Snack it up: Creamy cucumber sliders put the ‘can’ in snack

The New York Times recently published an article about 2024’s food trends. One prediction jumped out at me: that meals will become passe while fancy snacks will become all the rage.

People may cease their three-square-meals habit and opt instead to munch on tasty tidbits all day long. To feed this trend, established brands will collaborate on nibbles, such as French’s limited-edition mustard-flavored Skittles or the Taco Bell and Milk Bar strawberry cake truffles with sweet corn fudge centers and an outer dusting of taco shells. Those are real things. How do I know? They’re just too weird to be made-up. (And also the New York Times provided links to prove it.)

While I read the article about snacks, I ate a snack — a small mochi, a pleasantly squishable blob of soft, chewy rice dough wrapped around a center of lightly sweetened paste, such as red bean, sesame or peanut. My daughter and I both love mochi, especially the ice cream variety, and I’m very glad indeed that this popular Japanese snack has landed on American shores. Maybe I’ll try to make mochi later this year, but definitely not in January, when simplicity is the order of the day. It feels like I’ve spent the past two months in the kitchen cooking holiday feasts. I’m all cooked out. I’d like to take a break from big meals for a while, both making them and eating them.

However, the delicious mochi got me thinking. I could definitely get on board with all-day snacking instead of meals. I’ve heard it said that grazing can be easier on the metabolism than three large meals, although whatever benefits this approach might confer are eradicated by eating too many cookies or chips (two of America’s most popular snacks). At any rate, snacking certainly increased during the pandemic, which strained our sense of normalcy and made mealtimes more flexible. On the plus side, maybe a more varied snack repertoire is one of the things that will carry over from those chaotic years.

One upside of snacks is that many small portions of different things would provide more flavor options to enjoy without ever feeling overfull. You could go from sweet to savory to sweet again, throwing in plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables to balance it out. The truth is, a snack is anything you want it to be: toast and marmalade, baby carrots and hummus, half a packet of stale crackers and string cheese, a gummy bear and 17 almonds. If you have a filet mignon with roast potatoes between lunch and dinner, well, I think you misunderstand the concept.

During the deep stillness of midwinter, as we wait out the months until spring, I may opt to shake things up by taking the snack route on some days. It’s perfect for our empty nest, this new state of existence where I’m free from the inner expectation to prepare hearty, nutritiously balanced meals for my beloved offspring. Sure, my husband enjoys coming home to a hot dinner, but he’s just as happy eating toast with Marmite, that salty black goo beloved by English people everywhere. (I don’t dislike Marmite but as a Northwesterner, I believe the only thing to put on toast is jam.)

This week, I decided to snack on something light and fresh: cool cucumber sliders. They’re adorable little cucumber slices with a dollop of fresh dill, lemon pepper and cream cheese. Is it worth it to make yourself (or yourself and one or two others) such an elegant finger food? Yes, it is. At least, I found the process enjoyable and I felt good about taking as much trouble for myself as I would for others. My therapist would be proud.

First, the filling. Mix 2 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt or sour cream with ½ cup whipped cream cheese (not the foil packages of cream cheese but the lighter, fluffier cream cheese designed for easy spreading). Add ¼ teaspoon lemon pepper and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill. Stir everything until well blended — doesn’t that dill smell amazing? — and spoon into a small plastic baggie. Cut off a tiny corner to make your own piping bag (or you can use an actual piping bag, although there will be very little filling inside). Squish the herbed cream cheese through the hole with a whirl and a flourish. Garnish with dill sprigs and an extra sprinkle of lemon pepper.

If you want to eat these yummy cuke slices but don’t have the time or the inclination to go messing about with ad-hoc pastry bags, you can try spreading the cream cheese directly onto the cucumber slices, but be warned: The cucumber slices are devilishly slippery and the filling is just as likely to slide off as it is to stay on. You might be up for the challenge. I tried it and I was not.

Have you heard of “girl dinner”? It’s an impromptu meal for one made from snacks, a sort of charcuterie board with things like bread, cheese, fruit and other toothsome tidbits. It’s part highbrow treat, part self-care, part quick and easy solution for dinner. It’s called girl dinner because it’s supposedly what women would feed themselves if they didn’t have to cook dinner for children or spouses, though anyone can make a girl dinner. (The important thing, I suppose, is that it’s recorded on social media for all your friends to regard with envy.)

Well, I’d say these pretty and refreshing cucumber bites would make an ideal addition to any meal composed of snacks. But let’s not call it girl dinner. Let’s just call it sninner.

Creamy Cucumber Sliders

1 English cucumber

1/2 cup whipped cream cheese (not the foil-wrapped bar)

2 tablespoons Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish

1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper, plus more for garnish

Wash and slice one English cucumber. Thoroughly stir cream cheese, yogurt, dill and lemon pepper, spoon into small plastic baggie. Cut off a tiny corner of the baggie and squish the filling through the hole in a swirling motion, making a neat dollop in the center of each cucumber slice. Garnish with dill sprigs and an extra sprinkle of lemon pepper. Enjoy immediately; can be refrigerated in a sealed container overnight. Makes 30-35 slices.