What's for Snack?

 What's for snack??? How many times a day do you hear this in your house? My kids have two small snacks a day (one between breakfast and lunch and one in the afternoon) so I feel like I hear this all the time!

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had revamped breakfast around here. That is continuing to go smoothly and we are finding all kinds of great food to start our day. Now I am starting to work on doing the same with snacks. Moving away from some of the processed snack foods they have come to rely on (can you say fruit snacks and store bought granola bars?) and trying to incorporate more homemade, healthy options. Not everything is totally healthy, but I at least try to know what ingredients are going into what they are eating. Artificial dye does not make that list.

Let's get onto the good stuff: pictures of food!

These are peanut butter balls that I made by loosely following a recipe at Sweet Pea's Kitchen {browse while you are there because there are zillions of other amazing food ideas}. I used steel cut oats after soaking them first and left out any dried fruit because one of my children doesn't like them (although next time I will make a batch both ways to please the masses!). This is so versatile because you can really add whatever you have on hand. Here's what ours looked like:

I had some almonds on hand that the kids had been snacking on raw along with string cheese or fruit but decided to sweeten up the remainder for a special snack one day. The resulting toasted cinnamon almonds from Aldi Food Blog were A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. So good and definitely a crowd pleaser. Yes, there is quite a bit of sugar on these bad boys but as a once in awhile treat I think they are great.

You can never go wrong with popcorn, but sometimes it can be kind of bleh if you do it too often so we like to add in different toppings to keep it interesting. Kind of like a popcorn trail mix! This particular bowl has raw cashews and dried apricots:

These quinoa granola bars are about as easy as can be. I threw a handful of ingredients into the food processor, used cookie cutters to mold the bars, and baked for about 15 minutes. Thanks Anja's Food 4 Thought for the inspiration!

Homemade cheese crackers - if you have never made these, you NEED to. They are a simple 4 ingredients (compared to the 15+ in their boxed store bought counterpart) and come together in no time. These are gone in no time and eaten by both kids and adults in this house:) There are tons of recipes out there but this time I used this version from Cooking Ala Mel:

This is just a sampling of what has been showing up on the snack list. As I mentioned, we do lots of snacks around here so if you like what you see here and would like more ideas make sure you let me know!

Past snack related posts:
Homemade granola bars (this version is more similar to store bought with different nuts, etc)
Homemade graham crackers