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The Super Healthy Bowl

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February 01, 2012|By Sheryl Julian

Cut-out of Patriots logo was made from lavash and baked. (Wendy Maeda/Sheryl Julian )

The giant bags of chips and dips, wings and their sauces, and kettles of beefy chili that appear on tables everywhere on Game Day before kickoff - it’s enough to make health professionals shriek.

Oh, but it’s all so tempting. And everyone wants to spend the late afternoon and evening grazing and nibbling and these are the familiar and rather comforting hot, sweet, salty, rich, savory, and crisp elements that taste so satisfying.

So we are not here to dampen any enthusiasm with a dreary spread of Super Bowl snacks that are good for you. Instead, we decided to see if it’s possible to take a menu that’s ancient - well, 46 - and tweak it with healthy accents.

Simmering a chili with white and dark turkey meat was obvious, but roasted poblanos add a smokiness and intensity. Instead of Buffalo wings, we made the dish using white-meat chicken tenders, marinated them in Frank’s Hot Sauce with honey, garlic, and a splash of tequila, and stirred together a blue cheese sauce based on low-fat Greek yogurt. Marinating the chicken overnight and leaving the sauce to mellow for a day make both tenders and their dip truly delectable. The classic seven-layer dip is now five, with dark beans forming one layer, then cheese, salsa spiked with sriracha, more yogurt, and a topping of chopped pickles, olives, and toasted pumpkin seeds. Add two dips - a creamy hummus that turns bright green with frozen peas and another of spinach mixed with feta - and the table felt full.

For crackers, we used scissors to snip flat sheets of Middle Eastern lavash into several rectangular sizes (or do the same thing with large pita), sprinkled them with olive oil, salt, and crushed hot peppers, and toasted them until golden. They’re addictive.

The game is what should be heart-stopping, not the food.