Take-along Snacks - For the Road

I'm sure we all know how it is when we're traveling . . . we load up on snacks and junk food. This year I'm trying to leave out the junk and have come up with some easy healthy snacks to take along with us on the road.

String cheese -- My kids love the Kraft Twist-ums cheese where you get mozzarella and cheddar twisted together.

Blue Diamond almonds -- We're a peanut free home and that's why we love Blue Diamond almonds. They're one of the few nuts that are completely peanut free. They're also packed full of vitamins and minerals and are high in protein. They make a great salty snack and my kids LOVE 'em.

Dried fruit -- This is what we call "real fruit snacks". Raisins, craisins and apricots are our favorite. I also just bought a pack of dried mangos to try. We'll see how we like them while we're on the road next week.

Bite sized fruit -- Grapes and blueberries are great for the car. They can be popped in your mouth and are mess free--well, depending on who's
eating them . . .

Carrot sticks -- We can't forget the vegetables--and mini carrots are always a popular choice.

Crackers -- I've always loved Annie's Homegrown and we've recently become fans of the new Annie's Snack Mix. The kids love it, and I love that it's all natural and organic. The best part is that it's very affordable too. I stock up on boxes of this stuff when they go on sale at Target for $2. That's a price you can't beat!

Homemade fruit gummies -- These little jello bites are perfect for popping in your mouth. They're sweet and tangy and have a little fat to keep you feeling satisfied. My favorite recipes are these Lemon Gummies and these Coconut Lime Gummies. They're simple enough to make ahead of time and a fun snack to pull out when everyone is in need of a treat.

Granola bar bites -- This is another great snack to make ahead of time (or have the kids make them) to pull out when you're getting the munchies. Find the recipe here. 

. . . But you have to have a little junk food too. My kids already know we never go on a trip without licorice. Yum Earth is our favorite brand lately.

What are your favorite healthy snacks for the road?

Simple and Healthy Dr. Seuss Lunch

Dr. Seuss and his books are much loved in our home.  We've made it a family tradition to celebrate his birthday on March 2nd each year.  I find celebrating Dr. Seuss is a fun and magical part of childhood.  My kids won't be little forever and this is a simple way to make it memorable. (To see how we've celebrated in years past click here.)

This year I came up with a simple lunch to surprise my kids with in their school lunch boxes on Monday.

To make these Cat in the Hat string cheeses I simply used a black and red sharpie marker and drew right on the plastic wrapper.

For these "hop on pop-corn" bags I put together this little printable and printed them off onto wax paper bags that I have left over from another project.  (Find printable image at end of post.)

 This cutie Lorax came together quickly with two googly eyes and a felt mustache. 

I can't wait to pack my kids lunch on Monday.  I hope they get as much of a kick out of their Dr. Seuss lunch as I had making it.

Halloween Snack

Last year my son had a Halloween party for preschool that included a pot luck lunch.  I brought a cheese, cracker and summer sausage tray to share.  Since I had a mini pumpkin cutter I decided to make the platter a little more festive by cutting the cheese into pumpkin shapes.  They were a hit with the kids.  And don't worry, none of the cheese scraps when to waste.  My kiddos where happy to snack on them that night.

What do you do to make Halloween fun at your house?

Rainbow Fruit Kabobs

Last year for St. Patrick's day my kids helped me put together these rainbow fruit kabobs as a treat to celebrate.

Don't they look delicious?  And festive?  I love all the beautiful colors together.

My kids of course loved eating them.  We didn't have any frosting covered cookies, or green pudding, or chocolate coins.  We ate fruit, and it was special.  I love that healthy can still be a treat.  Sometimes I forget that simple is better.  I don't have to fill my kids up with candy or sugar for every little occasion. We had fun creating our kabobs together and eating each sweet juicy bite together.  I think we started a great St. Patrick's Day tradition that we'll keep.

Interested in more healthy treat ideas?  See some of our ideas HERE.

Valentine's Chex Mix

Amy is always great at coming up with healthy snacks--which I'm grateful for because I always use them!  But here is a little something for your sweet tooth.  I was recently making these for a large group and decided that I wanted a little variety.  This is what I came up with: 

Want to make some of your own?

