Friday, January 25, 2008

Mudballs: A yummy toddler snack

In my quest to help Sister become a better eater, I have tried letting her help me cook as a way to make the food more appealing. So far, so good. She has already "cooked" and eaten oatmeal, a spoonful of veggie soup (hey- at least she tasted it!) and a new snack favorite called Mudballs. I found the recipe in Trish Kuffner's book, The Toddler Busy Book. I am a sucker for this genre of parenting book that promises lots of creative ideas and activities for toddlers, and usually am disappointed. Seriously, how can an author fill a book with highly UNoriginal "activities" like, "paint with water on the driveway" or "take a trowel to the sandbox and let your toddler dig" and get published?
Anyway, The Toddler Busy Book has enough creative and original ideas to be a keeper. (Though if I were you I'd try to check it out at the library before I bought it.)
Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun making the Mudballs and ate gobs of them. And, the mudballs are pretty healthy, too. (At least healthier than a cookie!)

Mudballs

1 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup dry powdered milk
1/2 cup raisins
Crushed Graham crackers (we used about 1/4 pack) You can increase if the mixture is too sticky.
Chocolate milk powder

1. Mix all ingredients together in a medium size bowl. (Except chocolate powder.)
2. Form the mixture into small balls.
3. Place a small amount of chocolate milk powder on a plate and roll the balls in the powder.
4. Eat as a tasty snack or refrigerate and eat later.

Notes: In order to crush the graham crackers, I put them into zip-lock bags and gave one baggie to each kid. They had great fun smashing the crackers into crumbs. I had one too, and every few minutes I'd call out "Switch!" so I could make sure all the crackers got crushed fine.
Also, I quickly found that it was very important to make very small balls with my kids because they would put whole mudballs in their mouths and peanut butter can be a choking hazard if you're not careful.
Also, my kids had trouble forming the balls but my three-year old enjoyed rolling them in the chocolate powder. We formed a little assembly line and had great success.
Finally, I will warn you that these are not pretty. They will not be an appetizing treat to set out at, say, your PTA's father-daughter dance. But they taste pretty darn good!

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