Frugal afterschool snacks

[Amaranth]

Snack is usually fruit and cheese, sometimes a cookie (if I've baked), veggies, stuff like that.

In another thread, the expense of snacks was mentioned, so I thought I'd start a thread for frugal snacks for kids.

Some of our favorites:

Veggie sticks and homemade hummus for dip
Slices of homemade bread(use some of the 5 minutes a day recipes)
Apples when the fall crop comes in
Popcorn
Veggies and fruit from the garden
Lettuce wraps
Homemade bean burritos
Homemade cheese and vegetable pizza or foccacia
Tea sandwiches on homemade bread
Hardboiled egg or deviled egg and vegetable sticks
Salad from the garden with a boiled egg sliced over it
Zucchini bread
Homemade prezels with homemade cheese dip

Not quite as healthy but good for when kids are in the hollow leg stage:
Homemade cheese biscuits
Homemade biscuits with sausage gravy

Frugal only if you can get a good deal on some of the expensive ingredients:
Fruit and nut muffins
Homemade granola bars

Also a lot of kids are restricted from access to restrooms at school, so they dehydrate themselves to make it through the day. So plenty of chilled filtered water is good. Or in the winter, water heated for tea and then cooled for several minutes for safety before being poured into mugs is good after the kids have played out in the cold for awhile.

Sometimes we've lived in places where lots of the neighborhood children are hungry, so we grew extras of things they might enjoy or helped them start their own gardens, so they would have more access to tasty nutritious food.

What are some of your favorite reasonably frugal afterschool snacks?

[Tussiemussies]

We don't have children but I would imagine

Nacho chips with homemade salsa for nutrition

Toasted bagels with cream cheese, 1/2 should suffice, you can also mix strawberry jam made with fruit juice the Pollaner brand -- mix some in with the cream cheese for a strawberry cream cheese

Pizza bagles

Pumpkin custards -- where you make the pumpkin pie filling, fill custard dishes and bake in a water bath

Tapioca pudding, we use minute tapioca, add 2 more Tbls than called for and cook in the microwave stirring every 3 minutes. It comes out very creamy this way. We also use soy milk instead of reg. milk.

Homemade vanilla or chocolate pudding

Ice cream, can make homemade with silk soy cream, stevia for the sugar and then follow the recipe if you have an ice cream maker

In the custard and tapoica we use stevia instead of sugar.

Homemade bread that is rolled up with different things in the middle like cheese...

Toast with butter, cinnamon and stevia sprinkled on top

Part of a grilled cheese sandwich

Fondue with different items to dip, as long as they are old enough to be near something hot.

Apple pie turnovers. My DH gets the dough, but you could make a fitting dough. He cooks an apple pie filling in a saucepan. Lays a square of the dough into a square and puts a little filling in the middle then pulls the top down so it forms a triangle and use a fork on the edges and bake according to dough recipe, you could make these with lots of different fillings

Mashed potatoes with gravy. We use mushroom gravy. Most children love mashed potatoes...

:)

[Square Peg]

Here is a good list:
http://www.budget101.com/frugal-living-articles/after-school-snack-ideas-2859.html

I like this one too
http://www.budget101.com/frugal-living-articles/overcoming-summer-dilemma-feeding-teens-cheap-2596.html

[domestic goddess]

I think most of what we give for snack has already been mentioned, so we must be doing pretty good! When it is cold out I usually fix hot chocolate or heat up some soup, especially if the kids are playing outdoors. If we have kids over whose parents won't be home until late, and dinner will be even later, I sometimes make sandwiches or chicken nuggets to get them through. Otherwise, snacks are light, so appetite for dinner isn't spoiled. Fruit is always welcome, and I find that they are usually hungry enough to gobble veggies, too. Quesadillas with some salsa go pretty quickly, too.

[domestic goddess]

Dill pickle with peanut butter?! That was mentioned on one of the budget101.com lists. I'm not sure I could ever be hungry enough to eat that. But dgd1 likes to make a banana and peanut butter sandwich by cutting a banana lenthgwise and spreading peanut butter on one half, then topping with the other half.

[domestic goddess]

When we don't have the whole neighborhood here, milkshakes or smoothies always go over well. Homemade cookies always go over well, too, so I make big batches or they don't last, even if kids aren't here. The two adult male construction workers will stuff themselves with anything that doesn't eat them first, and cookies sometimes disappear faster than I can get them out of the oven. Some days I feel like I have cooked (and washed dishes) all day!
I can't stand microwave popcorn, so I make it on the stovetop. Most kids have never had anything but microwave popcorn, and it is fun to watch them inhale the stove-popped stuff. With different seasonings on it. Just blows some of them away,

[Tussiemussies]

That is great that the children get to see what it is like to make popcorn on the stove. I recently read that the microwave popcorn bags are coated with Teflon. The only other thing too is that mostly all corm is GMO now so we try not to eat it but it is in everything in one form or another.....

[sweetana3]

Brings back memories. I once bought a 25 pound bag of popcorn kernets because it was so cheap. It literally took us years to eat the stuff. We wore out an air popcorn popper. We loved it just plain and fresh.

[decemberlov]

These look yummy :) Apple & Peanut Butter Sandwiches.
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSTtgs2LP5jfag1-3qy9HqFSqNtZDXSHLhuhAqpZmZt2EqkgJKgJxRw1cUipw

[Rosemary]

My daughter has had an early lunch most years in school and is famished when she arrives home, so her after-school snack is usually a mini-dinner. This is an excellent time to feed kids vegetables, because they are so hungry. A plate of raw veggies and dip will disappear while I am heating up some soup or chili for her. On hot days, it's generally a fruit plate or a smoothie.

[Tussiemussies]

Rosemary,
Great that your daughter has such healthy eating habits. She'll stick with them through her life!