All posts filed under: Snack

“Green” Hummus

Published by Swati
"Green" Hummus | The Full-time Foodie

Late last year, I had purchased a brand new electric pressure cooker for one main reason:  to cook chickpeas from scratch.  For one thing, I’m a little wary of eating canned foods on the regular.  No scientific reasoning behind this, but it was just a matter of eating fresh food as often as I could.   After I pressure cooked my first batch of chickpeas from scratch- I was hooked.  It was so much more affordable to buy dried beans in bulk and I don’t know if it’s a psychological thing but everything I make with freshly cooked chickpeas tastes so much better!   This hummus recipe was inspired by, well I should actually say the main reason I made this hummus was because I have a super sweet co-worker who grows a ton of vegetables and herbs and regularly brings me things from her garden.  This past week she gave me, no joke, a 13 gallon bag filled with mint.  I had mentioned to her that my local grocery store has a weird shortage of mint i.e. they …

No Bake Nut & Chocolate Granola Bars

Published by Swati

“I’m aliiiiiiiivvvvvvveeeee!!!”, says I while imitating Frankenstein.  My facebook page tells me it’s been 22 days since I last posted.  Wow that’s kind of crazy, because in my head it feels much shorter than that.  In my defense, I spent one week being a total nerd- migrating site files from one host provider to another.  Don’t worry if you don’t understand this!  It’s just a lot of technical gobbeldygook.  Then I had this no big deal trip to Iceland-   Instead of writing a looooooong post on how amazing Iceland is (which it SO is), I hope the photos I chose for the slideshow above can showcase the amazingness. If you love the great outdoors, hiking and camping- Iceland is for you.  You’ll enjoy the gorgeous changing landscapes made up of mountains, waterfalls, black sand beaches and so so much more.  It is one of the most breath-taking countries I’ve had the pleasure of visiting so far.  I also tried to share most of our food/drink experience to keep with the theme of my blog and in all …

Vegan Cardamom Shortbread Cookies

Published by Swati
Vegan Cardamom Shortbread Cookies

Hello hello! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend/start to the week! I had a particularly spectacular weekend celebrating our first wedding anniversary! It’s so hard to believe that a little over a year ago, I was in a completely different state of mind, re: wedding planning chaos mode. It’s funny how that happens right? You spend a whole year obsessing over little details and just like that, in a blink of an eye, the big day is over. What a wonderful day it was though! I would totally re-live just that one amazing day again 🙂 Suril planned our celebratory trip this past weekend (which is now turning into a yearly pilgrimage) to Charlottesville, Virginia. We stayed at Arcady Vineyard Bed & Breakfast, a quaint b&b surrounded by nature and a stone’s throw from Monticello.  Our hosts were terrific and the breakfast they made for us everyday was top notch! They took us on a wine tour and thankfully we had only been to one of the four vineyards they took us to. We’ve been to the area so …

Tortilla Samosas with Green Chutney

Published by Swati

Happy Spring Forward!!! Just kidding, this is probably the worst part of daylight savings.  I woke up this morning to my alarm feeling quite exhausted and realized it was because my internal clock was still an hour behind.  Yes, I’m one of those people who feels like even an hour of sleep is precious!  But on a happier note, it was a beautiful day out today!  I can’t remember the last time I was outside and felt like my jacket wasn’t necessary.  Very soon it’ll be down to cardigans and light jackets- can’t wait!!!!! On to today’s recipe!  Samosas!!!!!!  Who doesn’t love samosas?  Seriously if someone tells me they hate samosas, I will give them a weird look.  How can you not love a fried flaky dough filled with a spicy potato filling?  The only thing about samosas I’m not a fan of is how tedious they are to make at home.  I’ve actually failed at making samosas in the past because something went wrong with the dough and they were impossible to eat.  Perhaps if I attempt again …

Roasted Masala Chickpeas

Published by Swati

“Same same but different” is what I use to describe my husband and I in our love for snacking.  (By the way, points to anyone who knows where that phrase is originally used) We are the same in our love for snacking, but different when it comes to the KIND of snacks we love.  He loves sweet snacks like cookies or brownies and I’m more of the savory snacks like chips or snack mixes.  Regardless of the flavor we love snacking and for the longest time they would  be pretty terrible snacks- high in sugar, sodium and other nasties.  Controlling our snacking habits is still a work in progress even at this time, but I think we’re doing so much better than say.. 3 years ago?   My goal has become finding ways to replace the terrible snacks we eat with the not so terrible ones.  So naturally I turn to Pinterest and all my favorite cooking websites to find some healthy substitutes.   Suril is very lucky because there are a number of healthy snack recipes …

Old Bay Polenta Fries

Published by Swati

I’m sure my fellow foodies are insanely excited about this week!  Turkey day is almost here!!  As you can guess, thanksgiving is my FAVORITE holiday.  Our family has the traditional thanksgiving fare with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn bread, cranberry compote… the works!  It’s not always possible to have our entire family together for thanksgiving in recent years, but this year we managed to make it happen and I’m sooooo excited!  In general, this time of year from thanksgiving to New Years is my favorite time of the year.  Aside from the obvious reasons of getting time off and being with family, I think that the holidays have always been particularly memorable for me because around this time 20 years ago, my family moved to the U.S.  I didn’t fall in love with my new surroundings immediately and I was definitely NOT happy about leaving the familiar. Going from never experiencing weather below 50 degrees to brutal winters and snow was also not easy.  But  it was definitely a time of togetherness and being thankful for new opportunities, a feeling that …