Tag: funsnacksforkids

Great Use for Leftover Frosting

One thing my mom used to do with leftover frosting was always a big hit with my siblings and me. Super simple, but we always enjoyed this treat. All you need is graham crackers and frosting, but sprinkles or colored sugar can make it look even more special.

You can make little “sandwiches” or go with open-faced pieces. Break some graham crackers into the size you like. Maybe in half or into quarter pieces.

Spread frosting on one side of one piece of graham cracker.

Add a matching piece of graham cracker and you have a graham cracker and frosting sandwich. 🙂

As you can probably guess, you can also put frosting on a piece of graham cracker but not add the second top piece.

Sprinkles and colored sugar add to the fun so you might want to add some to your snack.

This can be a fun activity to do with the kids at Christmas time when they are begging to decorate Christmas cookies, but you haven’t had time yet to make them! Think of it as a “warm-up” to decorating Christmas cookies. 😉

And that, my friend, is a fun tip from “way back” during my childhood! 😉 Hope you enjoy making graham cracker and frosting sandwiches!

Taste Testing Tuesday #76 Ice Cream Cones

A summertime favorite (ok, year-found favorite!) of mine is an ice cream cone with chocolate and vanilla ice cream twisted together in it! OOOOoooo! Drool!

Yes, I know, it’s HUGE!! And that’s only a medium! Wow! But for this Taste Testing Tuesday, let’s think of OTHER things that could be eaten from an ice cream cone! Put on your thinking caps…here we go!!

#1.) Trail mix. Whatever your favorite trail mix ingredients are, I’m pretty sure they would taste great from an ice cream cone.

#2.) Vanilla yogurt and a cut-up banana. Yep, pretty tasty!

#3.) Miniature Marshmallows

#4.) Cereal. Have a bowl handy and you could even try adding some milk. 😉

#5.) Pudding! This is one of my favorite ideas! Chocolate or vanilla or any flavor of pudding is delicious in an ice cream cone. Sprinkles make it beautiful too. 😉

#6.) Crackers. Eat the snack inside the cone and then eat the cone!

#7.) Miniature cookies. These happen to be miniature Oreos but any mini cookies will work great.

#8.) Strawberries or other fresh fruit. This is another YUM! I’m imagining a little whip cream on top would be awesome!

So there are a few ideas to get you started! What can you think of that might work great in an ice cream cone? I’d love to hear your ideas and also hear about what you tried in your ice cream cone! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #58 Chewy Granola Bars

Another Taste Testing Tuesday is under way! Today we’re trying Quaker Chewy Granola Bars. I found one box with 4 different flavors in it. And there are 2 bars of each flavor. 🙂

Before we begin, you might want to draw a simple chart to record what everyone thinks during your Taste Test.

Write each participant’s name down the left hand side and the names of each kind of granola bar across the top. Draw a smiling face for “Yum!”, a straight face for “It’s ok.”, and a frowning face for “No, thanks!”

You can decide how big of pieces to break the granola bars into depending on how many people are involved in your taste test or how old the participants are. This is a picture of a fourth of a bar and a half of a bar. I decided to use half bars so they are easier for you to see them.

#1.) Chocolate Chip. Are you a chocolate chip fan? My husband loves them, but I prefer milk chocolate.

#2.) S’mores. Does this one make you think of campfires and making your own s’mores? If you look close, you can see little marshmallow bits in this flavor.

#3.) Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. Whoever discovered that peanut butter and chocolate go together was a genius, right?! This kind has tiny little peanut butter chips in them. Spoiler alert…this one is my favorite. (I love Reese Cups!)

#4.) Oatmeal Raisin. This one makes me think of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. Mmm!

And there you have it! Put a piece of each kind on a plate for each taste tester.

Let the tasting and the voting begin! Which is your favorite? Which is your least favorite? Which one got the most smiley faces? I hope your family will have fun taste testing chewy granola bars! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #57 – Fun With Leftover Snacks

Hello again! It’s Tuesday and you know what that means! Time for another taste test! Sorry to be so late in posting, but I’m fighting a cold and not feeling the best and my computer has decided to act up.

So, do you ever have one of those days where you want to serve the kids a snack but all you have left are odds and ends of different kinds of snacks? And there isn’t enough of any one snack to go around? Here’s a fun idea to save you! 😉 Collect up a few of your small amounts of leftover snacks and turn them into a fun snack time!

