I can't believe it took me 10 months of paleo/primal cooking to find these easy snacks for the kids. Silly. They love these, and so easy to make.
This is also the perfect snack to demonstrate one of my favorite paleo "principles." Carbs will not fill you up, ever. If anything they will make you more hungry. When you give your kid a bowl of goldfish or animal crackers, they are not going to get full. We have all seen kids tear through a box of these and be hungry an hour later. These crackers filled my kids up. They ate 3, drank some water and played for 3 or 4 hours until it was time for dinner, because these crackers are made out of protein + healthy fats. Also a great example of how paleo/primal is not more expensive than a "normal" diet. Almond flour is expensive, but your kids can not likely overeat on almond flour. (It works for the grown-ups, too.) It is too filling.
A lot of people go paleo or primal without ever needing to use almond flour. I get that. But I have kids, and they like cookies, muffins and other treats from time to time. And for those of us that lived our first 30 years eating baked goods, every once in a while it is nice to make something in muffin or cake form.
My baking recipes and experiments primarily use almond meal/flour. Occasionally, coconut flour or tapioca flour. Almond meal and flour is pretty easy for me to get affordably at Trader Joes, but trying to buy it at one of the regular grocery stores can be very expensive. I have been trying to locate a good, affordable source of almond flour/meal so that my sister (and other friends that live in more rural areas) can have access to it, also.
We are going to make an order off this site, soon. They offer an almond meal similar to Trader Joe's and an almond flour (with the brown hull blanched off) at pretty great prices. You do have to buy in bulk (smallest order that makes sense to get a good price after shipping is 25 lb). Even with shipping, the price comes out to be about $1 per lb less than purchasing it at Trader Joe's. Splitting an order between 2 or 3 people makes a lot of sense, and it will keep in the freezer.
Next project, sourcing coconut oil and coconut flour that can be delivered to your door.
Pizza Crackers
This is my picky eater smiling because these crackers "smell and taste like PIZZA!" They were a hit.
Recipe from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook - Nut Crackers
(there are hundreds of variations of this on primal message boards)
2 cups almond meal
1 tsp baking soda
1-2 Tbsp oregano or Italian seasoning
1 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
2 Tbsp Olive oil
3 Tbsp water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl till you have a wet, sticky dough.
Pat dough out onto a lined cookie sheet.
Sprinkle with salt.
Bake for 15 minutes or until they are golden brown and dry like crackers.
Remove from oven and cool, then cut or break up into crackers.
Store in an air-tight container
I was really happy with how these turned out for a first try. If anything, I would have just patted them out into a thinner cracker. The kids devoured these!
Cinnamon Crackers
2 cups almond meal
1 tsp baking soda
1-2 Tbsp cinnamon
1 cup finely shredded coconut flakes
2 Tb olive oil
3 Tbsp water
Same steps as above recipe
We sprinkled some mini chocolate chips over 1/2 of the crackers when we took them out of the oven.
These turned out great, also. Next time I plan on patting them out thinner and using a bit more cinnamon.
The kids can't wait to make more crackers. We are dreaming of a chocolate cracker with cocoa powder, a gingerbread cracker with real ginger, and something like a "cheddar" cracker (think Cheese-Its or Goldfish). Always great to find a new snack that the kids can help with, love to eat, and keeps them full. Even my 4 and 5 year old can see the difference between eating their homemade crackers and tearing through a box of Goldfish type crackers.
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