Help Me Out With Snacktime Protein Ideas
 

Got 2 kids with lactose intolerance (1 full-time)
3 with severe egg allergies (1 full-time)
1 with severe fish and severe nut/peanut allergies (she lives here!)

:lol:

I'm finally getting around to making a menu and it's becoming obvious why I open my pantry each day, look at the kids, and (internally!) go "Well, $*&@."

I do fine with chicken, beans, chickpeas, turkey dogs, and lentils for the lunchtime protein, but I want to get the kids off to a good start in the AM. I can serve dairy to some of the kids since there's no actual allergy, but I can't serve it to the kids who'll spend the rest of the day shooting poop out of their pants. :rolleyes: A little hard cheese is fine for both of these guys, but I can't just give cheese cubes for AM and PM snack Monday through Friday.

Proteins
 

That’s rough. My best advice is to alternate your proteins between lunch and snack, so if you have chicken for lunch, have beans for snack and vice versa. If you’re ok with soy you could add in edamame. If your kids can handle it you could try sprinkling chia seeds over food, especially oatmeal, since chai seeds are especially protein-heavy.

Good thought. I'm thinking about trying to do some savory oatmeal lunches. I grew up eating from cans so I'm very new to cooking, but I'm doing my best! It's not so good. :D

Right now, I'm just giving dairy to the kids who can have it at snack time, and soy milk to the kids who can't. Unfortunately, nobody seems to stock edamame around here, except a couple of extremely expensive specialty stores at the other end of town. We love edamame, and it's such a basic food in the frozen veggie cases in other cities, but apparently it hasn't caught on here. A lot of things haven't. Like, I was putting together a food bank donation and went looking for masa in the Hispanic food section of the grocery stores, and nobody's got it. Just things like Taco Bell brand taco fixin's. There's nearly 400,000 people in this city and a rapidly-growing immigrant population, and we really need more ethnic food options.

my kids love toasted chickpeas.

I put garbonzos in a fry pan with a dash or toasted sesame oil and soy sauce, then kind of brown them. Yummy.

Also, lots of hummus and veggies.

Beans, sunbutter and oatmeal will be your best friends :)

For breakfast we do:

Soy yogurt plus cereal. My kids really like the cinnamon and vanilla flavors of Kashi whole wheat biscuits (like mini wheat cereal).

Oatmeal. There current favorite is either sunbutter or peanut butter with dried cranberries. I always add ground flax meal to oatmeal.

Snacks:

Apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon and sunbutter to dip apples in

Celery sticks, sunbutter and raisins

Whole wheat ritz crackers topped with sunbutter, a banana coin and a sprinkle of cinnamon

Graham crackers with soy yogurt

Graham crackers with sunbutter spread and strawberries

Whole wheat tortilla shell, spread PB all over it, add a banana and roll it up.

Mini rice bowls (cilatro lime rice, brown rice, mexican rice, whatever) and beans.

Beans and pepper strips

Beans and tortilla shells or tortilla chips

Try doing savory or sweet quinoa. Aside from it is dairy free it is also a complete source of protein.