Posts tagged under Snacks. Show all posts.
My sweet niece is turning one at the end of this month, and now that she’s ingesting more and more solid foods, I like to keep supply toddler-friendly goods on hand for when she makes her weekly visits to our place. I figure if Aunt Jan has a generous supply of yummy eats available, then surely she’ll never want to stop visiting us.
Perhaps one of the most well-known kiddie foods is the ubiquitous cheesy fish cracker. Slightly salty, with a dissolve-in-your-mouth texture that’s adored by children everywhere, these snacks are just plain fun. They’re perfectly sized and cut in a fun shape, and I can totally understand their mass appeal.
Luckily for us, they are also easily made at home. Using no more than four ingredients plus seasonings, the homemade variety tastes very similar to its store bought counterpart. Only these ones are made with whole-grain flour, real cheddar cheese and the shapes can be changed according to the season or occasion.
To see the full printable recipe, click here: Cheddar Cheese Snowman Crackers
Last fall, I wrote about the comparisons between No-Name chocolate frosting and Nutella. After a reporter reviewed the nutritional information of the two products, it was discovered that the popular cake icing is in fact a little more nutritious than the chocolate hazelnut spread.
I did a little digging around for the article and stumbled upon a recipe for a homemade version of Nutella, made from whole ingredients and no refined sugars. I took to the kitchen last week to test it out, and can honestly say we were pleasantly surprised with the results.
Easily made with a food processor, the nutty ingredients are pulverized into a paste, and blended with melted chocolate, warm milk and a touch of sweet honey. When poured into jars, it solidifies to a spreadable consistency, and tastes similar to the palm oil and sugar-laden treat we’ve all come to know and love.
I asked my son, the Nutella connoisseur in our home, if he thought the taste was on par with store-bought Nutella. He quickly replied “Nope!” I asked him if he liked it, and he emphatically answered “Yep!” I guess the homemade version, while slightly different in taste, will be given approval for a spot in our fridge.
Will you try to make your own Nutella?
To see the full printable recipe, click here: Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
With Super Bowl fast approaching, many families are trying to plan their football-menu for this Sunday. Here are a few tasty treats I came up with—munchies that will be sure to score you a touchdown with your pigskin lovin’ clan.
Half-Time Rice Krispies – Make cocoa Rice Krispies into a football shape. Create laces with icing and enjoy during the half-time show.
Mini-Football Meatloaf – Mold meatloaf into football shapes and draw on the laces with ketchup or BBQ sauce.
Fourth-Quarter Mac ‘n’ Cheese – Fill ramekins with your favourite mac and cheese recipe, top with breadcrumbs and bake. These individual servings will allow your family members to eat in front of the game without making too much of a mess.
Hail-Mary Chili – When your team is in the lead, head to the kitchen for a bowl of chili served with a side of grilled cheese football-shaped sandwiches.
Chips and Dips – So many options here…hummus, black bean dip, tzatziki, Mexican six-layer dip, roasted onion, ranch-style and salsa served with an assortment of chips, crisps and crackers.
Pigskin Potatoes – These twice-baked potatoes can be made in advance and only need to be tossed in the oven before the game begins. Make them with baby red potatoes for an easy pop-in-your-mouth appetizer.
Are you watching the big game this weekend? What are you planning to serve?
I’ve been sending Valentine’s Day snacks to school for almost eight years now. If I’ve learned anything in that time, it’s that teachers aren’t always interested in seeing a parade of sweets in their classroom every time there is a special occasion to be celebrated.
Can you really blame them? Imagine watching five or six parents arrive with platters of sugar-laden goodies, only to take off and leave you alone with 25 kids eager to succumb to a sweet-induced mania as the result of the treats left behind.
As someone who often sends edible Valentines in with the kids for their card exchange, I feel I should counteract the sweetness with non-sugary party foods. So I make these. They’re simple crackers made from whole grain pitas and wraps, cut into heart shapes, brushed with olive oil, topped with a spice or two (oregano, sage, etc.) and baked until crispy. Served with a paprika-topped tzatziki or hummus for a little seasonal colour, and the kids are almost always as excited about eating these as they are a plate of heart-shaped cookies.
