Snack Attack

Hot Cocoa

A Cooking Teens Original

After sledding or shoveling or dragging yourself home from school through the snow there’s one thing that hits the spot perfectly – hot cocoa. Think twice before you reach for that mysterious mix of faux “cocoa” ingredients in the envelope. You can whip up the real thing in the same time it takes to make the mystery milk. This hot cocoa is not only simple to make, it’s good for you, what with the calcium and protein in the milk and the antioxidants in the cocoa. (But don’t let that stop you from drinking it!) Here’s what you need:

Ingredients
1/2 cup of real cocoa powder (sometimes called baking cocoa)
1/3 cup of sugar (we used turbinado, but white sugar will do)
2 tablespoons of HOT water from the tap
3 cups of milk (we used skim but any will do)

To Prepare

Put the milk in a saucepan and turn heat to medium. In a little bowl, combine the cocoa powder and sugar, and add the hot water (you want the water to be hot enough to melt the sugar), and whisk together the thick paste until smooth. When the milk is hot to the touch (but not scalding), pour in the cocoa mixture and whisk again. Pour into two mugs and serve.

If you want to jack up the fun factor and decrease the healthy factor, add a few miniature marshmallows and a squirt of whipped cream. Then go shovel some more snow and work off those extra calories…

Enjoy!
– By Carol Leonetti Dannhauser

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Healthier Snacks Available for New Orleans Schools

Some of the healthier snacks now available in New Orleans school vending machines. (Photo by TED JACKSON, Times Picayune)

Healthier snacks are now available in New Orleans school vending machines. (Photo by TED JACKSON, Times Picayune)

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Yummy Hummus

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Throughout the ages teens have turned to hummus to sate their after-school hunger and provide them with a yummy and quick snack that will hold them ’til dinner. Long before toga-wearing teens returned home from school at the lyceum, ground-up chick peas were a staple on many family menus. Today they’re easy to find, cheap to buy, and pack a punch in the protein department. Together with a few ingredients they whip up into hummus in a snap.

Before 4000 B.C. in Palestine and on tables in ancient Rome, teens tossed tahini, or sesame paste, into to the mix. But if you don’t have any tahini around that’s OK. We think this hummus stands on its own just fine.

Yummy Hummus
A Cooking Teens Original
© Rising Moon Media, 2009

Ingredients
2 large garlic cloves
1 can (15 ounces or so) garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chick peas, a.k.a. cece beans), rinsed and drained
1 lemon, cut in half
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup plain (NOT vanilla) yogurt
1/2 teaspoon salt

Optional
1/4 cup tahini (Note: if you’re using the tahini, reduce the olive oil to one tablespoon and reduce the yogurt to 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons crumbled feta
1 tablespoon roasted red peppers, drained
a couple of leaves of fresh mint or basil, or the leaves from a sprig of parsley or rosemary

To Prepare
With the back of a fork or a mortar and pestle mash up the garlic cloves with the salt. Toss this paste into a food processor. Then add the beans, the oil and the yogurt (and any and all of the optional ingredients, if using). Then squeeze into the mix the juice from one half of the lemon. Process for about a minute, then taste the hummus. If it’s not lemony enough for your tastes, squeeze in the juice from the other half and process for another minute. If it’s plenty lemony then skip the added juice and process for another minute anyway to make it nice and creamy. That’s all there is to it!
This hummus makes a great dip for cut up veggies such as carrots, cukes and pepper strips, it holds up well to whole-grain crackers or pretzel sticks and it’s yummy as a sandwich spread with chicken or provolone. Or scoop it up with flatbread and fresh salsa, or with roasted vegetables such as tomatoes and eggplant.
Enjoy!
– By Carol Leonetti Dannhauser

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Chocolately Cheesy Panini

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

When you come home from school after a long day, chances are good that one of the first places you head to is the kitchen. What to eat? What will be hearty enough and tasty enough to satisfy you ’til dinner, but will be ready without a big mess to clean up or a chunk of time?

Looking for a little inspiration, we took a page out of Giada de Laurentiis’s most recent cookbook and put an American, French and teen-friendly spin on one of her “New Italian Favorites.” The result is a gooey, cheesy, hearty, absolutely fabulous snack that you can put together in a flash.

Ingredients

1 loaf of whole wheat French bread or thin loaf of whole wheat Italian bread (non whole wheat will do in a pinch), about 12 inches long

4 ounces cream cheese

2 ounces good-quality, semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 apple (Golden Delicious is nice with this but any apple will do), washed and cut into six thin slices with the core removed

Preparation

Preheat broiler.

Slice the loaf in half lengthwise. On one half, spread the cream cheese. On the other half, sprinkle the chocolate chips and cover them with the apple slices one next to the other.

Put both halves crust-side down on a cookie sheet, and put the sheet on a rack under the broiler. Cook until the edges brown (just a couple of minutes) then take out and squish and press the two halves together so that the chocolate and the apple and the cheese form a tasty, oozy, sweet and crunchy concoction that tastes part panino and part pan au chocolate. Wait a couple of minutes so the flavors can blend (if you can stand it!), cut into sections and enjoy!

Makes six 2-inch panini.

A Cooking Teens Original

By Carol Leonetti Dannhauser

Check out more of Giada’s recipes here in Giada’s Kitchen: New Italian Favorites

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Banana Bread

Monday, November 21st, 2011

You get home from school, famished as usual, and scrounge around for something to eat. But the cupboards are bare, save for a few pantry staples, and the few bananas in the bowl have definitely seen better days. Not to worry, for you probably have the makings of a killer banana bread. Banana bread is a “quick bread,” in other words, no rising or kneading time is needed. What makes this banana bread rise is baking soda, which you probably have around somewhere. It takes only a couple of minutes to mix up the whole bread, then you just toss it in the oven to bake. OK, you do have to find something to do for an hour while it’s baking. But we think the sweet/moist/yummy/crunchy/wholesome and satisfying product is worth the effort. If a bread isn’t your thing, this recipe makes a perfect dozen banana muffins. That takes a bit less time to bake, about 40 minutes or so.

Banana Bread
A Cooking Teens Original

Ingredients
3 very ripe bananas (preferably organic), mashed
2 cups white flour
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup plain (not vanilla) yogurt or sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup brown sugar (or white, if you don’t have brown)
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1/2 teaspoon salt

Optional (but definitely worth it, if you have the items in the fridge)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 handful chopped walnuts or pecans

To Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray, or grease it with butter.

In a large bowl, thoroughly combine the butter and the sugar. Into the butter and sugar combination, add the beaten eggs, yogurt, vanilla and mashed bananas and mix well. Toss in the chocolate chips and nuts, if using, and stir. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt, and then add it to the bowl with the wet banana mixture. Combine the ingredients, but don’t over mix.
Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan and bake for about an hour, or pour into a greased or sprayed muffin tin and bake for about 40 minutes. Either way, bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the bread or muffin comes out clean.
Enjoy!
By Carol Leonetti Dannhauser
© Rising Moon Media, 2009

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Snack Attack

Hot Cocoa

Healthier Snacks Available for New Orleans Schools

Yummy Hummus

Chocolately Cheesy Panini

Banana Bread

Cooking Teens: The Place For Teens Who Love To Cook And Eat