A little cheesy backstory here, so I and my boyfriend got married a few weeks back, and we love movie nights, so the day we started living together, the frequency of our movie nights, or rather movie weekends multiplied and so did our consumption of junk foods. And before we knew both us were struggling to fit into our jeans like never before. That is when we switched from our chips and cola to healthy snacks for our movie time and it is awesome how they are so easy to make, tasty and healthy. So many of the ideas below don’t even need you to cook, it is just slicing of fruits or assembling the platter. Just so you guys know, it all started with a little research, a lot of experimentation and currently were drooling over these new ideas.
Banana ice-cream: There is hardly anyone who doesn’t like ice-creams, and it is sheer pleasure finishing that tub of Baskins and Robins in one go. Alas, the pleasure is followed by a few extra pounds on the weighing scale. Which is why I pushed this recipe to my number one. It needs just two ingredients ripe bananas and milk. Peel and freeze 3-4 bananas. Once frozen completely, blend them. Add ¼ cup milk to make it more creamy, or if your blender demands it. Now this is your base and you can choose to flavor them as per your choices, maybe chocolate or very berry or plain vanilla. There are amazing variations of this ice-cream on Chocolate-covered Katie.
The snack platter: This one can’t exactly be considered as a dish or a recipe, but it really is a strong competition to that bag of lays. Who doesn’t love options, all of us do. So just choose a big dish and start putting in a few slices of colorful fruits, nuts, trail mix, whole-grain crackers, pita sticks, corn chips, and your favorite dips. And voila! the movie menu is set.
Swapping the traditional chips with the healthy chips: We almost assume its potato chips, when we’re talking about that food family. Its time to explore and choose from kale, sweet potato, zucchini, apple, and tortilla chips. For an even healthier version, go for baked or air fried versions, which gets us to our next idea.
Air fryer recipes: By converting a few cinema dates into home movie ones, (and a few other changes here and there), we saved some money to buy an air fryer, and we take pride in that decision of ours. That magic machine opened up so many new options for us, most of them with very little or no oil. You can practically make a healthier version out of every food item, chips from fruits and vegetables, to roasted grains like peanuts and chickpeas. Also, these items are a boon for dealing with ‘always hungry’ children.
Show some love to canapes: these small bites are easy to pass around, super tasty to nibble on, and surprisingly easy to make. And the variations to experiment are far too many to count. I always keep ingredients for these ready at home. If not for Netflix and chill, they still make for a good fancy evening snack.
As much as these ideas were inspiring, I can’t wait to explore so many more and would love for you to share your favorite ones in the comment section below and I’ll try them all. Promise.
