I’m a big believer in fun and healthy food for kids. I just love being able to offer fun healthy snacks where I can, showcasing that ‘healthier’ food doesn’t have to equal ‘boring’ food. It makes me feel like I’m encouraging positive food habits, which will hopefully last a lifetime. Maybe I’m deluding myself… but it feels good being deluded in the right way sometimes. 🙂
I was asked recently by DAIRYLEA if I had any fun food MUMMY HACK ideas – ideas that help make a Mum’s life easier. “No, but I’d love to hear of some,” was my first thought. Haha!
But then, when I really thought about it, I realised that actually I do have a few “MUMMY HACKS” of my own that I could share. So here are my top four “MUMMY HACKS” for making fun and healthy food that kids will love. If you have any, I’d love to hear of them too!
Recipe for mini egg and bacon quiche – easy and healthy snack recipe for kids.
School lunch boxes.
I worked it out, and between the two girls, I’ve got 5200 of them ahead of me.
I want to serve the girls a variety of delicious and healthy food without adding to the morning rush. Ha! Pipe dream? Maybe…
I am trialing a few ideas however, and I thought I would share with you as I go. Maybe you can share some things that work for you too? (Pretty please! I’m feeling rather daunted here!)
To start with, these mini egg and bacon quiche (or quiches?) are super easy to make. They taste great fresh out of the oven, and any left overs can be frozen, and then added to the lunchbox straight from the freezer, and should thaw (with an ice pack) in time for lunch.
The recipe is super simple – almost too simple. It’s just bacon, and eggs, with optional cheese. Occasionally I’ve added a few frozen peas as well.
Grease the muffin tray beforehand with a little butter. Dice and brown the bacon in a frying pan, and sprinkle into the muffin trays. Grate cheese on top (or leave out altogether). Lightly beat the eggs and pour over the egg (and cheese). Season lightly. Bake for about 10 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius, or until they’ve puffed up and are just starting to turn golden brown on top.
We make them as cupcake or mini cupcake size (or both). The mini cupcake sized ones are just perfect for tiny toddler hands (and appetites).
I started making these quiches last year, and would put two in JJ’s preschool lunchbox, and they were all gobbled up. I’ve found it’s fantastic to have a few stashed away in the freezer for days when I’ve run out of fresh bread, or have just made one too many sandwiches in a row. (We do love our vegemite and cheese or turkey and cranberry sandwiches, but sometimes it’s nice to have a break, #ifyouknowwhatImean.)
They also work well as a high protein after school snack if you’re rushing off to an activity. (We’ve cancelled all after school activities this term whilst JJ gets used to kindergarten, but last year they were great as an after-preschool pre-ballet snack.)
OK, now it’s your turn. Any lunch box tips for a new school mum?
Cheese Lanterns! For a fun & tasty twist on traditional Chinese lanterns to celebrate Chinese New Year.
With three keen Mandarin students in our house (myself included), we really enjoy finding snippets of Chinese culture in our daily lives. We listen to Mandarin songs in the car (Mo Li Hua and Xiǎo Píngguǒ are current favourites). We call out the names for pumpkin (nán guā), avocado (è lí) and mushroom (mó gū) at the grocery store. We go to yum cha for dumplings (shuǐ jiǎo) every week, and we make sure to say xièxiè to the waitresses and sài tí ēn as we leave.*
So we are super excited that Chinese New Year is coming up in a few weeks time!
No doubt we’ll try our hand at making paper Chinese lanterns and hong bao (red envelopes) at some point in the next fortnight, but in the meantime I thought it would be fun to make a Chinese lantern inspired cheese snack for the kids.
