My new super foodie blogger gal pal Marla Meridith and I have a lot in common. We love junk food (well, who doesn’t?) but we hate how it makes us feel. We even hate wasting money on it. So it’s particularly annoying to shell out dough for expensive ‘healthy’ snacks which, upon closer examination, aren’t really all that healthy after all. And if you have a lot of lunch boxes to fill, the $$ for bags of organic snackables can really add up!
Marla just wrote a terrific guest post for Simple Organic which covers two of my favorite topics -saving money and eating healthy. It’s called Organic Homemade Snack Foods: Crunch With Style. Marla is a total inspiration to me in that she’s completely given up sugar, exercises (more than I do), and actually enjoys cooking and coming up with amazing healthy and creative recipes. Not only that, she styles and photographs every morsel in beauteous detail and then blogs about it… But enough about super talented and healthy people it’s hard not to be in awe of… On to the food!
Marla writes:
“…If you can stick to a few, my hat goes off to you. If you are like the rest of us, those organic packaged snacks might be doing more harm than good. Next time you grab a bag of your favorite organic pre-packaged snack foods, take a look at the ingredients and calories – not to mention the price. You might want to take matters into your own hands.”
After reading her wonderfully simple, yet oh so healthy and tasty recipes, I really wanted to try one. Super Fit Kale Chips looked and sounded amazing and the prep was my favorite word - easy! So I dropped Lily off at her piano lesson, ran to our local Sprout’s Market (kind of a cross between Whole Foods and Trader Joes) and grabbed 2 bunches of kale. One red, one green. Hey, I was going all out! Drum roll, please – this is my first kale. I’ve never cooked kale before, now I’m embarrassed to admit… The stuff is so healthy looking I was already feeling pretty smug, and I hadn’t even left the store!
I quickly checked out, picked Lily up, went home, and together we made a batch of the most addicting HEALTHY chips I’ve ever eaten.
After we had polished off at least half the batch, we still had enough to put into one of her EasyLunch box containers for camp tomorrow. (She’s enrolled in a teenage drama program and loving every minute of it!)
Tempting treats that are both good for you and your wallet are included in Marla’s post at Simple Organic. Or visit her website and get the complete detailed skinny on each of these nutritious noshes:
“May I also mention that your costs are greatly reduced when you use whole food ingredients vs. big branded bags? You can also greatly reduce the amount of sodium and sugars compared to the packaged snacks. Good stuff all around.”
BTW – The next recipe of yours we’re trying is Meatball Lollipops!
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Kelly, I am so proud of you guys for trying out the Kale chips and having such great success! Look at Lily working away, awesome. The key is to get our kids eating healthy while they are young & they will carry those great habits with them into adulthood.
xxoo
Thanks for the wonderful write up
Interesting thought – - not sure I can get my processed food loving kids to do the kale chips, but the chickpeas sounds absolutely YUMMY! I cannot wait to try them!
“now I’m embarrassed to admit… The stuff is so healthy looking I was already feeling pretty smug, and I hadn’t even left the store!”
I have a great image of you pushing along your cart with the kale in a high can’t-be-missed location, strutting your stuff with your nose up in the air…. LOL!
Melissa is the cool author of..summertime bento brunch
Yes, and boy was I a site: no makeup, hiding my bad hair day under my husband’s Dodgers baseball cap. But smug, nonetheless
I’m sure my cart of kale upstaged me, so I wasn’t too worried…
Wow! Kale chips in a lunch box – that kid is going to be doing calculus by the time she is 10! Fabulous.
yours, Snack Girl
Snack Girl is the cool author of..A Tomato Salad For Tomato Lovers
Looks good and healthy. There are lots of healthy snacks which our seniors used to do and now we don’t know many of them. Thanks for sharing the pics, they are somewhat a source of inspiration
Adam is the cool author of..How to Avoid Food Stored in Thermos Getting Soggy After Time
Thanks Adam! I love hearing about the different ways our lunches inspire people! Really appreciate your feedback
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