Recipe Redux -- Have Snacks Will Travel

Recipe Redux time!!  This month's theme?  Travel snacks!  I love that it was set for after I got back from vacation.  I made 3 different travel snacks.  Granola bars, apple chips and squash chips.  All three were delicious.  I have a cavity I found out about right before the trip so, eating them was a bit painful at times but, it honestly didn't stop me.  

I rarely make apple chips anymore because I can eat 3 or 4 apples worth of chips in 1 day!  I'm addicted to them.  

Granola bars before they were cut

Granola Bar
Makes 8 or 16
Calories: 127 / 63
Fat: 0.8 / 0.4
Carbs: 29.8 / 14.9
Protein: 3.8 / 1.9

2 1/2 cup Quaker multigrain cereal
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 + 1/4 cup sugar free maple syrup
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cup dried mixed fruit
1 cup mashed banana
1 cup pumpkin puree {NOT PIE FILLING}

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees and spray an 8 x 8, or 9 x 9 pain with pan spray (choose which size depending on how thick you want them)
2. Stir together the cinnamon, syrup, vanilla., banana, pumpkin.
3. In a separate bowl combine the fruit and oatmeal.
4. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry and stir together until the cereal is completely coated
5. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the are slightly dry on top
6. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes then put them on a wire rack to finish cooling.  Cool completely, then cut. 

Apple Chips

For some reason I didn't get an AFTER shot of my apple chips
Ingredients
Apples

Directions

1. Core and slice apples.  {I used my mandolin}
2. Toss the apples in some lemon juice. {to keep them from browning}
3. Dehydrate for 12-18 hours
4. Cool before storing

Acorn Squash Chips

Before

After

These were a pain in the butt to slice!  So I only did a quarter of the squash and roasted the rest for my dinner the next nite.  They took about 4.5 hours in the dehydrator. They tasted kind of nutty.  Needed a bit of salt.  So, if you want to add a bit of flavor (and don't mind a bit of fat) I'd toss them with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt.


What kind of snacks do you enjoy when you travel?  Do you take store bought or home made?


   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

First Day of School and the Gym

Oh my God! I have so many things to pack into one post!!  To start off, today was the first day of my on-campus class.  This meant that I had to be out of the house by 7 this morning.  (Luckily I'm a morning person!)  Before leaving I needed to wake up the girls AND Ken, plus make Kaylee and Mantha's lunches. Where's the time for ME to eat breakfast??

In the car, of course!  I decided to start with a smoothie this morning.

1 cup soymilk (I like light vanilla)
1 banana
1 cup fresh/frozen strawberries

Blend and drink.  This only takes about 5 minutes and I did it while I was making the girls' lunches.

On Tuesday's I'm in class for 4.5 hours. From 8-12:30. 3 hour labs = NO FUN!   Then I goto the gym.  I packed myself a granola bar.  I tried to use cereal instead of granola and it completely failed.  I went back to a tried and true granola bar. 

Granola Bar Recipe

• 2 1/2 cup oats (I used quick cooking even though every recipe told me not to)
• 2 mashed bananas (about 1 1/4 cup)
• 1/3 cup sugar free maple syrup
• 1/4 cup cherry craisins (next time I'm going to use 1/2 - 3/4 cup)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees
2. Mix everything together in a bowl
3. Bake on a small sheet pan greased with pan spray for 25 minutes
4. Cool then cut into squares/rectangles

I cut it into 8 bars.  According to SparkRecipes each bar has 150 calories and 2.1 grams of fat.

So what did I do in the gym?  Nothing too fancy.  Nothing that would kill me.  Even though I am kicking myself for being too self conscience to use the free weights.  I need to stop worrying that I'll look like an idiot

Gym Workout 
10 minutes rowing machine (It's harder than I remember.  My goal is to eventually be able to do it for a full 30 minutes)
15 minutes elliptical

The next set of exercises were done using the 15 lb weights and I did 3 sets of 10

Ab rotation
Rowing weight machine
Bench Press
Lat Pull
Chest Press
Ab machine


I think on Thursday I'm going to spend my hour doing laps.  Now that WILL kill me!  I'm actually surprised at how well equipt the campus gym is.  Cardio equipment, a few weight sets and a 25 meter, 8 lane, indoor heated pool.  I couldn't ask for more.  

