What’s your favorite homemade snack food?

Admit, we all like to snack. My husband, especially so. He loves potato chips, tortilla chips, cookies and chocolates (well I like some of those things, too, though not on his frequency). Fortunately for him he has a speedy metabolism.

To counteract his snacks that sit around the house, I find myself nibbling on salads, hard-boiled eggs and raw vegetables. And because I work at home, I tend to nibble quite a bit instead of stopping to make myself lunch.(Bad, I know.)

But it’s winter and I remember an acupuncturist I knew long ago said not to eat raw vegetables and salads during the winter but to eat more root vegetables.

So I asked acupuncture goddess Jill Blakeway of Yinova Center, who is an absolute dear, the reason for this. (If you live in New York and need an acupuncturist, she’s the one to visit!)

Jill said that “Root veggies draw their energy from the earth and so are considered particularly nourishing and warming in the winter while salad veggies are cooling and draw their energy from the sun making them more suited to the summer.”

During these cold months instead of nibbling on raw vegetables, or worse, junk food like chips, I sometimes make this sweet potato/chickpea dip that I adapted from a recipe I saw in Oprah Magazine a while ago. I even make my own pita bread.

I’ve come to believe that homemade snacks are the best and if my refrigerator is stocked with a few great dips, I’m ready for a day of hunkering and writing.

What’s your favorite homemade snack food? Share it with us on Facebook.

Sweet potato and chickpea dip

Ingredients
1 medium sweet potato, scrubbed
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 small clove garlic
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus a dash more for drizzling
fresh ground pepper, to taste
nigella seeds, to taste (optional)

Make the dip
Preheat oven to 425°. Prick sweet potato several times with a fork. Place on a cookie sheet and roast until flesh is tender, about 50 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Combine chickpeas, garlic, cayenne pepper and salt in large bowl. Mix with an immersion blender until smooth. Scoop out sweet potato flesh, and add, mixing for another minute. Slowly add olive oil and mix until combined.

Transfer to a serving bowl. Grind pepper over dip and drizzle with extra olive oil. Sprinkle with nigella seeds (optional).

And if you’d like to make your own flatbread (I highly suggest it; you’ll never buy store-bought again!) you can read this rather old article with flatbread flatbread recipe in Dean & Deluca.

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