Hello everyone and welcome back! I hope you all had a great Parents and Families Weekend and I hope you all enjoyed watching Penn State get a win this weekend! Now, we are in the tenth week of the semester (crazy, I know!) and if you are feeling anything similar to the way I am feeling, the dining hall food is getting a little bit old. You might be saying to yourself, “why, yes, Michala, the food is getting old, but I only have a microwave so what else am I supposed to do?” I can tell you exactly what to do – get some fresh fruits and vegetables from McLanahan’s Produce downtown and make yourself some Disney inspired snacks that are a great way to spice up your typical week of dining hall meals.

The first recipe I want to share with you are these Snow White inspired apple nachos. I absolutely love fall, and Snow White is the classic Disney Princess. What could be better than putting together such a classic character and a classic fall food into this great snack?

All you need for these nachos is an apple, some caramel, and then whatever fix-ins you would like on top of your apple slices (I use walnuts and chocolate chips, but any kind of nuts, peanut butter, or candy would be amazing!). Check out this site for some topping ideas for the nachos.  When I used to make these nachos at home, I always used a corer to pull the core out of the apples and then I sliced the apple to look more like a real chip, but I do not have an apple corer in my dorm, so the first thing you have to do is just slice up your apple into nice slices. Keep the slices about ⅛ inch thick so that when you put everything on top of them, they do not break all apart.

Once your apples are sliced, take a spoonful of your caramel sauce and put it in a microwave-safe container. Put the caramel in the microwave for about 45 seconds, BUT keep an eye on your caramel because you do not want it to burn in the microwave and have your entire dorm mad at you for setting the fire alarms off. Heating the caramel makes it easier to drizzle over the apples and it makes it feel like more of a cozy fall treat. Then drizzle your caramel over the apple slices, sprinkle over your chosen dry ingredients, and enjoy!

The next two snacks I would like to share with you are just a fun way to present some snacks to enjoy. The first is a Lion King inspired snack that I found on Pinterest, with some bell peppers and carrots. You are going to take a white paper place and draw a little lion face in the center of the plate. Then you need to slice up your bell pepper (and if you have large carrots you can cut those guys up too). Then all you have to do is arrange your peppers and carrots around the outside edge of the paper plate to make a lion’s mane. You can enjoy this cute snack with some ranch dressing, or my favorite go to when it comes to vegetables is hummus.

Another interesting and fun way to change up this dish is to use some fruit slices, like apples and oranges, for the lion’s mane as well.

The final Disney Inspired snack I would like to share with you is this Mickey Mouse trail Mix. the key to this mix is using mickey shaped things and using mickey mouse themed colors in the mix. I mean, let’s face it, everything is better if it’s shaped like Mickey Mouse!  In my mix, I used some Chex cereal, candy corn, red and yellow m&ms, Mickey shaped cheese puffs, some pretzels, and popcorn. This snack is a good way to combine your favorite snacks all in one and then put it in a container to continue enjoying for a little while.

Thanks everyone for checking out this blog post. I had a lot of fun coming up with these snacks, and I promise, they are all really good. Let me know if you have know any Disney Inspired foods and please let me know what your favorite Disney Parks snack is if you have ever been to Disney! 

See you real soon!