The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
3 snacks to get you through the championship football games
December offers lots of snacking opportunities, including those end-of-the-season football games. We’ve got three snacks to fuel you through.
Hall’s snappy beer cheese
Friends from Lexington, Kentucky, tell us that a trip to Hall’s on the River is a rite of passage. The restaurant features seafood and regional favorites, like the Kentucky River Hot Brown, but they may be best known for their beer cheese, a mixture of beer and aged Wisconsin sharp cheddar — with either a bit of spice, or a lot of spice (there’s the original flavor and Hotn-Snappy). We tried it, and we loved it. It has a perfect spreadable texture, and just enough sharpness to complement the beer in the mix. Even those of us who aren’t beer fans really liked it. There are recipes on the website for beer cheese burgers and beer cheese soup, but our containers didn’t last long enough for anything except spreading straight onto crackers.
$5.99 per 8-ounce container, $13.99 per 24-ounce tub. Available at beercheese.com.
Hardy Farms boiled peanuts
If you travel anywhere along the Southeastern coast, from the Atlantic to the Gulf, you cannot miss the boiled peanut stands. People stop and buy peanuts by the quart or gallon bag to enjoy while sitting on the beach or near the pool. When we come back to landlocked Atlanta, we sure do miss them. But, it turns out, we can get perfectly boiled peanuts right here at our favorite grocery stores. The Hardys of Hardy
Farms in Hawkinsville have been growing peanuts since the 1940s. By the 1990s, they were selling boiled peanuts,
and now they produce more than 5 million pounds of green and boiled peanuts each year. We can tell you, these are far better boiled peanuts than the ones you’re likely to find by the side of the road. These are premium jumbo peanuts, with not an empty hull in the bag. Next year, we’ll take Hardy Farms boiled peanuts with us to the beach.
$4.99-$5.99 per 2-pound bag. Available at Publix, Kroger and Ingles, and at hardyfarmspeanuts.com.
Harvest Snaps green pea snack crisps
Crunchy snacks are irresistible, and pretty easy to eat by the handful while you’re watching the big game. But, if finishing that handful makes you feel just a little bit guilty, we have the solution. Baked crisps from Harvest Snaps. They’re light, well-seasoned “sticks” made from green peas, red lentils or black beans. And, they come in a range of flavors, from barbecue to wasabi ranch to mango chile lime. It turns out our favorites are the cheesy ones — white cheddar and Parmesan garlic — made from green peas. They’re really satisfying to munch on, but, since they’re made from green peas, we feel almost virtuous eating them.
$2.99 per 3-ounce bag, $5.69 per 10-ounce bag. Available at Kroger, Publix, Whole Foods, Sevananda, Savi Provisions and CVS. harvestsnaps.com.