Writing Prompt --As a superhero, would you rather have extreme strength or extreme speed?
Answer -- I'm a superhero, why can't I have both?  I think that there are definate perks to both.  But if I only had to choose one I'd pick speed.  I'd never be late to anything and I could travel the world and not have to worry about paying for transportation.  Plus I'd save on gas and car insurance. :)

Spring Break Camping

We got back from camping yesterday.  I love going camping with the family though.  It gives us time to enjoy each other.  No TV, no internet and no phones.  Mr. Amazing works evenings and weekends so we don’t spend very much family time together with the girls getting home from school so late then having to do dinner and homework and since Kay is in the Gifted Program at school she has A LOT of homework.  

This is our second time camping.  The first time got screwed up by me and my gallbladder and by Mo having some breathing issues (we think it was because of the cool October night air.)  But the family enjoyed the 1 night we spent camping and were excited to try it again.  Kay was the most excited.  I swear she’s the perfect girl for me.  She wants to roll in the mud, play every sport imaginable, but she wants to do it all in a skirt.  Last time I tried to be really healthy.  I packed salad to go with dinner, healthy cereals and milk, and a bunch of healthy snack options.  This trip though I decided to excite my kids even more by telling them that they were going to be able to eat crap for 3 days.  But, I am the Fat Free Queen so I can’t COMPLETELY throw health and nutrition to the wind.  Breakfast was muffins and dry cereal.  For me it was Krusteaz fat free blueberry. 

My yummy muffin and the girls cereal 

Lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit and pretzels and chips.  Dinner was the typical burgers and hot dogs for the kids and Mr. Amazing.  For me it was Portobello mushrooms with some fat free cheese. 

I also brought a ton of snacks.  I made trail mix, granola bars, and apple chips.  For dessert we, of course, had s’mores. 

My trail mix.  Dried blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, raisins, cherries and some sunflower seeds

The granola bars

The granola bars I made were REALLY awesome!  Next time I’m going to try using Nutella instead of regular peanut butter.  Or, I’ll use my chocolate PB2 so they’ll be low enough in fat for me to eat.  They were a bit thick so I think that I’d bake them in a 9x13 pan instead of the 8x8.  Here’s the recipe:

Approximate nutrition facts

2 ½ c oatmeal

¼ c sunflower seeds

¾ c mixed nuts; coarsely chopped (I used leftover almonds and hazelnuts that I had lying around)

1/3 c maple syrup (I used sugar free)

¼ c agave

1 c mixed dried fruit (I used strawberries, cherries, blueberries and cranberries)

1 c peanut butter (softened in the microwave)

1. Mix thoroughly 
2. Bake in and 8x8 lined with greased parchment paper
3. 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes
4. Cool, cut then refrigerate 

See all the chunks of stuff in them?  Packed with flavor!

We ended up leaving the house 2 hours after I had planned for us to leave.  We got to the campgrounds at 4:30.  We had to run to Wal-Mart for some last minute stuff.  We finally started setting up at about 6.  I took the girls for a short hike while Mr. Amazing made dinner.  We ate, made s’mores at let the kids run around the campsite until about 9.  They played in the tent for a while.  After realizing that there was no chance of them going to sleep on their own I decided to go to bed.  Oh, did I mention Mr. Amazing forgot to pack the sleeping bag?  Yeah, he totally did.  So we spent the night lying on the hard ground with just a semi-thick blanket between us and a crushed shell ground.  I ended up waking up every couple hours due to lack of blanket.  Did I also mention that we had 1 sheet between the 5 of us and Kay is a complete sheet hog?  The next morning I ended up waking up at 6 and Mr. Amazing woke up around 6:30.  While he was at the store getting coffee I did my morning exercise.  I found this workout at Girl Heroes  I also laid on the picnic table and did 50 sit-ups and 25 bicycles (with hiking boots on.)  Mr. Amazing still wasn’t back when I was done so I ran about 5 minutes worth of suicide drills between the fences of our site.  We went hiking after breakfast and then searched the park has a ton of options trail rides, canoe rentals and a spring that you can swim in.  But, because we had the dogs and we found we couldn’t do anything so we decided to pack up and drive home.  Next time, I’m putting my dogs in a kennel. 

                But all in all our camping trip was a success.  The girls had fun and we are still having family time at home so, it’s not a complete waste of time and money.     

Have you taken your kids camping?  How'd it go?