[blparent] snacks

[Jan Wright]

I always hated to cook in the summer because  I  felt like it took away from our family time.
And, it was just too hot.
Fruit cheese and nuts for the morning.
You can even make a good fruit yogurt salad. My children learned how to make an "egg inside of toast," (but they were a bit older because it was made on the stove). Although French toast is hot, it is quick and children can dip while you flip.
 If you want, you can wrap sausage links up in the French toast and it is less messy.
 stuffed tomatoes with bacon, onions and cheese  (if you eat pork which most people do), fruit kibabs are always fun, your son can help with no bake cookies and/or hotdogs wrapped in biscuits.  
You can make a large sub of your choice. It is fun to go shopping for the ingredients that you will use and make it like Subway, just with your own special ingredients.
 Using pita bread and/or English muffins to make individual pizzas is always a treat. String cheese is a good healthy snack.
What is best and most fun is to get your children cooking with you and cleaning up with you. Then, you are doing it as a family. But, the heat is always a concern and so is health. Sometimes, those little apple sauce snacks or those small puddings are good, but they can get expensive. So, you can take cream cheese containers or small butter containers and make your own apple sauce snacks. You want to find things that are minimal work, minimal heat and minimal to your wallet.
I tried to get fresh fruit instead of canned, but when I had canned, I would freeze fruit and fruit juice in yogurt cups (maybe dilute it a bit with water or coolaid)  and they would be like a big frozen popsickle   snack.   The children would have to scrape their popsickle with a spoon so they would take more time to eat it. It would be a welcome lazy snacktime. 
You can also use tortilla shells to  wrap apples and other fruit. Sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar and bake.
They aren't that healthy, but are like apple turnovers without the dough and expense.
Think about camp food and see how you can make it even inside of your own oven.
The kids will have fun helping.
There is always chex and trailmix that you can make yourself. You can also usually find a very cheap dehydrator and dried your own beef and fruit. That is fun, too.
I have never been that successful at kettle potato chips. But, I have made a kind of popcorn (crunch and munch) with less sugar. You can also take the powdered   cheese and put it on popcorn. some people have used vanilla/chocolate pudding as a popcorn flavoring. Kids can also spread cream cheese over soft taco shells or wraps, then add meat of their choice, as long as it is thinnly sliced.Actually, you can mix onion soupl with the cream cheese or powdered ranch dressing or a salty spice mixture for flavor. I have used green onions and blue cheese dressing and even minced olives. so the options are endless. But, when you roll the wrap into a tube, you have to refrigerate it and then cut it into one inch slices. 
That is all I can think of off the top of my head.