Start with a cup, plate or small bowl for each person who will be having a snack. I like to use the 5 oz. Dixie paper cups.

Take each type of snack food and put a small amount in each cup. For example, maybe you have enough Cheese Puffs to give each person 3 pieces.

Continue adding small amounts of each type of snack until the cups are full.

I’m betting your kids will find this fun since it’s an out of the ordinary way of having a snack. 🙂

Maybe the kids will want to barter with each other to get the snacks they like best. Say, 1 Cheez-it cracker swapped for 1 fruit gummy.

It’s a great way to use up leftover snacks and not have to listen to the kids fight over who gets which snack…they all get ALL the snacks! 🙂 As always, you can make a chart for your taste testing and let each kiddo tell if they like each snack or not. To make it even more fun, try hiding the cups around the house for the kids to find before they enjoy eating their snack. Have fun and happy snacking!

Taste Testing Tuesday #55 – Fruit Salad

Hello there! Yep, it’s Tuesday so here we go again! Would you like to serve a fruit salad for part of a meal but it’s a big hassle because nobody likes the same fruit and you can’t remember who likes what?! Yea…been there, done that, right? So here’s one solution. Fix the fruit and then have a taste test. Once everyone knows what kind of fruit they like (and don’t like) each person can put their favorites into their individual bowl.

Here are some of the fruit I used but of course, use the fruit you and your family will eat.

#1.) Strawberries

#2.) White Seedless Grapes

#3.) Blueberries

#4.) Mandarin Oranges or small orange pieces

#5.) Red Seedless Grapes

#6.) Bananas

After all fruits have been tested by tasting, each person can add the fruit they like to their bowl.

Stir in a little yogurt or sour cream and ENJOY!

I love fruit salad, especially during the summer when it’s hot outside. It’s cool and refreshing. I hope this taste test will make fruit salads go over more smoothly at your house! 😃

Simple Fun For Lunch

Do you and your kids get tired of the same boring things to eat for lunch? Here’s a simple fun idea for snazzing things up a bit. Grab some slices of cheese and a few small cookie cutters…and your kids favorite lunch sandwich.

Start with a couple slices of cheese…

Use a few small cookie cutters to cut shapes out of the cheese slices.

Arrange the cheese cut-outs on a small plate.

Take the sandwich a use a knife to cut it into shapes too. I placed a star cookie cutter on the sandwich and used the knife to cut around the outside edges of the cookie cutter. Ta dah! You have a star sandwich for lunch instead of a plain boring one. 😉

That’s a fun way to change things up a bit and make life more interesting! Be sure to save the leftover bits of cheese for another use like on top of a salad. Mom or Dad can eat the leftover bits of sandwich, right? 😉

Letting the kids use the cookie cutters will make it even more fun! 😉 I wanted to use slices of watermelon to cut out some fruit shapes, but we didn’t have any watermelon on hand. Maybe you can try that and let me know how it goes! Here’s to a yummy fun lunchtime!

Taste Testing Tuesday #41 – Yogurt Drinks

Happy Tuesday to you! It’s another Tuesday for having fun doing a taste test! Today we are looking at some Chobani Greek Yogurt drinks. Our local store only had 3 flavors today so that’s what we had to use for our taste test.

If your kids are so busy playing that they don’t take time to sit down and eat, this might be a good suggestion for a way to get a little more goodness in them. Shake it up, open it, stick a straw in and down the hatch it goes! 😉 Let’s look at our flavors…

#1.) Mixed Berry. This one has blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in it. It’s a cool light purple color. 😉

#2.) Pina Colada is a pineapple coconut flavored drink with pineapple juice in it. It’s a pretty yellow color when you pour it in a cup.

#3.) Peach. As you might expect, this one has peach puree in it and is a nice light orange color.

I believe Chobani also makes their Greek yogurt drinks in other flavors such as Mango, Strawberry Banana, and Cherry Vanilla. Maybe you can find these flavors in your local store. Ok, does everyone have a little taste of each flavor in a cup now? Let the taste testing begin! 🙂 Do you like the Greek yogurt drink? Which flavor is the best? Of these 3 flavors I would say I like the Peach the best, then the Pina Colada and lastly the Mixed Berry. My favorite one is the Cherry Vanilla, so I hope you can find that one and give it a try!

Happy Taste Testing Tuesday!! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday – #19 – Fun With Pancakes!