What is your favourite Valentine’s Day treat for the classroom?
The wonky spring weather continues, and while last week called for a return to toques in the morning, this week, the mercury is on the rise and the humidity is out in full force.
As soon as the temperatures warm, there is not one, but sometimes two, ice cream trucks that park at my kids’ school, waiting for them to come pouring out of their classes, tempting them with an assortment of frozen delicacies. Every single day (for the past four years!) my ten-year-old asks me for a treat, and every single day I say ‘no.’ It’s not that I don’t want him to have the occasional ice cream cone; it’s just that these trucks are privately owned, and I’m not sure how safe their products are (I’ve heard horrible things about ice cream trucks and the bacteria that grows within).
My solution is these frozen banana bites. I keep a container of them tucked in the freezer, and although they aren’t quite the same as the fake-coloured and semi-frozen confectioneries on offer at the playground, they are tasty. The frozen banana mimics the texture of ice cream, and the chocolate coating adds the hint of sweetness the kids are looking for.
Are you thinking about frozen treats this week? What are some of your favourites to keep on hand?
Find the full printable recipe here: Frozen Banana Bites
Fashion isn’t my forte, but I do keep a few reliable items on hand to help me out when I need to dress for an occasion. I think of these treasured items (little black dress, perfect jeans, classic blazer) as the workhorses of my wardrobe, dependably enabling me to pull the right outfit together when the time calls.
I stock my fridge with the same approach, keeping only the most trustworthy, yet less fashionable items on hand. Yogurt is one of my workhorses. It can be used as an ingredient in baked goods, smoothies, meat marinades, dressings, and dips. It can be served for breakfast, packed into a lunch and offered up for dessert. It’s versatile and dependable.
Yogurt can be bought, of course, but it can almost just as easily be made. This past Sunday I made up four 500 ml jars in less than half an hour. It has to incubate of course, but that’s nothing more than just resting time in a warm space, meaning it doesn’t require any effort on my part. It’s also a very economical project and is void of some of the less-than-favourable items often found in packaged yogurt (gelatin, natural/artificial flavourings).
What are your kitchen workhorse items? Have you made yogurt before? Would you?
Find the full printable recipe here: Homemade Yogurt
Last week, my family ate like the French for five days. We used the rules laid out in Karen Le Billon’s new book French Kids Eat Everything and combined them with my own personal experiences of living in the south of France, to come up with some guidelines for the what, when and how much we should consume.
I’m happy to report that we fared quite well, and only two complaints arose during the five-day trial. The first was from my husband, Rob. He confessed to feeling hungry every single night of this experiment, and found he was always craving a snack around 10 pm. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think that’s any different from any other night, but I believe he was more aware of it because he didn’t have the option of getting something to eat (one of Karen’s rules is ‘no snacking’—she believes it’s okay to feel hungry sometimes).
The second complaint came from the kids, and was related to… snacking! While they wanted to eat a little more frequently than I would let them, by the fourth day they stopped asking for something before bed, which ultimately felt like a really good thing.
Here’s a brief breakdown of what we ate last week:
Breakfast: This was the same every day. Warm baguettes (fortunately we live around the corner from a patisserie) topped with creamy butter, local honey and/or Nutella.
Lunch: This was the hardest meal to make, mostly because I was packing lunches for everyone. I included roast chicken, vegetables, leftover soups/stews, fresh fruit, cheeses, cured meats, dips, and crackers in the lunch boxes (Rob brown bags his lunch, too).
Snack (Gouter): This is an important part of the French diet and we indulged in this mini-meal every day. No one complained about the slices of cake, chocolate croissants and homemade cookies eaten after school.
Dinner: This was easy and often very simple. I made vegetable soups and served them yogurt, cheese and meats. Other dinners were made up of stew, lentils and sausages, roasted vegetables, and omelettes.
A few of Karen’s other rules include:
Could you eat this way for a week? A month? Do you agree with Karen’s rules?