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How to make Babybel Cheese Chinese Lanterns
We made ours from:
Babybel baby cheeses, which are semi-soft cheese rounds individually covered in red wax.
glue on ornament tops (kinda like these ones, except mine already had the silver thread looped though the hole at the top
silver and red beaded string for the tassel at the bottom
a low temperature glue gun to stick both of these on
either a permanent marker or sharp knife to add the decorative details to the body of the lantern
The extra decorations do mean they should be eaten soon afterwards, and are a bit trickier to open – but the kids thought they were cool. (They were gobbled up just as quickly as the Cheese Monsters we made last year).
For more Chinese New Year arts, crafts and activities, you might also like:
* Apologies if my translations are terrible. I’m still a beginner, and what we learn is mostly aural. I believe I’ve spelled according to what we are learning in class, but Google translate doesn’t always agree with me. So please do correct me if I’ve made any embarrassing mistakes. 🙂
** This post contains affiliate links. An affiliate link means I may earn a commission or referral fee if you make a purchase through my link, without any extra cost to you. It helps to keep this little blog afloat. Thanks for your support.
Looking for a fun Australia Day lunchbox idea? How about a piece of Aussie fruit? All you need are Australian flag temporary tattoos and about 40 seconds to turn this…
into this…. 🙂
We like our bananas ripe like this – all lovely and spotty. They are perfect for preschool lunch boxes (and hopefully school lunch boxes in just a few weeks – eeek!
I’ve also been serving JJ mango in her preschool lunch a lot this summer. She thinks it’s a big treat. I’ve found it easiest if I cut off the two cheeks, cut a criss cross pattern into the flesh and place the two cheeks facing each other into a plastic container. She can then eat it easily with a spoon.
The apples and pears are all a bit weird looking because we’ve been buying from the ‘imperfect picks’ bins at our grocers lately – better for my wallet, better for the farmers, and they still taste great.
I thought this was a fun (and super easy) way to add a bit of Australia to your fruit bowl or for a fun Aussie snack this Australia Day. We need to make some more, because we’ve already eaten these ones!
I’ve worked out how to make DIY frothy babyccinos at home, without using an espresso machine!
(For my American friends who might be scratching their heads, apparently babyccinos / babycinos aren’t really a thing in the States. Your kids are totally missing out!!! If you are curious, apparently the closest equivalent would be called a ‘steamer’ or ‘steamed milk’….)
Both my kids LOVE babyccinos. Or, as they sometimes call them, ‘big girl ccinos’. Or as Bee’s been calling them this week ‘cappuccinos’ (but obviously without the coffee!).
But our habit was becoming expensive. Most cafes near us charge $1.50, $2.00, even $2.50 per babyccino! At that rate, a ‘ccino’ for both of them, every other day could add up to almost $1000 a year. Ouch!
Plus I don’t like that some cafes place more emphasis on the sugary extras than the babyccino itself. Chocolate dusting, plus chocolate syrup, plus extra sprinkles on top, plus two marshmellows on the side, and perhaps a biscuit… Maybe they are trying to justify the $2.50 price tag? I’ve even seen a few cafes serve frothy hot chocolate instead of frothy milk. These things might be fine for occasional treats, but I didn’t like how they sneaking into our ‘every other day’ diet.
And so I was delighted when I discovered how to make our own ‘ccinos’ at home with one simple trick. Maybe many of you already know this, but it was revolutionary to us. The secret ingredient is….
…the humble coffee plunger!
Everyone has one of these stashed away right? We’ve never actually made plunger coffee at our place, but we somehow have two coffee plungers gathering dust on the shelves. Now we have a use for them!
The larger ones are best as they give you a bit of frothing room. First you need to take the glass jar out, and pour in a little bit of milk. (About this much…)
Then pop it in the microwave for about a minute, until steam rises from the top. (It’s OK if the milk starts to rise upwards in the glass slightly, but stop the microwave when you see this start). Take it out of the microwave (carefully, as the glass will be very hot), and put it back into the stand.
And then pump that plunger until you feel your triceps burn! The milk will froth up and fill almost the whole glass jar. (Tip: Put your thumb over the spout thingie to prevent spillage.)