Here is what you will need:

6 cups Rice Chex cereal

12 oz bag of white chocolate chips

1-2 tsp peppermint extract

optional: 

red sprinkles

valentine m&m's

red candy melts (I just threw in a few with the chocolate chips to give it a pink-ish hue)

Measure your cereal into a large bowl.  Dump your chocolate into a medium sauce pan on low heat.  Stir chocolate occasionally until it is completely melted.  Stir in peppermint extract to taste.  Pour chocolate into cereal, stirring gently until cereal is covered.  Add in any extras (m&m's, sprinkles, etc.)  Spread out on wax paper until cool.  Store in an airtight container.  

Enjoy!

Healthy Valentine Treat

Last year I helped my daughter throw a little Valentine party for some of her friends similar to the one we did two years ago.  This time we were trying to keep the sugary sweets to a minimum so we made these fruit kabobs for a healthy snack.

They were easy to make and were a big hit with the girls.  I'll for sure be making them again this year for my family.

Ghostly Pudding Cups

Inspired by Amy's healthy Halloween snack and these cute frankenstein pudding cups I set out to make a cute, easy Halloween treat for my boys.  What I came up with is so super easy that anyone  can do it!  All you need is a vanilla pudding cup and a sharpie!

And viola!  You have a little ghost pudding cup.  I'm excited to pull these out for dessert tonight.  The boys are going to love them!

Healthy Halloween Snack

With all the candy that comes with the month of October, how about a healthy Halloween snack?  I think we need some of those too.

The other day I picked up some mandarin orange cups from the store . . .

and with some inspiration from Aimee I created these festive little orange jack-o-lantern snacks.  

Aren't they cute?

A sharpie marker is perfect for drawing on the little faces.  I'll be serving these for lunch on Halloween next week.  I think my kids will love them.

Another idea is to draw a little face right on the peel of an orange or clementine like Ann did here.  Great idea!

So, are you ready for Halloween?  Costumes all done?  Or are you still finding time to squeeze in the finishing touches?

Homemade Jello

We were at a dinner party several weeks ago and our hostess asked my daughter if she would like some jello.  My daughter looked hesitant for a moment and then looked up at me and said, "Mom, what's jello?"

Wait.  Time out.

What's jello?

I couldn't believe my ears.  How does my daughter not know what jello is?  What kind of childhood is she having anyway???

Now I have to say that I love jello.  I really do.  I mean, who doesn't?  My favorite jello growing up was orange jello with mandarin oranges in it.  Yum.  When I was pregnant with my daughter I stocked up on all kinds of things to get ready for the new baby and I distinctly remember the long row of jello, in every flavor imaginable, in my cupboard.  I guess for some reason I felt that if I had enough jello to last me a year somehow everything was going to be okay.

When my daughter was two she had some sort of strange allergic reaction.  For a long time I thought it was food dye related, but later realized it was something else.  In the meantime I did A LOT of research on food dyes and decided that it was probably better to eliminate them from our diet as best we could.  Llately we've been trying to cut down on our sugar intake too, especially since the new year.  I've been trying to be very diligent about it.  Needless to say, between food dyes and sugar, jello is something we haven't had for quite a while. 

The other day I came across this fabulous little recipe for homemade jello and since it's made from 100% fruit juice I figured it couldn't be too bad for us.  And more importantly every child just needs to have jello every once in awhile. Right?

The best part about it is that it takes just as long to make as any ol' jello and tastes just as good too!  Plus there are a lot of health benefits to consuming gelatin, like healthy hair and nails.  It's also good for your digestive system, joints, and metabolism.

All you need is three simple ingredients.  100% juice, honey, and unflavored gelatine.

My kids love to help make this favorite treat.  It's a simple enough recipe that they can help do most of it.  Measuring and mixing are the perfect way to let kids help in the kitchen.

It makes a great snack to pull out of the fridge in the afternoons.  Yum.

Juice Gelatine

4 cups juice

4 packets unflavored gelatine

2 tablespoons honey

Pour 2 cups juice in bowl and stir in gelatine.  While this sits heat the remaining juice and honey to a boil.  Pour hot juice over juice and gelatine mixture.  Stir for 2-3 minutes until gelatine is completely dissolved.  Pour mixture into 8 x 8 pan.  Cover in plastic wrap and chill for three hours or until firm.  Cut into squares.

