The After-School Snack That Should Have Been

In collaboration with CJ Pixels 📽

This is really a fruit salad in disguise... shhh!! 🥗

It’s the year 2009, or whichever year you attended primary school, 4:00pm on a Wednesday. You have just returned from school where you’ve had a day full of activity. It’s one of those days you’ve had classes back to back to back, and swimming lessons in the afternoon. On top of that, you have stretched your tiny body by swimming countless full lengths in an Olympic sized pool because your coach made it his mission to push you to your breaking point; because of that one time he caught you lying that you were suddenly allergic to chlorine. If that’s not enough, you get back to class and find that your Kiswahili teacher has filled the blackboard with vitendawili that you must copy; and FAST, before the home time bus leaves you. 3:15pm on the dot, you should be seated and belted. At this point you don’t even know who to be mad at; yourself for lying that one time, your Kiswahili teacher or your bus driver for not having at least a 5-minute allowance.

Anyway, you’re home, finally. You’re sweaty, tired and hungry beyond imagination. You walk into the house hoping and praying, to the gods, that the after-school snack you find, in the kitchen, is that thing that will change everything about your day. But ALAS!! Tea and bread yet again; boring, bland and the milk to water ratio isn’t even set right. Yuck! Appetite gone. You still drink it though, painfully, because you know what will come to you if you don’t.

African parents do not understand the language of:

1. Not eating.

2. Wastage of food as a result of 1.

Nevertheless, fear not, it isn’t too late to set some things straight. This time, the elephant in the room is after-school snacks. I recently came across a recipe that could change the ‘after-school snack’ game completely. It’s delicious, nutritious and it can also be served as a starter or an accompaniment to your food. I’ll show you…

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This is for the kids

For the Salad

Ingredients

• 1 bag of fresh spinach

• 1 packet of blackberries (you can substitute with strawberries or blueberries)

• 2 large avocados, diced

• 1 apple sliced

• 1 tangerine peeled and separated

• ⅓ cup of walnuts, crushed

• ⅓ cup of almonds, crushed

• Crumbled feta cheese (Optional)

For the Dressing

Ingredients

• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Freshly squeezed juice from ½ lemon

Directions

1. Whisk all the dressing ingredients together and store in the fridge until you’re ready to serve the salad.

2. Wash cut, slice and dice the veggies and the fruits.

3. In a serving bowl, assemble all the ingredients together and drizzle with the vinaigrette, serve immediately.

Obviously, everything tastes better when it's shared, so make this for your family the next time you're home early and want surprise them with a scrumptious evening snack 😍. Make sure you take a picture and tag me on Instagram (@__tarara) I would love to see how the salad turned out for you.

This mesmerizing video would not be possible with the talents of CJ Pixels. So, shoutout to him!!

Here are the links to his socials:

Instagram: @cj_pixels_

Facebook: CJ PIXELS

Twitter: @craigkitilicj

Youtube: CJ PIXELS

To all things tasty,

- T