Using Staples You Most Likely Have in Your Kitchen Right Now
I have come in contact with more than a few kids in my life who were picky eaters and even pickier snackers. However, I can usually con them into eating just about anything (even healthy food!), without complaint. Kids love to have fun—so why would it be any different when they’re hungry? Hunger certainly doesn’t equal boredom for us, why would it for them? Here are my top five snack ideas for kids on the go (and parents on the go!) that are healthy and simple to prepare. You can thank me later, when you have a free moment to yourself while your child is busy munching quietly.
Prickly Banana Snacks
Place a cup of plain cheerios or other unsweetened cereal in a Ziploc bag. Using a glass or a rolling pin, crush until cereal is fine crumbs (or you can put the cereal in a blender or food processor). Slice a banana into rounds and dip in orange or lemon juice. Place a few at a time in the plastic bag. Shake lightly to cover the banana slices with the crushed cereal mixture. Serve with a yogurt dip or on skewers.
Fishing in a Pond
Tint 1 cup low-fat (flavoured or plain) cream cheese with blue or green food colouring to make it look like water. Put the cream cheese in a bowl and place goldfish crackers in a separate bowl, or surround the cream cheese water with them. Let kids dip ¼” wide, 3” long celery or carrot “fishing sticks” into the cheese, then into the bowl of crackers to snag a fish.
Apple Fondue
Mix 1/2 cup low-sugar, low sodium, chunky peanut butter (or jam, or cream cheese), 1/4 cup no-sugar-added puffed rice cereal, and 1/8 cup raisins or dried cranberries in a small bowl. Let the kids dip apples, cut into wedges, into the mixture. If the peanut butter is too thick, zap it for a half a minute in the microwave before serving.
Jennifer Hamilton adores food. The cooking of it, the eating of it, the discussing of it, the laughing about it, the taking pictures of it, the describing of it, the contemplation of it, the sharing of it and the writing of it.
Sometimes she lies awake at night reading cookbooks: tempting herself with all the new dishes she can make from both familiar and foreign ingredients. To her, cookbooks contain the magnetism of a romance novel, vacation brochure and screenplay – written in a seductive language of zesting, rolling, beating, sweating, kneading, searing, trussing and roasting. Her fingers ache for the roughness of a wooden spoon or the weight of a cast iron skillet, even when she isn’t in the kitchen.
Hoping to pass this enthusiasm along to her young son, she has taken him under her wing and into her kitchen. It takes tolerance and a keen sense of humour to cook for and with a kindergartner—two things Jennifer has in spades.
She will share with you her culinary secrets, and might even admit some of her own shortcomings in the kitchen, and in life. She is devoted to sharing her love of her son, her adoration of food and her trials with her family through her writing, in the hope of inspiring you to love sticking your fingers in the bowl as much as she does.
Follow Jen on Twittter @JennGoddess [12] and visit her other blog www.domesticgoddess.ca [13]