We’re two weeks away from Super Bowl Sunday, a day where the snack planning is as important as the guest list.
Those snacks can add 1,000 calories or more to your day; and each beer is 150-170 calories per 8-ounce portion (porter and stout have higher calories).
Here are some tips to save calories on favorite Super Bowl snacks. They’re provided by THE NIBBLE and health and fitness expert Dr. Eric Plasker, best-selling author of The 100 Year Lifestyle and The 100 Year Lifestyle Workout.
January 24, 2010 at 8:48 am
· Filed under Beverages
If your coffee is too bitter, try different
beans. Photo by Klaus Post | SXC.
Some people enjoy the bitter quality of coffee; some wish it were a tad less bitter.
The level of bitterness in coffee is a result of the bean variety, how it is processed and roasted, the brewing method, temperature and the chemical content of the water.
If you’d like a less bitter cup, here are some tips from the Coffee Research Institute:
Buy a medium-roast arabica coffee, brew using a drip system and try a coarser grind.
Don’t use distilled water. While logic might say it makes better coffee, hard and soft water have chemicals that cancel out the bitterness.
If you haven’t yet begun to make good on that New Year’s resolution to eat healthier and/or lose weight (and we’re guilty of that!), read our recommendations of 10 appliances that help you cook enjoyable, lower-calorie foods.
Take a look at how you can benefit from:
An electric food steamer
A food dehydrator
Countertop grills
A vertical rotisserie
A pressure cooker
An electric wok
Vapor cookware
An electric frother
A loose leaf tea brewer
See them all and decide if they can help you with your eating goals.
This food steamer makes it easy to cook
three different types of healthy veggies
at once. Photo courtesy JCPenney.com.
Make your own flavored waters as a treat
for yourself and your guests. Photo by
Kelly Cline IST.
Who needs bottled water—serve your guests an elegant pitcher of lemon cucumber water, evoking centuries past.
1. In a two-quart pitcher, cut half a cucumber into 1/8″ slices. If it’s a waxed cucumber, use a carrot peeler to remove most of the waxy peel before slicing, but leave some decorative “stripes” by peeling the cucumber vertically, leaving long strips of peel at 1″ intervals.
2. Cut a lemon and/or lime into 1/8″ slices, removing the seeds. Add to the pitcher.
3. Fill with water. Refrigerate for 4 hours or more to chill and let the flavors infuse. (When you’ve finished all the water you can add more to the same cucumber and lemons, although you’ll get a lighter infusion.)
4. You can also layer the flavors by adding other favorites, such as fresh rosemary.
We drink a quart of this zero-calorie flavored water daily. It’s earth-friendly—there are no bottles to dispose of. And it’s refreshing and delicious!
One of the challenges of the food-writing profession is that, to do a really good job of it, you’ve got to taste everything straight off the spoon. Even hot sauce. Otherwise, the flavor of the bread, chicken or other food you’re using as a base gets in the way.
Tasting soy sauce from the spoon was a tough job. We were concerned that our Big Papi En Fuego hot sauce tasting would take out our taste buds for the rest of the day. But Big Papi is such a fine product, that even the XXX-Tra Hot version was enjoyable (very hot, but flavorful).
There’s a lot of small-batch hot sauce out there, made by hot sauce lovers who haven’t been satisfied with what they’ve found on the market. So they gather up the best ingredients starting with fresh chiles (many brands are made with chile extract—just a liquid without any texture or nuance).
One of those hot sauce lovers is the Boston Red Sox slugger David “Big Papi” Ortiz. Working with a product development company and the finest chiles, he’s developed a line of Louisiana-style hot sauce that is so flavorful, it’s a pleasure to eat from the spoon. Each is a different chile blend, and even the hottest of the four delivered great taste in addition to heat. We never go for hot salsa—we have a delicate palate. So consider how good these are.
So thick, fruity and luscious: Big Papi hits
this hot sauce out of the park. Photo by
Evan Dempsey | THE NIBBLE.
And, they’re calorie free! Made from vinegar, chiles and salt, this is a condiment you can sprinkle onto (and into) anything. Read the full review and heat things up a bit.
Don’t know the difference between jalapeño and habanero? Never heard of the Scoville Scale? Check out our Chile Glossary.
Want more than hot sauce? Our Gourmet Condiments reviews include chutney, ketchup, mustard, mayo, olives, pickles, and more.
