Today, I’m sharing an EASY, allergy-free, Paleo snack recipe. It’s both kid and adult-approved. I can’t wait to hear what you think…
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A Quick and Easy Allergy Friendly Snack
Perhaps you are one of those rock-star Moms who always has 10 different bags or boxes of snacks tucked in the car. Well, not me. At least not lately.
Sometimes life is just hectic, right? With our combined 20+ food sensitivities and health challenges I’m managing, I’m happy to hold it together to simply make dinner each night. Baby steps.
My requirements for an after-school snack:
- Healthy
- Fun,
- Fast (like right now fast!)
- Simple…
When my over-tired, hungry kids come in the door, I want to give them something substantial and nutritious that I don’t have to put too much thought into. Even better–Something that the kids can do themselves. Wohoo!
The other day I was frantically trying to get some grocery shopping in before picking my kids up at the bus stop. Our local health food store, Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, is right across the street and their health coach was featuring apples with a build-your-own apple slice bar.
Total forehead-slap moment as I saw all of the delicious toppings that you could pick and choose to “decorate” your apple slice. Of course! Make your apple slices fun and tasty. No more boring apples for this household!
After-school snack time was just about to be transformed!
Someone was definitely watching out for me that day because I needed something to give my kids when I picked them up from school. I happily made two special apple “doughnuts” (as we now call them) with the many toppings they had such as sunflower seed butter, chopped nuts and seeds, carob chips, chia seeds, coconut sugar (a healthy “sprinkle” option with no food-dyes!), cinnamon, nutmeg, cacao nibs, raisins and more.
So when the kids started whining, “Mommmmm, did you bring a snack!? I’m STARVING!” my response was, “Why yes, yes I did.” 🙂 Disaster averted. Thank you Vitamin Cottage!
As a family who focuses on whole-foods and limits processed foods as much as possible, I loved (really loved) the idea of having a build-your-own apple bar for the kids when they came home from school each day. The apples have natural sugar to appease my daughter, but lots of fiber and vitamins too so I feel good about giving them an apple each day.
The saying goes, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” right? Well, unfortunately it’s a little more complicated than that, but for today, I’m going with it! 🙂 Real Fruit=Real Food and Real Food=Real Medicine.
STEP 1: First, I help by slicing the apple into 1/4′ rounds. Then, I use one of my bento box cutters, such as the star or flower shape, to punch-out/cut the middle seed area of each slice. It’s easy and lends a fun shape since you have to cut the middle out anyway. Plus, it gives me another reason to use the cute little cutters! Very small cookie cutters work well too.
STEP 2: Next, we use organic sunflower seed butter to spread on top of the sliced apple “doughnut.” Any nut or seed butter works wonderfully.
STEP 3: Combine your small topping ingredients (cacao nibs, cinnamon, organic chia seeds, organic coconut sugar, nutmeg, cocoa powder) in a small bowl and pour into a re-purposed spice shaker bottle, or this one with large holes works great.
NOTE: When I first made these “doughnuts” with the kids, I set out the toppings in little custard dishes, BUT it made more of a mess than I hoped and I had to figure out how to get the leftover toppings back into their bags. Ugh! Suddenly it wasn’t so easy or fun. At least not for me. So I highly recommend using spice shakers.
STEP 4: Last, let the kids shake on their “sprinkle” topping and then customize their apples with little goodies like Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips (or Lilly’s stevia sweetened, vegan chocolate chips), vegan pumpkin marshmallows (since it’s Fall!), raw coconut chips, a variety of nuts, raw pumpkin seeds and more.
Really the toppings are nearly endless, so let your kids (or yourself!) go to town and enjoy!
What I appreciate about this new, after-school snack tradition is that the kids participate in the kitchen, teaching them important life skills, and they enjoy the independence and accomplishment of decorating their own apples. That’s a win-win in my parenting book!
My TOP 5 recommended products used in this recipe:
What are YOUR family’s favorite toppings? Let us know in the comments below.
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