Cheap Snacks

I am pretty bad about keeping snacks handy, especially when I'm at work, so I decided to make a couple of homemade snacks for this week - both of which I was able to make with ingredients I had on hand! Yay for FREE! Both will be great for the kids, too.
First up: Frozen Pudding Sandwiches

This is something my mom made for me as a kid. They are SO good. All you need:

• 1/2 cup of peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• a small box of instant vanilla pudding mix
• a box of graham crackers

Place the peanut butter into a mixing bowl and gradually mix in the milk with a hand mixer. Then, add in the pudding mix. Mix for one minute, then let sit for 5 minutes.

Split each graham in half and fill up a freezer-safe pan with graham halves.

Once the mix is pudding-like, scoop 1/2 to 1 Tablespoon of the mix onto each half.

Then place another half on top for form a sandwich, pressing lightly.

If you layer the pan, separate layers of sandwiches with wax paper to avoid sticking. Cover and place in freezer for at least a couple of hours, then enjoy!

I used a large box of pudding mix today, so my measurements were more like: a generous 3/4 cup of peanut butter and 2 1/4 cups milk. I went through all of our grahams, so now we have some leftover peanut butter pudding in the fridge. Yum!

Last up: Granola Bars (adapted from here)

I didn't have all I needed for this, but was close, so here's what I threw together:

• 3 cups whole rolled oats
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups rice krispies
• 1 cup flour
• 10-11 Tablespoons of softened butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup of honey

I mixed those ingredients up, then placed at least 1/4 of the mixture in another bowl. With the remaining mixture, I stirred in 1/4 cup peanut butter and 1 cup chocolate chips.

With the other quarter of mix, I stirred in about 1/3 cup of dried blueberries and tried to add a bit more honey (whatever I could scrape up; I completely ran out. I would have added at least 1/2 to 3/4 cup honey to the entire recipe had I had enough.)

In a greased 9x13 pan, I dumped in the chocolate chip mix and pressed it into the pan, leaving about 1/4 of the pan empty for the blueberry mix. Then I dumped in and pressed in the blueberry mix. (I later saw I had sunflower seeds in our pantry, which would have been great to add in, but oh well. Next time!)

Bake in a 325 oven for about 18 minutes, then let cool for 15-20 minutes. Slice into bars (I made 16) then cover and place in freezer to firm up. Remove after an hour or so and give them a try!