Teenagers always seem to be hungry, but they also always seem to be busy, with no time to eat. Martha Rose Shulman offers a solution in this week’s Recipes for Health: tasty and nutritious cookies and bars that busy teenagers can eat on the run.
My son, an eighth grader who has grown six inches in the last year, will not eat lunch at school. It’s not about the sandwiches I’ve tried to pack, or the school lunches (which I wouldn’t blame him for not eating). Nor is it a question of appetite: He’s always hungry. During his 30-minute lunch period he wants to play basketball. If he goes to the cafeteria he doesn’t have time to get a game in.
“Can’t you just wolf down a peanut butter sandwich?” I asked him. “It takes too long” was his reply (this from a boy who always bolts his food). But something sweet, that’s another story; a granola bar he will eat. So I decided that if all he’s going to eat is something sweet, then that sweet had better have some food value. His science, history and English classes are all after lunch, and his brain cells need nutrients. Here are the goods I came up with — not as nourishing as the real lunch he has after he gets home from school, but better (and cheaper) than anything I could find in the store.
Here are five tasty treats to satisfy the hungry teenager in all of us.
Coconut Granola Bars: These are crunchy and a little bit sticky. If you are vegan you can substitute agave syrup for the honey.
Crisp Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies: Inspired by two recipes in Maida Heatter’s “Book of Great Cookies,” these crisp treats may be the best peanut butter cookies you’ve ever tasted.
Chocolate Pecan Bars: This is like a toned-down pecan pie in bar form.
Sesame Coconut Bars: These heavenly bars are inspired by Sesame Dream Bars, from “Diet for a Small Planet” by Frances Moore Lappé.
Seeded Whole-Wheat Scones: These scones are not overly sweet and have a light, wonderful texture.
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