Dark Chocolate Nut Butter Rice Crispy Treats--

I was actually an adult before I had a rice crispy treat. My mother was a lentil bean feeding hippie throw back when I was little. We did not have a lot of the junk food treats like Twinkies, ho hos or rice crispy treats. Different world out there today, less people prepare their kids snacks and more people purchase fast food. When I pack my kids lunches I always wonder if they will be looking over at what the other kids are eating and wish they could have it, too. I know I did, no one when they are little likes to be left out. Though--a lot of school peers loved to trade some of their food for my mothers Zucchini muffins--bonus for me!

Anyway, school is about to begin here in NH and with the foods schools are offering I try to make sure I have a variety of healthier choices at home to be packed into the lunch pail. This week we tried out some gluten free organic rice cakes. Now, I will admit just because it is organic does not make it healthy for the body. What it does do though is provide a better advantage to the body in processing the foods and allocating the nutrients to where they belong. our body is not looking at the artificially created food product and wondering just what the heck it should do with it. So--this is a good reason to even make treats organic. In this recipe we include the fats of peanut butter to fill the child up longer and of course help they remain focused at school. Slow down that food fuse to allow for a nice burn rather than an energy surge and a crash of fatigue 60 minutes after snack. I also used brown puffed rice cereal since it is gluten free and has more fiber.

Puffed Rice Bars
serves 16
3 cups Organic Puffed Rice Cereal
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
8 marshmallows OR 1/4 cup Marshmallow Fluff
1/2 cup raisins
1 ounce dark chocolate

Combined peanut butter and marshmallows and heat in a microwave for 2 minutes. Stir the mixture until smooth--you want to make sure the marshmallow has melted and melded with the peanut butter. Then add in the puffed rice and raisins--blending so the cereal is coated. When I did this it did not look at all like it would form bars, it looked like the cereal was barely coated at all but when you press this into your pan it will stick wonderfully--trust me!
So--press firmly into a pie plate or a 9x9 baking dish. Melt the chocolate in the microwave and spread evenly on top of the newly created treat and cut into even pieces before the chocolate cools. I made palm sized pieces, or 1.5"x1.5" which ended up being about 100 calories each.
My kids devoured these....DEVOURED--so I plan on making them on Sundays and quickly putting them into containers for the lunch bags so they won't be gone by Monday.

Per Serving
Calories- 98
Fat- 4 grams
Carbohydrates- 13 grams
Protein- 3 grams

Go eat Dirt Balls! Only 100 calories a pop.

When I was a little girl I would play in the sand box for hours on end. I would create mud pies, mud cakes--6 course mud meals even! Sadly, no one would eat them for me but that did not stop my creations!

In our book , Squeaky Gourmet, we have a recipe called "Dirt Balls" which pulls on the little girl heart strings--reminding me of the sand box and all those hours wasted on mud food when I could have been making dirt balls that everyone would eat. (This recipe was recently mentioned on the NPR show on KAXE--listen here to the interview) So I enlisted the help of my own little girls to help me make Dirt Balls as a wonderful gluten free snack for the kids (and adults who long for the days of mud pies!) These were devoured by all of the kids soon after we made them.


Dirt Balls
serves 14
1/4 cup toasted oatmeal(old fashioned)
2 tbls sunflower seeds
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
2 tbls unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chopped fine
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbls roasted almonds chopped fine
1 pack stevia or 3 tbls raw honey


Toast the oatmeal in a non-stick skillet set on medium heat until they are browned. This was a great job for my 6 year old to work on since it is not highly explosive or flammable or anything and she felt like a big girl using the stove with me.


Setting the almonds aside; use your kitchen mixer add the remaining ingredients and blend well. We used raw honey in our mix because we have some allergy sufferers in the family and raw local honey helps build your own immunity to allergy triggers--but it has to be local honey to get the benefit. Once the oats are toasted to your liking you can add them to your coffee grinder or food processor to chop them up a bit before adding to the mud like mixture on the mixing bowl.


Make small balls about 3/4 in diameter , roll in your hands and then roll in the almonds. Now, this is where the fun came in for my 5 year old daughter as she was enlisted to create the dirt balls from the mud/mortar like substance we had created. Of course she did not want to roll them in the almonds, she preferred sprinkling the almonds on so they lost a bit of the rock effect.



Other Good Ideas:
--Add in dried cherries, coconut, puffed rice, crushed bran flakes,powdered milk or even protein powder
--roll in cocoa powder or cinnamon
--use different nut butters


Calories Per Serving: 92
Fat: 7 grams
Protein: 3 grams
Carbohydrates: 7 grams






Check out Fight Back Friday for more Real Food tips, recipes and more!

Blueberry Apple Crumble

Keeping with the season of blueberries--here is a variation to the Apple Crumble featured on Squeaky Gourmet that we know you will love!

Blueberry Apple Crumble
Serves 2
1 c Fresh Blueberries
2 Apples ( Granny Smith or Fuji are great choices)
Juice from 2 limes
2 T Succunat (this is a raw unprocessed sugar)
¼ c Old Fashioned Oats
¼ t Cinnamon
Pinch salt
2 t cold butter

Use a pie plate sized dish for this.Preheat oven to 275 degrees.Peel, halve and core apples then slice thinly and put in bowl with lime juice, blueberries and 1 T Succunat. Toss all together and then spread mix on bottom of dish. Bake for 20 minutes. Meanwhile…While the apples are cooking, combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl and smush well with fingers or a fork trying to evenly distribute the butter.When the apple mixture is done, sprinkle with the topping and bake until the oats are golden, approximately 30 minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.

Other good ideas…
Add dried cranberries or apricots to the apple mixture
Top with a dollop of vanilla yogurt

Calories Per Serving: 257
Fat: 5 grams
Carbohydrates: 55 grams
Fiber: 6 grams
Protein: 2 grams