Help!! My son has to provide a healthy snack for his class on Thursday, and it has to be something he can demonstrate to the class. We had a great idea, but there's a little barrier...peanut butter. The concept is taking a whole apple, cutting out the core, and stuffing it with a mixture of peanut butter, coconut, and chocolate chips. Delicious and healthy, easy to demonstrate with a prepped apple, kids love it. But no peanut butter allowed! So my next thought was cream cheese, crushed pineapple, and chopped strawberries. But my son has decided he doesn't like cream cheese.
Any thoughts for "stuffing"??
The other issue is that I won't be home until 7:30 tomorrow night, so I can't spend a ton of time on prep. Coring 32 apples is about my limit. Oh, and the alternative is something using corn tortillas, we happen to have a giant bag of them. I suggested sweet quesadillas with the same cream cheese mix above, but got shot down.
Any suggestions are welcome!
You can use soy butter instead of peanut butter. You should be able to find it right next to the peanut butter at the store and most kids won't know the difference :o)
Use Sunflower Seed better (sunbutter). It is nut free and often produced in nut-free facilities. The brand I buy is sold at Target.
www.sunbutter.com
It will work exactly the same as peanut butter and has a similar taste.
How about Nutella instead of peanut butter?
You could use sunflower butter instead of peanut butter.
I used to let our daughter make "Trail Mix"
We would go to the bulk area and she would pick out 5 or more different items. Then at home she could decide for each snack bag how much of each she would put in. We had a little coffee scoop she would use.
Raisins, Dried Cranberries, sunflower seeds, cheerios, coconut, carob chips, pecans, walnuts, dried blueberries, banana chips, granola.. you get the idea.
I just need to point out that if peanut butter is not allowed, I'm pretty sure Nutella is not either. It is made with hazelnuts, a tree nut.
What about Sunbutter, which is made with sunflower seeds. Or Greek yogurt?
make hummos.
send in a few cans of chick peas, tahini and or plaibn yogurt, lemon, salt, pepper, and garlic. he can dump all the ingredients in a pot, everone can take a turn giving it a couple of mashes with a pestle, or in a pinch a potato masher.
dole out a tablespoon or so, and eat in those tortillas, or with celery or crackers.
best,
F. B.
How about yogurt? It can even be chocolate flavored yogurt, but I guess that borders on being unhealthy. Can you use almond butter, sun butter, or soy nut butter? Good luck! Sounds like a big project.
Ok, first-take a deep breath. How about nutella or another chocolate peanut free spread and banana?
Or go another route completely and make some kashi go lean bars at home? (google, bing or Pinterest).
My kids school does the healthy push-then they ask for juice boxes (not healthy) and cookies (really not healthy-no matter how much I heathify them).
Don't sweat the smalls. Tell them your work schedule won't allow and ask for an extension!!!
oatmeal honey and chocolate chips make a great combo- great with apples (cinnamon with honey inside) too, so do many cereals. kids love shredded cheese. they can top their own celery boats.
Be sure you are allowed to use other nut butters - some kids are just as allergic to tree nuts as other kids are to peanut butter (legume).
Here's another option that lets you make 2 different versions. It would seem to be less effort that stuffing 32 (32??? Huge class!) apples! These are fruit and oatmeal parfaits and you could make 2 flavors for kids who don't like this ingredient or that one (like your son!)
http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Apple-Pie-Oatmeal-Parfait-44...
Use clear plastic cups and line then up. You don't have to peel the apples - just cut in chunks. You could use bananas too, or do half of each. You could use vanilla yogurt, or add some plain Hershey's cocoa to some of the yogurt and mix with a whisk, or use milk (regular or almond, or some of each). Plain oats and brown sugar, or some stevia, would work fine. If you use clear cups so the kids can see the various layers. For this, your son could at least help putting some of the ingredients in, the quantities aren't so precise, and it requires less accuracy/dexterity than stuffing apples.
Good luck, whatever you decide!
How about chocolate dipped strawberries since you have the berries?
How about a fruit/chocolate chip dessert tray? (chopped strawberries, the crushed pineapple, sliced bananas if you have them, little bowl of chocolate chips, shredded coconut if you have it with little plates/bowls/dixie cups & toothpicks).
Make your own trail mix (sans peanuts)?
You can, also, do a "dessert burrito" with the tortillas.
You spread butter on the tortilla, add brown sugar, roll them up then
warm them in microwave. You would then have to double wrap them in
foil to keep them warm if they don't have a microwave in the room. This
would be my last resort if you can't find anything else.
carrots, celery and dip- prep the dip. The dip could be something like mayo, chopped basil, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice. I would consider this healthy if you are going easy on the dip. Or you could make hummus, it is very easy if you have a food processor.
You could try vanilla pudding or yogurt instead of the cream cheese.
What about a fruit and yogurt parfait? You could add choices of granola, oats, mini chocolate chips, berries.
Or, you could do a slice of lunch meat folded up, a slice of pickle, an olive and a cube of cheese, secured with a toothpick.
Honestly, the more I think about it, almost ALL the snacks my kids prepare are fruit and veggies or a sandwich. If it were me, I would be sending my kid to class with a bag of oranges and demonstrate how to peel an orange. Because everything else just kind of seems over the top, in terms of expense and complication! Ugh!
Get some cheese cubes and summer sausage cubed and some pretzel sticks they can skewer the cheese with the pretzels. No prep on your part except cutting the meat and cheese. Teacher will appreciate the no sugar aspect. And kids can do meat or cheese or neither. And if you get glutton free pretzels you have covered pretty much all the specific allergy things. My kids loved this.
As far as stuffing apples a lot of kids would say no thank you. Maybe serve Apple slices with that other stuff as dip. My grandson is allergic to all tree nuts as well as peanuts. Doesn't matter that it might be sunflower butter if it looks like peanut butter he's going to steer clear. If you have someone with dairy allergy then the cream cheese thing won't work. How old are the kids? If they are 3 or 4 you won't want huge snacks.
nutella is hazelnut. So still in the nut thing just an FYI it's not just a chocolate spread.
Trail mix (no peanuts obviously) or cereal mix, fruit or meat/cheese kabobs, rice cakes with Nutella.
Marshmallow fluff and brown sugar. Not the most healthy, but o so good!!!
Updated
Marshmallow fluff and brown sugar. Not the most healthy, but o so good!!!
Pretzel rods wrapped with a thin slice of lunchmeat (like Buddhig) and half a slice of cheese.
How about carmel apples? Cut them in half, dig out the middle, add the melted carmel. Let it harden.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEV0...
Celery and Merks Spreadable Cheese.. put chees inside he celery .. it is delicious
Why not just use Sunbutter instead of peanut butter?
That passes all of the "nut free" regulations at my kids' school...
