - take fresh corn tortillas, cut into triangles (pizza cutter works great for this), spread on cookie sheet, bake at 400 degrees F until they start to turn light brown.  (Celsius folks, you are on your own-sorry.)

Salsa makes a wonderful dip and is point free. It's so easy to make, too, if you have good fresh tomatoes available. If not, use canned dice tomatoes (preferably fire roasted diced tomatoes).  Simply chop up ripe fresh tomatoes or use the canned ones, combine with chopped pepper and onions, season with cilantro, lime juice, salt to taste, jalapenos if you like it spicy.  Or, buy it pre-made in the refrigerated section of your market.

We don't bother with low fat versions of high fat dips - we are not fans of fat free mayonnaise or fat free sour cream.  You can substitute fat free Greek yogurt with a touch of lime juice (for zing) for sour cream, and on the current WW program (what Weight Watchers is called now), fat free plain Greek yogurt and beans are point free.  An easy dip can be made with the fat free yogurt, a can of black beans, some cilantro, salsa, just blending it to consistency.  Add jalapenos for spice.

We also plan to make turkey chili - chicken and turkey breast are also point free on the current program.  Sadly, avocadoes still have points (SmartPoints, in the current system).

I don't think I'll even miss the fried, gloppy wings.  My pocketbook will thank us, too.



Do you make your own snacks?