You should end up with frothy milk that looks something like this.
If you let it sit for a minute or two, the froth with firm up even more.
Spoon it into a small coffee cup, and add any extras (optional). I alternate between no artificial colour or flavour mini marshmellows (which are about a quarter of the size of the usual cafe ones), sugar free chocolate drink mix, sugar free strawberry drink mix, and a tiny amount of no added colour sprinkles. Whilst some of these have added sugar, there are no nasty additives and I can manage the quantity / frequency. I’ve put some of my sugar free chocolate drink mix into a tiny shaker for ease of sprinkling, as this is the one we use most. You could also use cocoa or raw cacao powder, but we haven’t tried this ourselves.
And this is how they turn out! Just like Mummy’s cappuccino.
I usually serve Bee’s in the same coffee cups, as she’s quite good with ceramic tableware. But for younger toddlers, you can also serve them in paper coffee cups, or indeed even in these red polka dot cupcake baking cups that I found in the discount store. Look how excited she was to get her own special red spotty cup!
A while back, poor JJ came down with a bug and was feeling poorly. Too sick to run around and too sick to initiate her own play ideas, she was feeling pretty miserable. So we sat down at our craft table to create something together – something that would gently distract her from her woes, without burdening her with too much concentration or effort.
I came up with the idea to try out a childhood classic – growing plant ‘hair’ out of little pots with faces on them. I found these little pots in our upcycling stash – the tall ones originally held some Australian native seedlings, and the smaller ones once contained face creams. JJ sorted through our craft stash to find materials to make the faces, and she came up with the designs. I used the low temperature glue gun to attach all the various bits and pieces, with JJ helping where she could.
It was 100% JJ’s idea to make a Rudolph, and she also came up with the idea of using twigs with tiny gumnuts on them for antlers. (Even though Christmas was long gone, it obviously had a lasting impression!).
Afterwards, I partially filled the pots with toy stuffing, and then filled the rest with wet cottonwool balls. JJ sprinkled on some watercress seeds, and we covered the tops with paper for a day or two until the seeds began to germinate.
And then we watched them grow!
Everyday, JJ dampened the cotton wool with a water spray bottle (which incidentally is a great practical life activity to build up hand strength).
As you can see, they grew, and then a couple of them shrunk! I guess the hot Australian sun coming through the window was just too strong for poor old Rudolph. The next day we also lost the one with the orange nose, before I learnt my lesson and moved them to a shadier spot. Nevermind, we still ended up with three watercress heads full of glorious hair…
And all the while we got to learn a little bit about seeds, plants and what they need to grow.
And then we ate them. 🙂
We still have a lot more watercress seeds left (from just the one packet), so I’ll think we’ll be growing some more again soon…
The better quality dark chocolate that you use, the healthier this recipe will be. Dark chocolate is generally lower in sugar and higher in antioxidant properties than it’s milkier cousin, and the quantities in this recipe are low enough that the taste is not overpowering, even for young toddlers.
Chocolate Bread
50g good quality dark chocolate
1 Cup wholemeal (whole wheat) flour
2/3 Cup natural Greek yogurt
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius (356 Fahrenheit). Line a baking tray with baking paper or a silicone baking mat.
2. Cut or smash the chocolate up into tiny pieces. (Non-pro hint: cover the chocolate with a piece of paper towel while you are doing this, or you will get little bits of chocolate all over your kitchen).
3. Combine the chocolate, flour and yogurt in a bowl until you have a sticky dough. Let it sit for 5 minutes.
4. Roll the dough into small balls and place on the baking tray.
5. Bake until any edges have become golden. (The time will vary according to the size of your dough balls – it took mine about 15 minutes or so).
As you can see, the dough rises just a tiny bit.
They are best eaten still warm, fresh from the oven. If you have any left over, they will keep for a day or so in an airtight container or you could pop them in the freezer. That wasn’t necessary for us though, my kids devoured ALL of these in record time.
