Amy Wilensky - Knack Healthy Snacks for Kids: Recipes for Nutritious Bites at Home or on the Go

Copyright 2010 by Morris Book Publishing, LLC

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Knack is a registered trademark of Morris Book Publishing, LLC, and is used with express permission.

Editorial Director: Cynthia Hughes

Editor: Lara Asher

Project Editor:Tracee Williams

Cover Design: Paul Beatrice, Bret Kerr

Interior Design: Paul Beatrice

Layout: Joanna Beyer

Diagrams courtesy of U.S Department of Agriculture, Team Nutrition Front Cover Photos by: Monkey Business Images | shutterstock and Peter Ardito and Susan Byrnes, Ardito + Byrnes Photography Back Cover Image by: Peter Ardito and Susan Byrnes, Ardito + Byrnes Photography

Interior Photos by: Peter Ardito and Susan Byrnes, Ardito + Byrnes Photography with the exception of those on page v: courtesy of Amy Wilensky; page 8 (left): Monkey Business Images | shutterstock; page 21 (right): Monkey Business Images | shutterstock; page 25 (left): Denis and Yulia Pogostins | shutterstock; page 117 (left): tonobalaguerf | shutterstock; page 119 (left): Steven Pepple | shutterstock; page 127 (left): Marsha Goldenberg | shutterstock; page 183 (right): goran cakmazovic | shutterstock; page 189 (right): Vasilius | shutterstock; page 211 (right): Noam Armonn | shutterstock; page 221 (left): Denis Pepin | shutterstock; page 239 courtesy of Amy Wilensky

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilensky, Amy S., 1969

Knack healthy snacks for kids : recipes for nutritious bites at home or on the go / Amy Wilensky ; photographs by Peter Ardito and Susan Byrnes.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-59921-917-2

1. Snack foods. 2. Cookery (Natural foods) I. Title.

TX740.W5484 2010

641.5636--dc22

2010002594

The following manufacturers/names appearing in Knack Healthy Snacks for Kids are trademarks:

Benadryl; Callebaut; Cheetos; Dixie Cup; Frisbee; Happy Meal; Michelin; Nutella; Oreo; Parmalat; Popsicle; Sterno; Trader Joes; V8 Juice; Tupperware; WebMD; Whole Foods Market; Wonder Bread

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the author or Globe Pequot Press. The author and Globe Pequot Press disclaim any liability in connection with the use of this information.

For Lily and Annika, my favorite snackers and recipe testers, forever and always.

I come from a family with many talented, resourceful cooks, and I would like to thank them all, but especially my grandmother, whose kitchen table was in many ways the epicenter of my childhood; my mother, who changed the lives of thousands of children but also made her own Concord grape jelly; and my sister, an artist in the kitchen and everywhere else, who has made all the best meals of my life.

Let me begin by saying that when it comes to food, I am extraordinarily lucky. I come from a family of gardeners and cooks and epicurespeople who celebrate real food, prepared simply and well. I know this now, but it must be said that as a child I wasnt always so sure. From quite early on, I was aware that at our house, there were no snack foods in little foil packets, no foods in unnatural shades of orange or blue. Many of the fruits and vegetables we ate, we grew: from zucchini and Swiss chard to blueberries and black raspberries to apples and tomatoes and herbs. At the grocery store, we were not allowed to choose breakfast cereal that listed sugar as one of the first three ingredients, which eliminated the cereals I coveted most, such as the one shaped like tiny chocolate chip cookies, and the one that consisted mostly of marshmallows.

When I got to school, I became even more aware of the contrast between my pantry and the pantries in some of my friends homes, from which emerged sandwiches made with blocks of cheese that didnt have unpronounceable French or Scandinavian names, and cookies that were never unevenly colored because nobody had actually baked them. When I was in sixth grade, my mother and her sister catered a family wedding, and my cousin (who today makes exquisite pastries herself) and I remember that year as an especially dark one, during which our school lunches were filled with tiny chocolate cheesecakes topped with real slices of candied apricot and perfect, miniature clairs from my mothers deep-freezer in the basementnot hot commodities on the cafeteria trading circuit, needless to say. I cringe when I imagine how my mother felt hearing me beg for real cookies from the store.

Today, the way my mother shopped and cooked is the norm for an increasing number of families in a changing world where farmers markets are thriving, ordinary grocery stores offer organic, local, free-range, antibiotic-free, and ethnic ingredients once exclusively the province of health food or specialty stores, and many towns have Thai, Indian, or Middle Eastern restaurants serving foods that your children will love. Although an infinite variety of artificially flavored and colored and highly processed snack foods remains ubiquitous, we know so much more about health and nutrition that even the least enlightened corporations are eliminating trans fats and high fructose corn syrup from many products due to consumer demand. It is easier than ever before to find healthy alternatives to the snack foods once so blithely advertised during Saturday morning cartoons. In a surprising and to my mind all-too-welcome trend, many parents are cooking again and teaching their children that cooking is an art and good food a true source of pleasure in life.

Now that I have two children of my own, the way I think about food has changed, along with the way that I cook. I realize now how much of the food served to me as a child by my working mother was cleverly and quickly prepared, and I have incorporated many of her time-saving strategies into my own kitchen, as a working mother myself. I also feel a responsibility about food that I dont always relish. Occasionally, we have cupcakes for dinner because I need to remind myself that one of the rewards of the hard and sometimes churlish work of making sure your children eat well is that a truly well-balanced diet has room for indulgence. As much as I believe that children can and should love perfect little roasted brussels sprouts, I also think they need pink frosting, if not for the body, then certainly for the soul.