Hi Karen! I love a late dinner, and so does my husband, but hockey season typically doesn’t allow for that. We can be gone from the house from 5:30 - 8:30 or 9:00 depending on the location of the games, etc. On weekends we always eat around 6:30 or 7:00, but my boys are older now and aren’t going to bed quite so early, so the late dinners are easy to do. I agree about the snacking though…the later the dinner the easier it is to eliminate the bedtime snack!
I have very little children and love *most* of what this book has to say. (despite the sweeping generalizations which are…annoying…). The late dinner time does not work for my family as both kids would be asleep by the time she suggested serving dinner…
However, I think the very basic idea of not depriving of sweets/carbs but rather serving them in smaller amounts and earlier in the day is key for kids and adults.
So, it turns out that Nutella is officially not that good for you after all.
Last week, Ferraro, the company that manufactures the addictively sweet chocolate spread, agreed to a $3 million dollar payout in order to end a class action lawsuit filed against them by four American mothers.
The mothers, all of whom purchased Nutella under the guise that it was a nutritious part of the breakfast meal—based on the commercials for the product—were shocked to discover that there is more sugar and palm oil than skim milk and hazelnuts in the popular morning food.
Athena Hohenberg, a San Diego-area mother of a four-year-old, who initiated the legal claim, says she found out from her friends what was really in Nutella. Apparently she was ‘shocked to learn that Nutella was in fact not a ‘healthy, nutritious food’, but instead was the next best thing to a candy bar,’ her lawsuit said. Her discovery will not only see Ferraro making the large cash payout, but, more importantly in my opinion, will also result in the company reversing its labelling and advertising campaigns.
I’m curious though, who do you think is ultimately responsible here? Should companies have to pay for making unhealthy products or should parents be more informed about what they are feeding their kids? As a parent, do you think it’s difficult to know which packaged products are healthy, and which aren’t?
Here’s a homemade alternative to this spread.
It’s not hard to make healthful choices. The parents suing the corporation that produces Nutella obviously have an underlying issue that disables them from being able to commit to making informed choices: perhaps they cannot read well, or are unable to process the information they read in the way that anybody else with common sense would.
Our household uses Nutella, in strict moderation, because it is basically cake frosting or a melted chocolate bar in a jar, and we know that is NOT a healthful choice to depend upon for nutrition.
What’s next, people suing the company making Fun Dip fruit flavoured sugar candy because it’s not really the goodness of fruit?
An alternative to Nutella that is easy to make, chocolate-good, and yes, remotely healthy:
Chocolate Hemp Seed Spread
Recipe By : Theresa Albert, DHN, RNCP
Serving Size : 12 Preparation Time 2 minutes
1/2 cup hulled hemp seeds
1/4 cup cocoa powder (not “Dutch processed”)
1/4 cup maple syrup
¼ cup water
1 tsp cinnamon
In a mini food processor or magic bullet, whiz hemp seeds with cocoa powder to combine. Add maple syrup, water and cinnamon and blend thoroughly. To make a thinner consistency for a fruit dip, add a little more water.
Last week, I shared my thoughts on the newest cookbook to cross my desk, and this week I wanted to share one of the recipes from within the pages. Chickpea poppers are Katie Workman’s answer to the finding-snacks-that-don’t-come-in-crinkly-bags dilemma.
Roasted chickpeas are high in fibre and protein, and low in fat. When baked, they become semi-crunchy seasoned nuggets that perfectly bridge the gap between after-school and dinner hour. A small handful goes a long way, and the spices can be customized to suit your family.
I’m already thinking about tucking bags of these into my kids’ summer camp lunchboxes, and I’m certain they’d make great travel sustenance as well, regardless of whether your summer plans involve planes, trains or automobiles.
As Katie suggests in her book, these baked chickpeas are a great way to introduce new spice combinations to your kids’ diets. Or better yet, give them some flavour options and let them customize their own batch of snacks.
Find the full printable recipe here: Chickpea Poppers, adapted from The Mom 100 Cookbook
Comments
I made this a few weeks ago, and *I* love it, but my kids are really not sold on it yet. But even if they don’t like it, it may stop them from demanding Nutella for every single breakfast, which makes me cringe!