Snacks for little kids

[GlorifiedRice]

To follow up on that SEAWEED

 

This might be pricey but OMG how cute for boys

 

http://www.amazon.com/syouzen-Soccer-dried-seaweed-20/dp/B004O4N3HU/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1407272439&sr=1-1&keywords=seaweed+soccer

 

It makes Onigiri that looks like soccer balls

[CatPoet]

Great  snack for  children  3 years and up. This is from an American  foodforum voted best  10 snacks in 2000.

 

1. Cheese dip

16 oz velveeta cut into cubes

8 oz sourcream

1 cup classic ranch dressing

 

Gold fish crackers, chips, breadsticks, carrots, apples, pretzles for dipping.

 

Combine ingreients in a large bowl, microwave on high for 8 minutes or until  Velveeta is completely melted and mixture is well blended, stirring every 2 minutes.  Cool to eating temperature.

 

 

2. Chocolate dip

 

3/4 cup semisweet chocolatechips

8 ounces whipped topping divided

 

Pretzels, marshmellows, twinkies, fruit ,ding dongs, donuts for dipping.

 

Melt the  chocolate in the microvave,  stir in ½ cup of the whipped topping. Leave to cool for 5 min.  Fold in the remaing whipped  topping. S

 

 

 

3. Marshmallow dip

130 oz jar  marshmallow creme/fluff

8 oz cream cheese softened and room temperature.

Bananas,  twinkies, donuts,  strawberries, cookies , apples for dipping.

 

Mix  marshmallow creme and cream cheese together until well combined.

Serve.

 

 

4. Peanutbutter dip

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

8 z cream cheese

1/4 cup milk

Carrots, apple, banans, donuts, twinkies,  chocolate cookies and crackers for dipping

 

Mix all ingredients in a bowl until smooth. Refrigerate until chilled.

 

5. Banana pudding.

1 pkg ( 3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding

1 cup cold milk

1 cup  whipped topping

3 bananas

Mush the bananas.

Mix pudding mixture with the milk for 2 min. Stir in ½ cup whipped topping. Fold in the bananas and  pour into 4 serving  small cups.  spread the rest of the  whipped topping in top. cool for 5 min.

 

 

I cant find the rest of the  recipe because they are on page 2 and I only have  page 1 left.

 

 

 

 

Oh and beware of   bananas and  grapes, if they are not  organic, they can  contain a lot of  pesticides. 

[Kerry Beal]

And of course be sure to use the organic free range whipped topping.

[SylviaLovegren]

Shakes and smoothies are also fun.  If you have frozen fruit on hand, you can make all kinda different flavors.  Use juice, milk, ice cream or yoghurt depending on the mood.

 

Since kids love straws, different kinds of drinks made with fruit juices, soda water, etc., can be exciting, too. 

 

Speaking of frozen fruits -- frozen bananas with "magic shell." 

 

Don't forget the best snack of all -- grilled cheese sandwiches. 

[Jaymes]

Okay - the "seaweed" thing - several of you have mentioned it.  I'm not familiar with it.  Are seaweed snacks something you buy premade, or are all y'all buying seaweed and drying it out and fashioning snacks?

 

"April Fools food" - got a lot of laughs there.  And good ideas.

 

Mini-meatloaves with pink "icing," - meatloaf is a hell of a lot of work, at least now that I'm old it seems like it.  But I do the whole thing - three meats, etc. - the works.  However, it is something that I make from time to time.  I bake several meatloaves, then cut them into thirds, wrap tightly and into the freezer they go, where they wait for me to pull them out and heat them up (in the microwave) for my dinner.  I could make several tiny meatloaves at the same time, so it would be easy for me to heat them up and then frost with the pink potatoes. 

 

We've got cookie cutters, but hadn't thought about using them on other things, like pita, tortillas, thin sandwich rounds, etc.  So much of this seems so obvious and I remember being far more creative when I was raising my family.  But now, brain seems to have gone all frosty, like those meatloaves.  It's a really good thing that babies get sent to us when we're young.

 

Don't have a Trader Joe's close to us, but one is opening up out here sometime within the next few months, so I'll be sure to go there as soon as it does, this thread in hand.

 

CatPoet - there are some interesting twists on what are, here in Texas anyway, some "old stand-bys."  No Texan worthy of the name is unfamiliar with our famous "queso dip," but it's Velveeta and Ro-Tel tomatoes, which are spicy.  Too spicy for little kids.  I have to admit that Velveeta and sourcream and ranch dressing sounds pretty ghastly, but hey, if it tastes good, and the kids will happily dip in their celery sticks, broccoli flowers, bell pepper slices, who am I to complain.  It makes me smile to think about it, but I'm going to try it.

