Make your snacks super

The Pats are not in the Super Bowl this year, so we’ll have to deal with that, but the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers are, so we can be happy for the people who root for those teams, right? Surely, you know someone in one of those cities to help you rustle up some enthusiasm when Super Bowl Sunday comes around on Feb. 7. It is, after all, the 50th, and that is quite a feat.

Super Bowl Sunday is also the second-largest one-day food consumption event, right after Thanksgiving Day. According to the Snack Food Association, we double our average daily snack food consumption on Super Bowl Sunday. We’ll eat 11 million pounds of potato chips, 13.2 million pounds of avocados in our guacamole, 8.2 million pounds of tortilla chips, 4.3 million pounds of pretzels, 3.8 million pounds of popcorn and 2.5 million pounds of snack nuts. Salty snacks last year topped the popularity contest at 45 percent of us popping them into our mouths, then dips, then pizza. Veggies and sweets were tied at 9th on the list of popularity. 51.7 million cases of beer will be consumed. The US Calorie Control Council says we’ll each consume about 1,200 calories and 50 grams of fat – in snacks alone. Add other foods and you might reach 2,000 calories. Heck, we’ll eat 7 percent of our annual chicken wing consumption on SBS – about 1.2 billion of them,

If you’ve decided to stay home for the big day, I have some great recipes I like to pull out each year covering a few of the important snacking categories. We eat hard pretzels with a sharp cheddar cheese and olives at our house so that will take up much of our caloric intake, but if you want to go fancier, here are some suggestions. 

First, your dip. We all know the onion dip from a mix is tough to stop eating. It's sweet and salty and creamy all, at the same time. The mix stuff is fine, but here are some good variations to try:

Caramelized Onion Dip

Heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a large skillet. Add 2 cups chopped onions. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally until gold in color, about 15 minutes. Uncover and cook to a deeper gold brown, stirring often. Cool. Mix three-fourths of a cup of mayo and three-fourths cup sour cream in a bowl. Stir in onions. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Chill about 2 hours.

Vidalia Onion Dip

Mix 2 cups shredded Swiss cheese, 2 cups chopped Vidalia onion and 2 cups mayo in a bowl. Pour into an 8-inch x 8-inch casserole. Bake at 375 degrees F until bubbly and slightly brown (about 30 minutes). Serve with round toasts of bread or crackers.

Bacon Onion Dip

Cook 4 slices bacon until crisp. Drain. Crumble. Stir bacon, 2 tablespoons chopped onion, and one teaspoon horseradish sauce into one cup sour cream. Chill.

And now for the nuts, you football nuts. Roasting nuts yourself brings out the flavor, and you can eat them all fresh and smokin’ from the oven. Add some spices, herbs or sweet stuff, and you have a new treat no one will stop eating.

To toast, spread nuts in a single layer on an ungreased baking pan. Place in 350F oven and bake 5 to 12 minutes or until nuts are golden brown; stir once or twice until toasty. Take off pan to cool. Nuts will continue to brown slightly after removed from oven, so be careful not to overdo them.

Sweet and fragrant walnuts

Boil one-half cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, one half teaspoon nutmeg, one quarter teaspoon cloves and one cup water to 236 degrees on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Add 2 cups walnuts in large pieces. Remove from heat and add walnuts. Stir. Place on waxed paper. Separate nuts using a fork.

Spicy nut mix

Preheat oven to 250F. Beat one egg white until foamy. Add two cups nuts (pecans, almonds, cashews, whatever). Toss to coat. Mix 2 tablespoons brown sugar and one teaspoon each of cumin, curry powder, seasoned salt and cinnamon and then one half teaspoon ground chili powder. Toss with nuts. Put on a greased baking sheet and bake until browned and toasted, checking a few times to make sure they don't burn. Cool and break apart.

Tabasco pecans

You can use any hot sauce for these. Heat oven to 250F. Place 2 tablespoons melted butter, 2 tablespoons hot sauce, 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce, one teaspoon cayenne, one-half teaspoon dry ground mustard and one-half teaspoon garlic powder in a bowl with 2 cups raw pecans or almonds. Toss to coat. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (single layer). Bake, stirring every 10 minutes until nuts are dark (about 40 minutes). Remove from oven and loosen nuts. Sprinkle with salt. Cool.

Other easy ideas are to toss shelled pistachios lightly in olive oil and chili pepper flakes or curry powder to taste. Bake for 20 minutes. Herbs also make good accents for party nuts. Any nut can be tossed with your favorite dried herb or spice -tarragon, sage, saffron, rosemary, even dill. Toss 2 cups toasted nut of choice with 2 tablespoons herb of choice, one tablespoon melted butter, one tablespoon vegetable oil ( I like to add a hint of truffle oil, too) and one teaspoon salt. Place on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 30 minutes at 300F, stirring occasionally. The nuts should be deep in color. Remove and loosen and then cool.

Rachel Forrest is a former restaurant owner who lives in Exeter (and Austin). Her column appears Thursdays in Go&Do. Her restaurant review column, Dining Out, appears Thursdays in Spotlight magazine. She can be reached by e-mail at rachel.forrest@localmediagroupinc.com.