Joanie Simon, Food Blogger at JoanieSimon.com stopped by to cook up some delicious back-to-school snacks and easy meals! Here are the recipes from the show:
Apple Pies
Ingredients
2 large apples (your favorite variety)
3 Tbs sunflower seed butter (or nut butter)
3 Tbs agave nectar (or honey)
4 Tbs granola (I used 18 Rabbits Cherry Vanilla)
¼ cup dried cherries
2 tsp chia seeds
Instructions
Slice apples into ? inch slices through the middle so that they are rounds
Combine sunflower seed butter and agave until it's an easily spreadable consistency (add more or less agave depending on the consistency of your seed/nut butter)
Put the sunflower butter spread into a ziplock bag and snip off one end to create a piping bag.
Pipe sunflower butter onto the surface of an apple slice.
Sprinkle with granola, dried cherries and chia.
Repeat until all apple slices are used.
Serve immediately (apples will brown if they sit out too long in slices) *spray the apples with lemon juice if you are taking these somewhere or need to make in advance.
Mason Jar Soups
½ cup sweet potato, diced
½ cup minute rice
¼ cup pepper diced
½ cup spinach chopped
¼ cup diced carrots
½ vegetable bouillon cube or ½ tsp green curry paste
½ cup coconut milk
1 water
sriracha to garnish
Instructions
Place sweet potato, rice, pepper, carrots, spinach, and bouillon in a mason jar and seal until ready to use (keeps up to 3 days in the refrigerator)
Add coconut milk and water to the jar when you're ready to eat it and microwave 3 minutes.
Remove from microwave and allow to rest 5 minutes to cook the rice.
Serve!
Crispy Oven Baked Chicken Tenders
14 saltine crackers
2 tsp fresh rosemary, minced
½ cup corn meal, divided
¼ tsp garlic salt
¼ tsp salt
2 Tbs fresh grated parmesan cheese
¼ tsp pepper
1 cup half and half or whole milk
4 Tbs butter, melted
8 chicken tenders
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 450F
Drizzle melted butter all over a baking pan
Place ¼ cup of the divided corn meal into a shallow dish or plate
Combine the crackers, rosemary, remaining cornmeal, salt, garlic salt, parmesan, and pepper into a bowl and smash with your hands so as to break up the crackers into small pieces. This will be our chicken breading.
Take one chicken tender and roll it in the plain cornmeal to coat, then dunk it into the milk and then roll it in the cracker crumb mixture, pressing the crumbs into the chicken to make sure it's well coated.
Place the tender on the baking pan that has been coated with butter. I place it directly on a baking sheet, but if you want to protect your sheet, use parchment paper (tin foil will stick to the chicken).
Repeat with remaining tenders until they're all coated and on your baking sheet.
Place in the 450F oven for 8 minutes, then flip the tenders and cook for another 8 minutes until the tenders are golden brown, sizzling and register at least 160F in the thickest part.
Serve hot!
