Fix Me A Snack

I’ve got way too much applesauce taking up valuable real estate in my fridge. These muffins are deliciously moist and sweet out of the oven and well into the next couple days (that’s as long as they lasted here).

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Sweet Potato Quesadilla Recipe

For directions on how to cook a sweet potato in the microwave, see my recipe for Halloween Mush.

1/3 cup cooked sweet potato, no skin
2 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup grated monterey jack cheese, packed
2 8-inch flour tortillas
1/4 cup cranberry sauce (optional)

In a small bowl, mash and mix the potato and applesauce together with a fork. Spread mixture evenly on one of the tortillas. Sprinkle cheese over potato mixture. Top with the second tortilla.

Cook in a saute pan over medium heat for a few minutes on each side or until the underside begins to brown. Remove from pan and slice into 8 triangles. Allow to cool for a few minutes. Serve with cranberry sauce as a dip (if desired).

Yield: 8 triangles
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes

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I just finally got around to looking at It’s Not About Nutrition and I am in love. The excellent posts on this blog include: 10 Ways Improving Your Kids Snacking Will Improve Your Life , How Cottage Cheese Changed My Life, Parenting an overeater, and The Potato Chip Challenge: How We Decide Which Snacks To Give Our Kids.

Snack Attack: 50 Ideas for Healthy Snacks from The Six O’clock Scramble. You have to sign up to get the “free report”. But, if you use it like this mom did, it can be an excellent spring board for healthy and stress-free snack times.

This recipe was inspired by Cranberry Applesauce at Simply Recipes (a wonderful website).

For more information about what apple(s) to use, the U.S. Apple Association offers a lovely Apple Usage Chart. I think the most important element is that the apples are fresh, as a recent artile in Saveur was kind enough to point out.

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How much sugar is too much for kids? from A Life Less Sweet. This is guest post from Jenna of Kid Appeal.

Mothers rotate nine recipes to feed their families from The Daily Mail via Food News Journal.

The “Fat Map” from the Huffington Post via Eat Me Daily. The map shows per capita calorie consumption on a nation by nation basis.

I’m on a bit of a back-to-basics kick lately. I hope I’m not putting my dear readers to sleep. Believe me, I’ve been experimenting with crazy “innovative” snacks. But they’ve all been bombs. Sometimes I need to whip up something more predictable so my kids will not mount a rebellion. 

 

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These graham crackers taste more like pie crust than store-bought graham crackers (and given the amount of butter in them, I’m not a bit surprised). This is adapted from the Graham Crackers recipe in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook . I’ve looked around for alternatives to try, some of which look amazingly delicious. But Martha’s recipe has less sugar (which I’ve reduced further) and did well with a couple adjustments I made to cut back on time and effort expended.

I found graham flour from Hodgson Mill at my neighborhood grocery store, but it was desceptively labeled as whole wheat flour. Regardless, graham flour appears to be more coarsely ground than regular whole wheat flour. It reminds me a lot of King Arthur’s spelt flour. It does add a noticable texture and taste to the finished cracker, but it is certainly not required. I’ve used whole wheat pastry flour and the world didn’t come crashing down. In fact, they were yummy.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or graham flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons honey

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flours, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

The butter should be soft but not runny. In a large bowl beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and honey and beat well. Pour flour mixture into the large bowl and mix with a rubber spatula until the color is uniform and the dough easily forms into a ball.

Divide the dough into 4 equal-sized balls. Put each ball in-between parchment or wax paper and roll it out with a rolling pin until it is 1/8-inch thick. (If the dough is too sticky, your room temperature may be too high. Wrap up the dough and put it in the fridge for 30-60 minutes.) Cut the dough into 1 1/2-inch squares. Use a spatula to transfer the squares onto a parchment lined baking sheet about 1/4-inch or more apart. Pierce each square once with a fork.

Bake the crackers for 5-8 minutes, rotating once, or until the edges are golden.

Yield: approximately 96 crackers
Prep time: 30 minutes
Bake time: 5 minutes

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Lunch Lab from PBS Kids (launches Nov. 16) - ”Join Professor Fizzy and friends in the super-charged Lunch Lab Test Kitchen, as they prepare healthy snacks, investigate the difference between good and bad food, and learn what happens once the food you eat goes into your body.” via A Life Less Sweet.

Warning: Food News Harms Your Child’s Health from Lettuce Eat Kale.

Travel-friendly snack ideas from Feeding Little Foodies.

My husband clearly remembers munching on celery sticks stuffed with cream cheese when he was a kid. Me, my go-to snacks included grapes, Handi Snacks (the package of cheese and crackers with the red spreader) and Safeway Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Milk. I remember having the ice milk before bed quite often.

Kids’ Menus? Oh, Grow Up! from Boston.com via Food News Journal.

Ginger Maple Pumkin Butter - a recipe from Nutrition As Nature Intended.

At this school, fruits and veggies are cool from the Washington Post via Food News Journal.