 

And "peanut butter dip"?  We usually just put a big blob of peanut butter on the plate, and the kids dip their apple slices and grapes into it.  Yep, got to try peanut butter dip.

 

We always have frozen fruit at the ready for a quick smoothie.  Also, when we lived in Panama, there were many small "batidos" shops - you select your fresh fruit from a wide and tempting array, and then into the blender it went, along with some evap milk, crushed ice, and a bit of sugar, depending upon how sweet your fruit is.  I know everybody has their own version of whipped fruit smoothie-type drink, but those synonymous with Panama remain my favorites.  That's something I make for the kids.  Not to mention for myself.  Love them. 

 

And our freezer is also stocked with over-ripe bananas, waiting for the next banana bread project.  I'm going to throw some good bananas in there as well, for the Magic Shell.

 

What a great thing to do!

 

Thanks again to y'all.  All y'all.  I'm so excited about trying all y'all's ideas.

 

Know I've said it several times, but can't say it enough.

 

Edited August 7, 2014 by Jaymes (log)

[CatPoet]

Jaymes I did suggest smoothies but that was sent to healthy food for kids, so when I  found this while I was looking for my  ginger ale waffle recipe it felt  like the right  thing to post.

[GlorifiedRice]

Seaweed Snacks

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=seaweed%20snacks&index=blended&link_code=qs&sourceid=Mozilla-search&tag=mozilla-20

 

my fave seaweed snack

http://www.amazon.com/Taokaenoi-Thailand-Snacks-Classic-Flavour/dp/B00BHZ5DIG/ref=sr_1_43?ie=UTF8&qid=1407431552&sr=8-43&keywords=seaweed+snacks

 

Tempura ones are good too

http://www.amazon.com/Seleco-Tempura-Seaweed-Original-Flavour/dp/B00HVFA2PK/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1407431624&sr=8-7&keywords=seaweed+snacks+tempura

[Franci]

Okay - the "seaweed" thing - several of you have mentioned it.  I'm not familiar with it.  Are seaweed snacks something you buy premade, or are all y'all buying seaweed and drying it out and fashioning snacks?

 

For now, I'm buying, our favorite is the classic seasnax http://www.seasnax.com, I like it because it uses olive oil and it tastes very good compared to other brands I tried. I'd like to make my own following maangchi directions, it would save a lot of money. I need to locate a good brand, unpolluted.

[CatPoet]

My daughter  right now eats peaches and more peaches and  the odd pear here and there for snack.  

We have also found out she likes to  dip   tomatoes in HP sauce,  dont think that is  given think for most kids.

 

Greek yoghurt with a lot of fresh fruit is also yummy.

[milgwimper]

How about swedish Chokladbollar? No cooking involved but it does involve rolling dough into balls and rolling them into coconut /pearl sugar. My recipe is somewhere where I cannot find it but if you look up Chokladbollar recipe there is a lot of recipes online.

 

Also I friend of mine used to make a "fruit salsa" It was chopped fruit. then take whole wheat  flour Tortilla or chapati and toast them in the oven with a little oil and when they were hard like chips, she would sprinkle cinnamon (or any favorite spice that goes with fruit) and sugar, and cut them into wedges. let the kids scoop up the fruit with the chips. 

 

Banana make a slit place chocolate chips, marshmallows, etc wrap in foil and broil/bake 10 minutes or until melted. eat it with spoon.

[CatPoet]

Chocolate balls  / Chokladbollar / Kalasbollar / politiskt inkorrekta  bollar,  yes these have a million names and  we makes them  for both adults and kids. I think this is from Coop or Axa  rolled oats bag  The recipe is the same any way.

 

100 gram butter

150 ml sugar

4 tablespoon unsweetend cocao powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pinch of salt

2 tablespoons water, bozze or coffee or orange juice

500 ml rolled oats.

 

Rolling:

Non pralines, coarse grained candied sugar,  chopped nuts, dedicated coconut  or melted chocolate  or candy melts. 

 

Mix everything up,  butter and cocoa first and then the rest, end with the liquid, use your hands.

 

Roll into 30 small balls ( ha, never happens and well I  get about 13 ) and then roll them in something  or  for a more posher look, freeze and then  dip them in chocolate or candy melts

[milgwimper]

Thank you for supplying a recipe Catpoet! I hadn't thought of dipping them in chocolate again. The Chokladbollar are usually a hit with little ones and adults.

[CatPoet]

I have some i the fridge, my daughter made them yesterday.  

When we have guest over , I have whisky in the adult ones.

[MelissaH]

Summer's the wrong time of year for apples, but one of my favorite after-school snacks was an apple, halved and cored, with peanut butter spread on the cut surface. Added bonus: with the peanut butter protective layer, the apple won't brown.