Peanut Butter Granola Balls and Home made Play-Dough

I was looking for the recipe for play-dough tonight and found this little snack recipe. It 's warm gooey deliciousness will have the ol' hubby making repeat trips for spoonfuls as you put them into the candy liners.

Peanut Butter Granola Bars

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup peanut butter

2 Tbsp butter

1 cup rice cereal

1 cup oatmeal

1/4 cup dried fruit (I used craisins!)

Melt the honey and butters in the microwave stirring along the way until fully melted and combined. Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix well. Scoop in to mini muffin liners or candy liners and refrigerate. Yum!

And while I'm at it, here's the Play-Dough recipe. It's so great, soft, smells good, the kids don't actually LIKE to eat it and it's fun to make with them!

Home-Made Play Dough

2 cups flour

3/4 cup salt

4 tsp cream of tartar

2 cups boiling water

3 Tbsp oil

1 pkg kool-aid

Mix all the dry ingredients, then pour the water and oil over the top, mixing as you go. Mix in the kool-aid for instant color with a yummy scent. (You can use food coloring if you want instead.)

A New Snack Idea

I am always looking for healthy snack ideas for the boys outside of the typical PB and Ritz. I ran across this idea in a magazine a few months back. Graham crackers, topped with ricotta cheese and drizzled with honey.

There's just something magical about honey. I often times find myself in a trance while putting it in my tea or oatmeal as I admire it's golden beauty. This is just another excuse to use it I guess. Sorry a total diversion. Whoops. See, I'm tranced with a mere picture of the stuff.

I know how some of you may feel about ricotta cheese, but the next time you have a little bit left over from making lasagna, then think about trying this out. I'm stocking up to make sandwich versions for Diddle's class next week. If I can get them to eat spinach and cottage cheese on crackers with a face made out of olives and cheddar then I bet they totally dig this.

Disguise is the key, I've found, with preschoolers! My boys will eat anything with a face on it!