(Family Features) School days offer nearly endless opportunities for learning and exploration in the classroom, but education doesn’t have to end with the final bell. Parents can ensure their students feel energetic, creative and confident by inspiring snack choices that are as smart as they are fun to make together.
Whether you’re whipping up a snack to send to school or your little learners need an energy boost before starting afternoon homework, creative snacking can help encourage inspiration. As a trusted ally with better-for-you and convenient whole-fruit lunchbox snacks kids can enjoy, Sun-Maid offers these easy tips and ways to embrace the fun side of snack time.
* Keep It Simple: Look for recipes with five ingredients or less so your children can show their artful nature without becoming overwhelmed. Plus, this often leads to a more budget-friendly at-home treat.
* Shop Together: Gathering ingredients and equipment is an important part of any recipe, and bringing your future chefs along helps them feel like it’s their creation from start to finish. Additionally, some important life lessons can be learned along the way, like how to navigate the store and compare costs.
* Provide Kid-Friendly Instructions: There are many ways kids can lend a hand in making their own snacks, like mixing ingredients, washing produce or arranging a plate or platter. However, some steps are best left to the adults – make sure to do any cutting, slicing or dicing before letting children take the reins, for example, then just enjoy the creative fun.
With childhood favorites like crackers, marshmallows and vanilla yogurt covered raisins, Gimme S’mores Trail Mix offers a perfect way to get young minds thinking in the kitchen. A little guidance is all it takes to teach them each step of the recipe to make a crafty, delicious treat. Plus, with only a few simple ingredients that just need to be mixed together, it’s a low-stress, low-mess way to cook up creativity.
For a healthier version of a snack time superstar, Apple Nachos combine sweet apples like Honeycrisp, peanut butter and versatile, whole-fruit Sun-Maid Raisins. Naturally made with nothing but grapes and California sunshine, these sweet raisins have been trusted as a better-for-you snack for kids and grown-up kids alike since 1912.
With zero grams of added sugars, they give parents the confidence they need to choose snacks that provide both great taste and nutrition for a happy and healthy family. As a household staple, they can be enjoyed as part of tasty recipes or as a standalone treat kids crave and parents approve.
Find more sweet ideas to inspire confidence and creativity at sunmaid.com.
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1/2 cup Sun-Maid Vanilla Yogurt Covered Raisins
3 cups graham crackers, assorted flavors
1 1/2 cups colored mini marshmallows
2 cups slivered almonds
1 cup chocolate chips
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In large bowl, mix raisins, graham crackers, marshmallows, almonds and chocolate chips.
Serve immediately, or store in airtight container up to 1 week.
5 sweet apples, such as Honeycrisp
lemon juice (optional)
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1/2 cup Sun-Maid California Sun-Dried Raisins
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Arrange one layer of sliced apples on serving plate. To keep apples from browning quickly, squeeze lemon juice on top, if desired.
In microwave, melt peanut butter about 30 seconds until smooth.
Drizzle 1 tablespoon peanut butter over first layer of apples. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup raisins.
Repeat with remaining apples, peanut butter and raisins.
I was visiting my partner in Oakland last weekend, and we decided to drive up to Sebastopol and Healdsburg for the day. As we drove into Healdsburg at lunchtime, our stomachs were grumbling, and we didn’t have a plan for where to eat (as anyone who gets hangry knows, this is dangerous territory for a couple). The first sign I spotted was for a vegan restaurant called Little Saint. Neither of us is vegan, but my partner’s pretty close, so we decided to give it a shot.
In a town filled with high-end Italian restaurants and steakhouses, Little Saint was a breath of fresh air. The menu was filled with crisp salads and comforting stews that put a laser focus on fresh vegetables and grains and fermented tonics and pickles. We left that meal feeling full but refreshed — a rare combination — and it got me thinking about the types of vegan home cooking I love, where it’s simply about great vegetables that are cooked so well that you never miss, or think about, the meat.
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Keith Corbin’s Vegan Gombo fits right into that category. Corbin roasts root vegetables to make a flavorful stock, then adds it to a mix of Fresno chiles, okra and red miso paste for a heady stew that hews more to the original West African dish than its Louisiana analogue. His recipe makes a lot of gombo, but it’s just the sort of thing you can keep in the freezer to pull out when you need an emergency dose of comfort after a long day.
Another project-style recipe that I love is Genevieve Ko’s Vegan Picadillo Empanadas. Instead of a ground meat filling, Ko uses nutty, rich ground pecans, which I love for their earthy flavor — it pairs better with the traditional roast tomatoes, raisins and olives than beef. Another freezer staple, these empanadas are for days when I’m too busy to make lunch. I can warm one in the oven for 30 minutes and have lunch on the go.
My Spicy Watermelon and Tahini Salad With Pistachios and Mint is a refreshing salad that’s unintentionally vegan. Crisp, cool watermelon is drizzled with a jalapeño-spiced tahini dressing, then showered with toasted pistachios and fresh mint. Watermelon season is coming to an end soon, but this dish works equally well with cantaloupe or other melons in the market, or even figs.
And I always love having a couple of ace baking recipes up my sleeve to bring out for visiting friends who are vegan. First is GGET’s Vegan Strawberry Muffins, which use macadamia (or almond) milk and coconut oil in place of eggs and dairy to add a richness that still allows the floral strawberry flavor to shine through. It’s a great all-purpose muffin batter that works well with other berries, apples and pears, or other ripe fruit (make it with the same jam flavor as the fruit you use, and you’re good to go.)
And for a low-key but impressive dessert, try my Vegan Carrot-Banana Cake. This comforting cake is all about ripe bananas and carrots with just enough spices, dried fruit and nuts to support their floral aromas. A simple lime-scented coconut-oil frosting gilds the lily but this cake is also great with a simple dusting of powdered sugar on top.
Keith Corbin’s Vegan Gombo
In this recipe, a chile-enhanced gombo sauce of cooked okra and shallots is amped with red miso paste, in place of a traditional roux, and lime juice. For serving, Corbin starts with a layer of cooked California brown rice, then adds the gombo stew and tops it all with sautéed, charred or grilled vegetables that change with the seasons and add texture to the dish. Get the recipe. Cook time: 3 hours, 15 minutes, mostly unattended.
(Katrina Frederick / For The Times)
Vegan Picadillo Empanadas
Finely chopped pecans take the place of beef in these picadillo empanadas seasoned with spices, raisins and olives. Get the recipe. Cook time: 1 hour.
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Spicy Watermelon and Tahini Salad With Pistachios and Mint
This salad adds a spicy richness to lean, sweet watermelon. Fresh jalapeño chile adds necessary heat to cut through the fatty tahini, but if you want the salad less spicy, omit the chile’s seeds. Get the recipe. Cook time: 30 minutes.
(Silvia Razgova / For The Times)
Vegan Strawberry Muffins
Strawberry runs through these super-soft muffins with swirls of jam in the batter and fresh-cut fruit on top. Coconut oil and macadamia milk bring richness to the two-bowl batter, which comes together quickly. Get the recipe. Cook time: 1 hour.
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Vegan Carrot-Banana Cake
This cake is friendly to substitutes. Bananas stand in for eggs, both binding the batter and giving it body — use bananas whose peels have gone mostly black for the best flavor. Get the recipe. Cook time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.
