Car Friendly Eats.

I sat down thinking I was going to write a little blog about what sort of snacks work well on road trips, specifically with kids, but then I remembered how we live 40 minutes from a major city and that equals lots of car time even when we aren't technically road-tripping...and these ideas would work for a quick lunch in the minivan, too.

So here's a little blog post about car friendly eats.

One of the things we do to attempt to save a little time and money when we travel is to bring all of our snacks and at least our lunches along for the ride.  This helps to avoid extra long lunch stops, but it also helps ensure we eat less McDonald's. We packed everything up in the back of our van, including an ice chest full of frozen capri suns to serve as our no-mess ice, and it was easily accessible every time we stopped.

I didn't get to snap a picture of all the things we took on our trip a couple of weeks ago, but here's a little list:

Animal crackers
Pretzels
Ritz and peanut butter
Fruit juice gummies
cheese crackers
graham crackers
homemade beef jerky
A roasted turkey breast that was cut up (It seems weird, but it stayed cold in our cooler, and it wasn't messy at all)
And fruit.  Oh all the fruit.  And honestly, it was what nearly everyone ate the entire time.  We had bananas, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, blackberries, and mandarin oranges. I actually put each orange into its own sandwich bag so the kids would have a place to put the peeling.  Plus bonus!  It makes the car smell clean and citrusy!

And these.

"What are these?" you ask?  Well, they are the reason my kids think I'm the best mom ever.

I call them peanut butter and syrup roll ups because I'm super creative like that.  These are quick, simple, delicious, and need no refrigeration, so they made a perfect travel food.  Truthfully, I made these for the kids, but the adults ate way more of them.

What you'll need:
Bread (I used just basic white bread, but you can one-up me and go all wheat.)
Half a cup of peanut butter
Syrup to your own taste...or honey works well, too

What you'll do:

First, mix up your peanut butter and syrup.  I used a few tablespoons because I like it sweet.

Then, be awesome and cut the crust off the bread.

Even as an adult, I don't like the crust.

Next, using a rolling pin, flatten out the pieces of bread until they are as thin as about a flour tortilla.

Once all your bread it flat, spread a thin layer of your peanut butter mixture on top, taking care to leave one edge clean.  When you roll them up, that clean edge will be the outside, and everything will get squished out.  If you don't leave it clean, it'll be a big mess.

Roll them suckers up and munch away.