Enjoy!

Homemade Moon Sand

I bought the kids some new sand toys the other week so they were pretty excited to head to the park and play in the sand.  They were awfully disappointed though when the dry sand wouldn't hold the shape for their new molds.  I decided to try making some homemade moon sand to see if that would bring more fun.  It was a huge success!

I bought a bag of nice clean sand from Home Depot for about $3 and a box of corn starch for $1 at Walmart.  We measured out 8 cups of sand and 4 cups of corn starch into a 32 quart plastic bin that I just had sitting in the basement.

 We mixed them together with 2 cups of water and we were ready to play.

My kids were so excited that it actually worked to build sand castles.

And even more excited that they could make some little "sand cookies" with the new sand toys we had bought.

And of course we had to fill up the big bucket for the ultimate sand castle.

This recipe is definitely a keeper.  My kids had so much fun playing with the moon sand, and I won't lie, I had fun playing with them too!

Moon Sand

8 cups sand

4 cups corn starch

2 cups water

Combine all ingredients in plastic container.  Store with lid off or it may become moldy.  If moon sand dries out before the next play session add more water to moisten.

Have you tried the commercial moon sand before?  How about homemade moon sand?

Healthy Fudgsicles!

Isn't one of the best parts of summer all those cold treats?

Lemonade, popsicles, frozen fruit, ice cream!

I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I found this healthy fudgsicle recipe over at Chocolate-Covered Katie.  I've been looking for a healthy fudgsicle recipe for so long.  I just have to mention that Katie is my hero.  I love her blog and I love all the tasty, yummy, mouth watering, healthy treats she creates.  She has it all figured out.  I completely agree with her that delicious sweet treats can be healthy too.  I can't help but stop by her blog regularly.

These fudgsicles hit the spot.  An easy treat (with no added sugar!) for a hot summer day.

But do they taste like real fudgsicles?

It's hard to compare since I don't remember the last time I've had one.  Goodness, it's probably been ten or more years. But they do taste chocolatey, creamy and sweet!  I'd take one of these any day over the traditional ones with high fructose corn syrup and all those processed ingredients that I have no idea what they are.  

But who really cares if I liked them.  The big question is did the kids give them a big thumbs up?

Well, my son loved them.  My daughter thought they were ok.  But she's one of those rare individuals who doesn't care much for chocolate.  I'd say if you like chocolate you're sure to like these.

Creamy Chocolate Fudgsicles

(recipe adapted from here)

*2 tablespoons cocoa powder

*1/2 cup canned full fat coconut milk

*2 small, very ripe bananas

*1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

*small pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients in a blender.  Pour into popsicle molds.  Freeze.  Makes 5-6 pops.

We had some extra coconut milk so we made a few more fruity pops with 1/2 cup coconut milk, 1/4 cup orange juice and one ripe banana.

Find more homemade popsicle ideas here.

What are your favorite cold summer treats?

One Fish, Two Fish

Like Amy, we also celebrated Dr. Seuss.  We love to get out our duplos and create a "Seuss-ville".  This year's creation was lots of fun!

A few years ago we made a "cat-in-the-hat-pizza" and it has now become a tradition!  So easy and so much fun!

And in honor of the Yink who likes to drink pink ink we had a little "pink ink" of our own--or perhaps it was just strawberry milk ;)

We ended the evening with a special treat of "red fish" a la One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  All of the boys thought that it was pretty special.

We capped the night with a reading of everyone's favorite Dr. Seuss books.  

We included a new read this year, "The Boy on Fairfield Street". It is the story of how a boy named Ted became Dr. Seuss.  It was really interesting to my 7-year-old but still a little long.  The younger boys couldn't get into.  I thought it was great! It was fun to learn more about this wonderful author and celebrate his work.

77 Healthy Snacks

With the new year in full swing I'm renewing my resolution to feed my family healthy foods. To help me with my goal I've come up with a list of 77 healthy snacks to keep good food in our tummies when we're getting the munchies. I've tried to compile my list using mostly whole foods and as little processed food as possible. I know everyone has a different definition of healthy so keep in mind that this list is made up according to my definition.

