After-School Snacks

Both of my boys are in school this year!  They started on Monday.  I plan to welcome them home each day, with a lovingly-prepared after-school snack and some one-on-one conversation about their day.

I'm LOVING all of this free time I suddenly have, and have used it for grocery shopping, meal planning, cleaning, and preparing yummy dinners and treats.  My home has never stayed this clean, and we've never eaten this many yummy meals, this many days in a row.

I thought I'd share some of our after-school snacks.  If I continue this routine as I intend to, I should have new ones to share each week.  So far, every one of them has been a HUGE success, and I know the boys look forward to coming home and seeing what I've made for them that day, which keeps me going.  Griff only goes to half-day Kindergarten, so he gets to come home and help me prepare our snacks, which is fun for him.  He's always been the child of mine that likes to help in the kitchen.

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I found each of these recipes via Pinterest.

*click on the name of each snack and it will take you to the source of the recipe

*Strawberry and Mango Salsa with Cinnamon Chips

   Doesn't that sound good?  It WAS.  Griff thought it was so cool that we were MAKING our chips all by ourselves, and of course he loved that there was cinnamon and sugar on top!  And I loved the fresh fruit.  Mmmm!

*Homemade no-bake granola bars

   These were the favorite for this week.  Adapted from a Rachel Ray recipe, these are beyond easy to make (3 minutes of work?  yes, please!), and oh so delicious.  I ended up making a second batch the very next day, to put in Colson's lunch.  They're that easy.  And because the loaf pans are lined with foil, I lift the bars right out and put the pans back in my drawer.  Easy clean up.  Then I reuse the foil as dividers, when I put the bars in a tupperware container.  We made the s'mores version, but replaced the honey with brown rice syrup because we never have honey in our pantry.  It tastes GREAT with that replacement!

 Note: recipe only makes about ten, so you may want to double or triple it and then use a bigger dish for letting them cool.

*Tiny Tuna Melts (when you click on it, it just takes you to a picture, so I linked to the 'pin'.  The directions are written there, under the picture)

  I thought it would be good to get some protein in the mix, every once in awhile.  I think it helps my kids stay full [and happy], longer.  I made these on the day that C had soccer practice.  I didn't think a sugary treat would have been the best idea, if I wanted to keep him from getting cranky.  The boys gobbled these up.

*Homemade fruit snacks

  Please, if you do this one, notice in the instructions for the ones made with jello, she says '2 .25 oz' envelopes of unflavored gelatin.  I realized, after I had already added the 2.25 ounces, that she was saying 2 -.25 oz envelopes (so basically .5 oz of unflavored gelatin).  Yes, I added 4 1/2 times the amount it called for and ours were a little tough, but the boys still liked them.  : )  I plan to make them again, to redeem myself.  Maybe I'll try the juice concentrate version.

  And I used the little silicone molds we have, from IKEA.  We have fishies and hearts.  Sometimes you can find these molds at the dollar store, too.

*Chips and 'Bitchin'' Sauce

  All you need is a blender.  Because I've recently been on one of my health food kicks, I happened to have ALL of these ingredients in my kitchen.  Nutritional yeast and liquid aminos are not your typical ingredients.  You can use soy sauce as a substitute for liquid aminos, but you can also find it at the health food store, along with nutritional yeast.

  I was curious to see if they'd like this, because it's a different flavor than what they're used to.  Spicier.  But they LOVED it.  The only problem with this sauce is that they kept asking what it was called and all I could say is, 'Um, it's just sauce.'  Guess I should think up a new name for it.  : )

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I like to put a little note in Colson's lunchbox.  He hadn't mentioned any of them, so the other day I asked, 'Did you read the note in your lunchbox?'  He said, 'Yeah'.  I said, 'Did you like it?'  With tears in his eyes, he said, 'Well, yeah I did, but. . . .it kinda made me miss you and wish you were there with me.'  I said, 'Oh, I'm sorry sweetie!  I was hoping it would remind you that I love you and I'm thinking of you.  Should I not put notes in your lunch anymore?'  He quickly said, 'No!  You can keep putting them in.'  

Sweet boy, that one.