RSS Email
You are here: Home / Archives for snack

Peanut Butter & Oatmeal Power Bites #kidsinthekitchen

May 1, 2014 by

MOM! Can I have a snack?
It’s 2 hours before dinner and the kids are hovering looking for a snack. I hate to say no but I know giving in will just ruin their appetite. Shae suggested we make oatmeal power bites. They are small enough to curb an appetite but are still healthy so I don’t feel guilty.Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Power Balls #kidsinthekitchen
Best of all they are a no bake treat the kids can do almost all by themselves.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Power Bites

  • 1 1/4 cups old fashioned oats
  • 2/3 cup creamy peanut butter or other nut butter
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 2/3 cup coconut, toasted if preferred
  • 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, any flavor
  • 1/4 finely chopped macadamia nuts
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1/4 dried cranberries
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Dump all of the ingredients into a large bowl. With a rubber spatula mix thoroughly till combined. Chill in fridge for 1 hour.

Form into balls with the palms of your hands. If you find the mixture too sticky add 1/4 more oatmeal. If the mixture is too dry add 1 tbls more peanut butter.

Store in fridge to keep them firm but these can be eaten at room temperature. They are high in protein and good fats so feel good about the kids popping 2 or 3 after a hard day of play.

*Make these how you want them to taste. Substitute with white chocolate chips, dark chocolate shavings, pecans, chopped dates or figs, nutmeg and smoked sea salt. It’s all about ratio, add about 1 cup of “toppings”.
**Boost the health factor by adding a couple teaspoons of flax seed, chia seed, hemp or wheat germ.

Would your kids eat these?

Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Power Balls #kidsinthekitchenPeanut Butter and Oatmeal Power Balls #kidsinthekitchen

Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Power Balls #kidsinthekitchen

Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Power Balls #kidsinthekitchen
Come join me and my co-hosts, Sarah of Play to Learn with Sarah, Paula at Frosted Fingers and Sara at Sensibly Sara, each week linking up a post, new or old, that feature the theme Kids in the Kitchen. It doesn’t matter what you are doing as long as you are doing it together, enjoying it and learning something along the way.

You’ll find so many more ideas on the #KidsintheKitchen Pinterest Board.

Follow Melinda Babiak’s board #KidsintheKitchen on Pinterest.

Linky Rules, #kidsinthekitchen

#KidsintheKitchen Weekly Linky






Crunchy Caramel Popcorn recipe

November 9, 2009 by

I love food and I love to cook and even bake sometimes. I want to get back into sharing these fun things with you so here is my re-introduction of Foodtalk.

Crunchy Caramel Popcorn is easy! The process takes a little while but it only requires a handful of ingredients.

9-10 cups of popped popcorn, no butter/salt microwaved is fine
¾ stick of butter
¾ cup of brown sugar
Pinch of salt
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup rough chopped nuts-peanuts, cashews, almonds, whatever you enjoy (optional)

Preheat oven to 300˚ degrees. Liberally grease/butter a cookie sheet, set aside.

In a LARGE, preferably wide bowl add popcorn and nuts, set aside.

Over medium heat in a saucepan melt butter, sugar, salt and vanilla, bring to a boil (about 2-3 minutes). Stir constantly to prevent burning. Drizzle 1/3 of caramel sauce all over popcorn and using a silicone spatula quickly stir/toss to coat, stir from the bottom up to pick up any sugar that fell to the bottom. Continue this process till all caramel is gone. If your bowl is not big enough try to work in smaller batches.

Spread popcorn and nut mixture on cookie sheet and place in oven. Every 10-15 minutes remove pan and stir popcorn again from the bottom up. Be sure to completely remove pan from oven or you risk dropping popcorn on the bottom of your oven and burnt popcorn doesn’t smell good. Total baking time is 55-60 minutes to achieve optimal crunchiness.

When popcorn has finished baking remove from pan and spread on sheets of waxed paper to cool. Caramel popcorn is ready to eat in a short 10 minutes when nuts have completely cooled. Sealed in airtight containers your popcorn should last……um I have no clue, it only lasts about 2 days here.

The recipe sounds tedious but it’s really simple and the sugar syrup cleans up super easy. I recommend a silicone spatula because the caramel comes off very easy. When I say you need a big bowl to mix I mean the biggest bowl you can find. Here is the picture of the bowl I use, it has about a 16-17” diameter but isn’t really deep. If you can’t get your hands on a wide bowl go for deep like a pasta pot. This just makes it easy to really get under the popcorn and get everything coated well.

Enjoy and let me know how it turns out for you!