Frugal (and/or Healthy) Alternatives to Snacks, Part 2
Last week, I wrote about frugal alternatives for chips and crackers when you are craving something salty. This week, let's go with sweets.
Make your own cake frosting from scratch- it tastes ten times better than store bought and costs a fraction of the price.
Make your own brownie mix so you can mix up a pan of brownies from scratch as easily as you can with a boxed mix.
Make this low-carb flaxseed cookie in about three minutes.
Make your own granola and other oatmeal recipes- my kids loved these as sweet treats when they were younger and more innocent of store bought goodies.
This easy and very frugal sweet topping has a bit of a butterscotchy flavor and is good over apples (bake them for a few minutes for an easy 'cobbler'), over ice-cream, in a bowl of yogurt.
Whip yourself up a chocolate cake in a mug in about five minutes, or give this as a gift.
When I was a kid, my brothers and I used to eat brown sugar sandwiches for a sweet treat- we spread the bread with butter (margarine, really), and then spread the margarine with brown sugar, pressing the sugar down to moisten and bind it to the margarine. I know it sounds nasty now. Well, actually, it doesn't. I still remember how good they were. I just wouldn't eat one anymore. But maybe your kids would like them as much as my brothers and I did.
Make your own delicious caramel popcorn- in the microwave.
This is the cookie recipe I start my kids off with:
2 cups peanut butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
Mix well, roll about a teaspoonful at a time into a ball, flatten on cookie sheet with a fork (cross cross pattern in the traditional way), and bake at 350 for about ten minutes. They taste like a confection as much as a cookie. Ad a couple teaspoons of vanilla if desired.
When the FYG was around 9, she had made these three or four times with almost no supervision, so I thought she could make the desert for our lunch time company one day. The cookies were great, but she explained to me later that she had learned something new- that she should never hold the mixer up out of the bowl and spin the blades. She had to shampoo her hair to get all the cookie dough out.
related posts:
- Frugal Alternatives to Processed Snacks, Part One Frugal alternatives to chips, chex mix, and other salty snacks-...
- Frugal Tactics For Cookie Baking I hauled home a 4-lb bag of chocolate chips this...
- Frugal and Healthy I am by no means an expert on this issue,...
- Frugal Snacks, Part the Third Week one was all about Teh Salty Week two was...
- Flexibility In Your Hand A while back in a post on my regular blog...
3 Responses to “Frugal (and/or Healthy) Alternatives to Snacks, Part 2”
October 21st, 2011 at 4:47 pm
What a cute story at the end! I’d love the cookies, but my oldest won’t eat peanut butter. Not that she is allergic, she just doesn’t like it.
I love to tell the story about how before she started school at 5, if you offered her a cookie she would say no, and if you offered her any sugary treat or apples or carrots she would take the apples or carrots every time. At ten she is still very picky about her sugary treats, its not enough to be sweet, it has to meet a whole list of requirements or she will pass!
October 25th, 2011 at 5:19 am
Thanks for sharing. I am not sure if I should love you for posting an easy quick cake in a mug idea so that I do not have a whole cake sitting around or be upset because it is so easy I have already made one to share with my little boys but I am trying to lose weight. Anyway thank you for sharing. I will have to try hard at not making it all the time.
October 27th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Andrea, I am sorry. I overdid it on the cake in a mug the first year I learned it myself.
Now I’m doing the flaxseed cookie thing almost every night.=)
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