We’re back! This week’s Taste Testing Tuesday centers on pancakes! There are so many ways to make pancakes. My Betty Crocker cookbook lists 15 different ways to make pancakes with different ingredients mixed into the batter. While I’m sure many of these are great recipes with tasty results, today we are going to concentrate on what you can do with “plain” pancakes. Just use your regular pancake recipe or mix and then let the fun begin!

First, let’s look at ideas for making your pancakes in fun shapes. Of course, there is the usual way of making them in a nice sized round shape. One of my husband’s favorite memories is from times he spent the night at his grandparents and his grandma would make him a plate-sized buckwheat pancake for breakfast. 🙂 (Yes, he ate the whole thing!)

How about making some extra small pancakes? Kids can brag about how many pancakes they ate. 😉

Or you can make them into animal shapes. This could be a bear or Mickey Mouse or a dog…

Probably the most popular way to eat a pancake is with butter and maple syrup. Mmmm!

You can make a funny face by adding some pieces of banana, a few chocolate chips and a piece of bacon.

Now let’s add some toppings to the “bear” pancake. Add a couple of banana slices for his ears and chocolate chips for his eyes, nose and mouth.

Or maybe use a couple of blueberries for his eyes, miniature marshmallows in his ears, a chocolate chip nose and a cheese puff for his mouth.

You can flatten miniature marshmallows with your fingers and then put a chocolate chip in the center of them to make eyes. Apple slices for a mouth finishes him off.

A snowman is our next idea! Blueberry eyes, bacon for arms, mini chocolate chips for his mouth and buttons and then a piece of carrot or cheese for his nose makes a pretty cool pancake snowman.

You can use small pancakes like bread for a sandwich! How about adding a cooked egg, a piece of bacon and a piece of cheese for a tasty breakfast?

Do your kids love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches but hate the crust? Use a couple of small pancakes to make an awesome peanut butter and jelly sandwich with no crusts!

Our last suggestion for today uses an ingredient that I say everyone loves! Can you guess what it is? Sprinkles!! Everything is better with sprinkles on it! 😉

I hope these ideas have gotten the wheels in your mind turning and you’ll come up with even more ideas on your own. What is YOUR favorite way to eat a pancake? Have fun and enjoy those pancakes however you make them!

Taste Testing Tuesday – #14

Hey, there! We’re back for another Taste Testing Tuesday! Today’s yummy food is…..waffles! Ooo, are you drooling along with me? We’ll look at 5 suggestions of tasty ways to eat a waffle.

Waffles come in different shapes and sizes. You can buy them frozen from the grocery store or if you have a waffle iron, you can make your own. For today’s test, I made waffles “from scratch” and cooked them in our waffle iron. In case you’ve never seen a waffle iron, here’s what they look like.

You can mix up your favorite waffle batter…I used the recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook.

A handy-dandy tip is to pour the waffle batter into a container that has a lip for pouring.

Once your waffle iron is hot, pour some batter in and close the lid. 4-5 minutes is how long it took my waffle iron to cook 1 waffle but be sure to check the instructions that came with your waffle iron. Our first suggestion today uses a plain waffle with nothing cooked into it. But there are so many tasty things you can put on TOP of your waffle! Like butter, maple syrup, molasses, honey, jelly, fruit syrups, etc, etc. I love them with butter and maple syrup. Mmmm!

Suggestion #2…sprinkle a few blueberries on top of the batter in the waffle iron before you close it to cook your waffle.

Here’s a picture of the cooked version.

Suggestion #3…sprinkle some roasted pecans on top of the batter before cooking.

It might be hard to see the pecans, but they are there and taste sooo good!

Suggestion #4…sprinkle some grated cheddar cheese on top before cooking.

Again, it might be hard to see the cheese after the waffle has been cooked but it tastes pretty yummy!

Suggestion #5…cooked up apples spread on top. I put some butter in a skillet and peeled and sliced an apple. After the apple slices started to get soft, I sprinkled in some cinnamon and brown sugar. Then cooked it just a little longer till the brown sugar melted and everything was mixed together. OH YUM! This was delicious!!

I’m sure you can think of many more ways to eat a waffle. Maybe 2 pieces of waffle with some scrambled eggs and cheese inside? How about some peanut butter? Are you hungry now? 😉 Did you make a chart so you can remember your favorite way to eat a waffle? I hope you have fun with your Waffle Taste Testing Tuesday! 🙂