Feed the Fam Snack Attack: A Crunchy Moms Approach to Snacks

If you know me, you know that I definitely prefer homemade and healthy versions of things. While I don’t make everything we eat, I make a lot. I just feel better when I know what is going into my body and my kids bodies, too. A few weeks back, my 3 year old was hanging out with her grandparents and was introduced to Port of Subs. Naturally, she loved it. Who doesn’t? She liked the sandwich she had, but what she was truly amazed with were Sun Chips. I spend days trying to figure out what she wanted. She kept saying “umm I want to go to that place that I went with papa that has the chips.” and she kept asking to have chips for lunch and scouring out pantry asking why we didn’t have any. I had to find a solution. Enter Kale Chips.  I’m not saying it’s a fix all, because she will squeal with excitement if she sees the cheddar flavored sun chips, but she likes them. And I LOVE that she is eating kale. They’re also super easy to make. I’m making them every other day right now, because I’ve fallen into quite the kale chip habit.

Kale Chips

Ingredients

1 bunch of kale

1 tbsp. olive oil

salt, to taste (I use approx. 1 tsp)

pepper, to taste (I use approx. 1 tsp)

garlic powder (optional) (I use approx. 1 tsp)

 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Using a knife, remove the leaves from the large part of the stems and cut or tear the leaves into bite size pieces. Wash your kale thoroughly and dry using a salad spinner. Spread your kale out over a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Bake until the kale turns crispy and the edges begin to turn slightly brown, but not burnt. Depending on the size of the kale bunch you’ll need to bake 10-15 minutes.

 

Homemade Granola Bars

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of oats

1/2 cup peanut butter or almond butter

1/2 honey

1/2 cup coconut oil

1 cup chopped dried dates, raisins or dried cranberries.

2 tbsp. flax seed (optional)

2 tbsp. chia seed (optional)

1/2 tsp salt

 

Preheat your oven to 350. Spread your oats onto a baking sheet and toast them for 5-7 minutes. Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, melt peanut butter, honey and coconut oil together. In a bowl, combine oats and sauce pan mixture. Next stir in dates (raisins or cranberries), flax seed, chia seed and salt. Pour mixture in 8×8 baking pan and firmly press down with spatula. You can also cover the top with parchment paper and use your hands to press down. Refrigerate for 3 hours. Cut and serve. To store, I individually wrap mine with saran wrap.

 

Homemade Yogurt (so much better than store bought and so much cheaper to make)

The basics

Heat milk to 180 degrees. Cool Milk to 110 degrees. Stir in starter yogurt. Incubate at warm temp for 4-12 hrs.

Ingredients

1/2 gallon milk

4 tbsp. starter yogurt (plain yogurt with live/active cultures- I always reserve some yogurt from my previous batch, but for my first batch I used clover organic plain yogurt)

Directions:

Crockpot

In a pan, heat milk to 180 degrees. Let it cool. There will be a layer of film on the top of the milk. Remove it. Mix a few tablespoons of the heated milk in with the 4 tbsp. of yogurt to thin. Pour heated milk into crock pot. Add thinned yogurt to milk. Secure the crockpot lid. Set to warm for one hour. Wrap crock pot in towel to incubate temp. Wait. I usually make the recipe at night and in the morning, I have yogurt.

Oven

If you don’t have a crockpot, don’t fret. You can do this in the oven, too. Preheat oven to 350. Once it preheats. Turn it off entirely. Follow the instructions above, but instead of pouring the milk into a crockpot, pour into a baking dish that has a lid. Mix in thinned starter yogurt. Cover with a lid, wrap in a towel. Place into oven and leave it overnight.

I like a thick, Greek style yogurt so I bought this strainer from amazon for $22. You can also strain your yogurt by placing a mesh strainer atop a bowl, lining the bowl with cheese cloth, or a thin kitchen towel and pouring the yogurt in. Place in the refrigerator and let it reduce by about half. Once it has reduced, I like place it in a bowl and whisk it or use a kitchen mixer with a whisk attachment. This helps get any clumps out. If it is too thick for you, just add in milk a tablespoon at a time, until it’s a consistency you like. Store and refrigerate.

 

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