Hello ladies! I was hoping that you can help me with some healthy ideas to replace the holiday sweets in my cookie jar? My mother-in-law bought me the cutest GIANT mason jar cookie jar for Christmas, and the cookies are ALMOST gone! I would like to keep the jar out, but fill it with homemade or storebought healthier snacks. Any suggestions or recipes would be GREATLY appreciated! ;P Thanks!
I don't have a suggestion, but you look from the title of your post to have a sense of humor. Before I had kids, I had a dog and there were doggie treats in the cookie jar. Some friends came over with a three year old and she took a "cookie" while no one was looking. She was mega disappointed when it wasn't a sweet treat! Too funny and a great memory. Thanks for bringing it up! :)
I keep mine full of raisin oatmeal cookies (except I substitute less calories and cholesterol for the sugar and butter). There are a number of reasonable healthy alternatives that even kids like, even store bought ones. Check out the sugarfree options.
granola bars, fruit rollups, small bags of nuts, dried fruits. Or you could do lighter cookies like fig newtons (and wrap 1-2 together in plastic wrap), weight watchers snack cookies or cakes. As long as the limit is 1-2 snacks per day per person you shouldnt break your budget or your diet.
For semi-healthy cookies/snack treats, I sometimes make oatmeal cookies - either with raisins or with walnuts and chocolate chips. I have a recipe I love, and I cut down the sugar, use whole wheat flour and whole oats, so they are somewhat healthy!
I also make pumpkin muffins that our kids devour (I confess the chocolate chips help a lot) - again with reduced sugar, whole wheat flour, but no one knows the difference. I don't know if the muffins would fit well in your jar but maybe the small size would work.
If you'd like the recipes just let me know.
My kids love the Stretch Island Fruit Leathers from Costco. They're pretty cheap (just over $10 for 48 of them). They also love Craisins, Raisins, other dried fruit, graham crackers, Teddy Grahams, Ritz crackers, and yogurt bites (yogurt covered raisins). Good luck and enjoy your new cookie jar. I am totally jealous!!
We don't have a cookie jar (I wish I had one like yours!!) but we have a snack "bucket". I keep the small packets of fruit snacks, Craisins, and other snack size crackers (Cheez-its, rits bits, etc.) in there. You could add your home-made choices to the mix by putting a snack size portion in snack bags. Right now we also have clementines in there since we got a ton of them at Christmas. Good luck and I am SO jealous of your jar!
In the Super Baby Food book there is a section in the back with delicious and healthy snacks. There is a recipe for Granola Hors D'oeuvres and it is fantastic. They are little granola balls that taste like cookies (there is no sugar in the recipe though!). Check it out!
Trail Mix! I buy dried berries from Walmart-their mixed blends or just individual bags of berries (our favorites are mixed berry & cranberry). We just started adding vanilla yogurt raisins to the mix. My son passed up the cookie jars in favor of trail mix last night. We learned the hard way that you can't mix dried applies in there though (the soft ones)-they don't completely dry out & cause the dried banana chips to get sticky & soft.
We use ours as a coin jar.
what about making your own granola bars with nuts, oats, dried fruit like apples, raisins or craisins (although not too many of the latter--evidently they are really bad for kids' teeth)--you could use sunflower seeds and flax seeds if you're trying to keep them healthy. You could also do little gifts like stickers and such if you're trying to cut back on snacking.