I asked my daughter JJ (3 years & 11 months) what rating she would give this batch of chocolate bread, and replied that it scores 1000 noms! I’m not sure she completely understands how big a thousand is, but she certainly does know that it’s a big number. A big thumbs up!
And Bee (19 months) thought they were delicious too, even if she doesn’t quite have the vocabulary to say “1000 noms” just yet…
This was what was left at the end. Scarcely crumbs for the mice…
I’ll be adding this post to my new Healthy-ish Recipes menu, which is a handy way to see all my food posts in one place.
xx Danya
PS: Did you notice that adorable apple dress that Bee is wearing? It’s from one of my friends who has just started to sell her unique handmade creations (and custom orders) over at Crazy Meerkat. Gorgeous stuff!
Edible low sugar play dough for toddler and preschooler sensory play.
This post comes with a warning to your waistline, because what I am about to show you is disturbingly delicious.
It’s edible.
It’s low sugar.
It’s got only three ingredients.
And it’s called either playdough, play dough or play-doh. (Lol – I can never work it out…)
Most of the edible play dough recipes that I found on the internet called for copious amounts of powdered sugar; more than what I was comfortable with. So I came up with this modified recipe.
1 Cup instant milk powder
1 Cup smooth peanut butter
1 Tbsp honey
Or actually double that as I made two batches, one for each child. These quantities are approxiate – adjust until the dough looks and feels about right. I also included small amounts of sprinkles, pearls, choc chips, stars for decorations. (I figured the sugar in these was worth the “bang for buck”).
Despite how it looks at first glance, I’m still going to call this recipe healthy-ish. There are no artificial colours or flavours (including in the sprinkles – as I chose brands that don’t contain these additives). The dough is high in protein, fat and calcium (all of which are great for my skinny and still growing kids), and only contains marginal sugar from the peanut butter. You could easily reduce the sugar content further by choosing a no added sugar peanut butter (and of course, by omitting the sprinkly ‘decorations’).
And how did it taste? To be honest, I was expecting it to taste only so-so. But I was wrong. It tastes a bit like peanut butter fudge. Totally more-ish. Nom nom nom.
But at the end of the day, this is a playdough recipe, not a dessert. It’s designed to be mixed, moulded and squished. It’s designed to be tasted, but not eaten by the bowlful. (Note to self to remember that last point next time).
And the best bit is that the kids can make it from scratch themselves. Measuring out quantities is excellent early maths practise and mixing it all together is all part of the sensory experience.
This is the first time that my toddler Bee (then 16 months old) has been involved in making play dough in the kitchen. She loved it! She stood in her shabby chic wooden high chair with her very own bowl. She spent a long time just touching, mixing, poking, squishing and tasting. After a while she gravitated to the novelty toothpicks and stuck them in to make a little echidna.
Meanwhile, JJ (my then 3 year and 8 month old preschooler) and I had fun making an ice cream, a Daddy, a Mummy, playing with some of our cookie cutters and sneaking a taste every now and again.
I bought all of the accessory items e from either our local grocery store or discount shop. The cute lion, zebra and butterfly cookie cutters that we used as stampers above are from this set of animal cookie cutters and this Easter cookie cutter set (both affiliate links*).
Lots of fun for everyone!
For more squishy sensory play, here are some of our other ideas. (Click on the image to go through to the full post).
These, and other fun ideas are all over on our Play Ideas page.
And are you following us on Pinterest? We pin lots of great ideas over there as well.
*An affiliate link means I may earn a referral fee or commission if you make a purchase through my link, without any extra cost to you. Fees like this helps to keep this little blog afloat. Thanks for your support.
I bought all of the accessory items e from either our local grocery store or discount shop. The cute lion, zebra and butterfly cookie cutters that we used as stampers above are from this 
and this 
(both affiliate links*).
