In the past year and a half, my older son has grown about five inches, added muscle and hair to his increasingly long legs, and developed a baritone at odds with the sweet voice that greets callers to the flip phone we gave him two years ago. I played that outgoing message to him the other day, and in typical teen fashion, he groaned his embarrassment and put his hands over his ears.
I hate to bow to stereotypes here, but I can check off at least one other typical teen item: huge appetite. When he comes home from school, where he eats a decent lunch of his own making, he immediately heads for the kitchen to make a sandwich. At supper, he cleans his little brother’s plate (if there’s anything left). We go through cereal and fruit at an alarming rate. So I’m interested in new snack ideas, if only to elicit grunts of gratitude from this otherwise uncommunicative creature.
I’ve never seen myself as a pandering parent. But I’m willing to do a little extra to maintain the mother-son bond, especially if it’s easy and involves peanut butter. To my delight, on a road trip this summer I discovered the perfect after-school snack. We bought a few of them at a café in St. Charles, Missouri. Located along a bike path on the Missouri River, the café caters to hungry riders looking for replenishment. Their specialty is peanut butter balls — sweet, salty, nutty, crispy spheres of nourishment. They’re so simple to make that my eternally famished kid can make them himself, if I let him.
I’d stick these in both kids’ lunchboxes if our school weren’t peanut-free, but maybe it’s just as well we keep them at home for now, so the boys continue to feel a strong desire to spend time there with me. But if you’re not as co-dependent as I seem to be these days, it would be worth trying these confections with other nut or seed butters, and other sweeteners, too. I’ve worked a bit of cinnamon into a batch and was delighted with the results. Maybe you’d rather include a couple of handfuls of miniature chocolate chips. I’ve even seen versions that are dipped in melted chocolate, but that’s too much fuss for this mom. I’m only willing to go so far for my teen hulk.
These are a bit like the wonderful three-ingredient peanut butter cookies I wrote about here a few years ago, whose recipe I found in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. But let’s face it — it’s still summer here in Memphis, and we’re not turning the oven on if we don’t have to.
Peanut Butter Balls
½ cup peanut butter (chunky or creamy, natural or conventional, you know what you and the kids like)
⅓ cup honey, molasses, or brown rice syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
2 cups rice crisp cereal (try Cocoa Krispies)
2 teaspoons mini chocolate chips (optional)
In the microwave (heating in 30-second intervals) or in a saucepan (over medium-low heat), stir peanut butter, honey, and optional vanilla extract together until combined and warm.
Place a sheet of waxed paper on a rimmed baking pan.
Move to a larger bowl, if necessary, and fold the rice cereal and any other optional ingredients into the peanut butter mixture, using a rubber spatula.
Wet your hands in cold water and roll the mixture into balls, about the size of a small ping-pong ball, placing them on the waxed paper. Re-wet your hands each time you roll a new ball and compress each ball into your palm so it sticks to itself.
Freeze the balls for at least 10 minutes, then place them in Ziploc baggies to store in the fridge. They also can be individually wrapped in squares of waxed paper.