Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local
All the pencils, crayons, and notebooks are on sale again — it must be time for school to start again. Backpacks all over the country are getting pulled out of the closet and stocked with new materials; lunchboxes too are being taken out of storage and returning to their heyday.
Kids (and parents) are also being tugged out of their summer schedule, or lack thereof. While I don’t quite have school-age children yet, I’m sure the force of that tug varies greatly between households: perhaps some kids have been champing at the bit and need only to be released to fly schoolward, while others have watched the days go by on the calendar with a broad sense of impending doom.
Parents probably have varying emotions as well, not necessarily matching those of their offspring. Some can’t wait to get back into a routine and drop the kids off every morning, while others lament saying goodbye to the last vestiges of summer vacation and more time with their family. Or, if homeschooling, there might be even more time spent together, just in a different context — again, this might be approached with excitement or gloom. Possibly, a combination of all of the above.
Regardless of emotional status, everyone’s still gotta eat, and school is hard work. We don’t talk about after school snacks for nothing.
By the time I type in “aft—,” my Pinterest search engine is already filling in the rest of the phrase, even though this is the first time I’m looking it up. The idea is easy and nutritious finger foods that can be made quickly or ahead of time, so they can be ready for kids in their ravenous post-academic state to either grab or make on their own. Classic combinations like apples & peanut butter, cheese & crackers, and yogurt & fruit feature prominently, as do things like smoothies, muffins, granola bars, and wraps.
Maybe I’m still a kid at heart/stomach, since all those sound great to me.
And while I didn’t anticipate it quite yet, our household might fall into the after-school-snackers category this year after all. While I keep saying that we don’t have to make school decisions yet, I’m realizing my time in this stage is increasingly limited. My son apparently keeps growing, and is becoming alarmingly close to needing a more formalized educational approach. Brian and I continue to consider different options, but at this point we plan to homeschool, for the lower grades at least. I was homeschooled all twelve years, and I loved it; we’ll see what feels right for Benson as time goes on. Before switching majors in college, I was on track to get my degree in Early Education, as I’ve always loved little kids and teaching.
I could get so excited about teaching my own kids — and it seems Benson is down with that idea, at least for the moment. He’s actually almost a little too excited, if I can say that out loud. This week we found a kindergarten workbook someone had given us, and he has been obsessed with it. He got up before he’s supposed to a few days, so he could do workbook. We walk in the door from being somewhere and he heads straight over to the workbook. I had to stop multiple times while writing this to help him do some more workbook. What am I supposed to do, tell him no let’s stop learning?! What a sweet conundrum.
It won’t last, so I’m trying to run with the momentum while it’s here. Some of it’s pretty hard for him, but we plow through it anyway. Fortunately, I can still lure him away from the pages with food, which is good because kids aren’t the only ones who need after school snacks.
Blender Chia Pudding
Pudding is one of my major standbys, and it works well for an after school snack, ticking all the boxes of simple, nutritious, kid-friendly, and even good both right now and made-ahead. Chia seeds have such an oddly delightful thickening capability, and while you can make an easy pudding just by mixing the ingredients, I prefer a smooth, blended style. Hey, that’s not too bad,” Benson declared after a tester bite. Without any awareness of what my article was about, he grabbed his crayon and his spoon turned this into a during-school snack.
Prep tips: chia seeds get very sticky with time, so try and wash your equipment right away. This makes about 3 cups of pudding.
2 ½ cups whole milk
½ cup chia seeds
½ cup blueberries, plus more for topping
⅓ cup cocoa powder
¼ cup almond butter
6-8 dates, pitted
dash salt
Whisk milk and chia seeds; let sit about half an hour or until the chia has soaked up some of the milk. Transfer to a blender container, add remaining ingredients, and blend until smooth. Pour into individual containers (we like jars, of course) and refrigerate until snacktime — or eat right away.