And here they are:

1. Apple slices (My kids love apples more than just about anything.)
2. Home popped popcorn (We love to pop ours with coconut oil. Yum.)
3. Celery sticks
4. Hummus and veggies
5. Tuna on crackers
6. String cheese
7. Roasted pumpkin seeds or squash seeds ( I love this recipe.)
8. Applesauce
9. Frozen grapes (These are super popular in the summer at our house. It allows you to stock up when grapes are on sale without them going bad before they can get eaten.)
10. Almonds
11. Craisins
12. Olives
13. Guacamole and chips (Homemade guacamole is easy. Just mash up an avocado and stir in a dash of salt, garlic powder and some dried minced onions. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.)
14. Clementines (These are my favorite citrus to buy because the kids can peel them themselves)
15. Quick fruit smoothie (frozen berries, ripe banana, yogurt)
16. Hard boiled egg
17. Roasted chickpeas
18. Cottage cheese with peaches
19. Cinnamon raisin almond balls (These are quick and easy to make and incredibly delicious. I highly recommend giving them a try!)
20. Fruit leather (We love to make our own using a dehydrator)
21. Crackers and cheese
22. Mini fruit salad (Strawberries, kiwi, blackberries)
23. Dip banana slices in yogurt, roll in coconut and freeze
24. Cantaloupe
25. Apple slices with nut butter, cinnamon, and raisins
26. Yogurt
27. Chips and salsa
28. Whole wheat bread spread with nut butter
29. One ingredient banana ice cream
30. Kefir smoothie
31. Pineapple (Love pineapple)
32. Homemade popsicle (Blend together frozen berries, yogurt and banana, pour into molds, freeze.)
33. Granola
34. Raisins
35. Nectarine
36. Baked cheese crisps
37. Parfait (Yogurt, strawberries, granola)
38. Pickles
39. Homemade Larabar
40. Carrot sticks
41. Grapefruit (My son loves his grapefruit)
42. Cucumber slices
43. No-bake energy bites
44. Grilled cheese sandwich
45. Crackers spread with nut butter
46. Frozen banana bites
47. Trail mix (Make your own by throwing together craisins, almonds, sunflower seeds, and dried blueberries or cherries)
48. Dried apricots
49. Tropical smoothie (Mango, pineapple, strawberries, yogurt)
50. Apple chips
51. Broccoli florets
52. Fruit sushi
53. Blueberries (I love this bite size snack for little mouths)
54. Fruit kabob
55. Baked potato
56. Pink hummus and veggies
57. Frozen pineapple
58. Dried fruit mix
59. Pistachios
60. Kale chips
61. Beef jerky
62. Yogurt frozen
63. Homemade graham crackers
64. Banana (This is my favorite quick snack when I'm hungry)
65. Frozen applesauce slushy
66. Pears sprinkled with cinnamon (My daughter loves this)
67. Oven roasted fries
68. Granola Bars
69. Yogurt bites (You can make your own if you own a dehydrator)
70. Cheese slices
71. Spinach artichoke dip and crackers
72. Watermelon (For added fun, cut into shapes with cookie cutters)
73. Kiwi (Cut in half and scoop out with a spoon)
74. Orange slices
75. Toast
76. Zucchini chips
77. Tortilla and cheese

So . . . what would you add to the list?

What are your go-to healthy snacks?

Fruit Sushi

Have you ever hear of fruit sushi?  My daughter spied it in a magazine quite a while ago and thought it looked yummy.  Every few months she'd bring it up, "Mom remember that fruit sushi?  We should make it sometime."  The last time she mentioned it I committed myself that we would finally make it.  

They can look beautiful like this:

Source

. . . But we just went to town with ours. They didn't look nearly as grand but we had a fun time.  Last week I bought everything we needed to make our fruit sushi and then for lunch one day we made them up.

We cut our fruit leather into strips and then wrapped them around our sliced up fruit.

We then sprinkled on a little coconut and they made a fun and (mostly) healthy snack.  My kids loved it.

What healthy snacks are popular at your house?