Bunny Food

For the last day of school before Spring Break I packed Bella a special Eastery lunch in her Laptop Lunches bento box:

She had turkey & cheddar flatbread roll-ups, an Easter egg filled with spiced almonds, a ginger carrot bran muffin, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, radish rabbits, & cantaloupe with candy picks. 

Bella loved this lunch so much she asked to have her picture taken with it! I included a Lunchbox Love note with a fun fact about eggs on it. The flip side of that card says "Share", which is perfect, because she took a jar filled with a bouquet of eraser-topped pencils to share with her classmates :)

Pickle got bunny & baby bunny peanut butter sandwiches. I'm not very good at making faces on food, so I made the other end instead:

To make the bunny bum, I used my CuteZcute animal face cutter, but turned upside down, over a bunny head cutter, with a scalloped circle for the tail. I made the body with an extra layer of bread for a 3-D effect. I made the baby bunny with a bunny head cookie cutter and a little circle.

When I tried to put the lid on Pickle's sandwich box, I found that it had warped in the dishwasher and wouldn't go on easily. It's fixable - I can put it through the next cycle and work the lid back on while it's still warm and let it cool with it on, that usually works - but I couldn't send it to school with him in the meantime, so I popped it in the Bynto instead.

He also had yogurt decorated with bunny & chick shaped sugar sprinkles. I love that there was a Lunchbox Love note with s fun fact abour Hershey's, that's his favourite. For snack I added a muffin decorated with cupcake picks:

Some stuff used for these lunches:

Crunch A Color Healthy Lunch Challenge : Homemade Chicken Nuggets & Carrot Hearts

When Jennifer of Crunch a Color asked if I'd like to join her Healthy Lunch Challenge, I was flattered and a little incredulous... me? I try to pack healthy for my sproutlets but it often is a challenge, so wow, it's such a compliment to have my efforts recognized by such a healthy eating role model! Thank you, Jennifer, it's an honour to be asked, and I'll do my best :)

What's the Healthy Lunch Challenge?
Jennifer Tyler Lee, the mom behind the Crunch a Color Healthy Eating Game, challenged 15 bloggers to pack healthy lunches their kids would love to eat, using fresh, colourful ingredients, and the points cards from the game. Fun! And, the top 5 lunch ideas will be featured in Crunch a Color's April article on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution! Here's my Bella's healthy lunch:

What's For Lunch?

It wasn't hard to meet the Healthy Lunch Challenge criteria of three colours plus a healthy grain, & protein. Lunch is packed in Bella's favourite, EasyLunchboxes, and contains:

• heart-shaped homemade chicken nuggets for protein & healthy grain (I even snuck some milled flax in the breading)
• golden sunburst cherry tomato & carrot skewers on a bed of salad
• the salad itself is made of fresh, crisp romaine & butter lettuce & purple raddichio, with shredded cheddar to top it with
• sweet juicy pink watermelon & orange cantaloupe
• an EasyLunchboxes Mini Dipper filled with trail mix, for snack

I'm fortunate my girl loves fresh veggies, but she's not as big a fan of fruit, so I try to make it more appealing to her by cutting it in fun shapes.  The watermelon & canteloupe were easy to cut with a small heart-shaped cookie cutter - and I got to nibble on the scraps, yum, a healthy snack for mum :) Since I had a heart theme going, I made her carrots into hearts too:

You can also make heart-shaped grapes, tomatoes, & cocktail sausages the same way :) If your little one is too young for toothpicks, I show how to make them without in this blog post.

What's my Healthy Eating Game score?

At first I scored Bella's lunch with 60 points, as shown below. But then I realized I could add an additional 5 points for her Klean Kanteen of water, and a 10 point red card for the cherry tomatoes :) Yay!

What Fun! Want to Play?

You can make your family's meals more fun with Crunch a Color's Healthy Eating Game! You might also like the companion game, Conversation Starters - I recently reviewed both games here. 

Healthy Homemade Kid-Friendly Chicken Nuggets 

Makes approximately 24 nuggets
Ingredients

• 1 lb ground chicken 
• ¼ cup old-fashioned oatmeal 
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided 
• 1 tsp Zatarain's Creole Seasoning
  (or seasoning salt & paprika to taste), divided  
• ½ tsp garlic powder 
• ¼ tsp black pepper 
• ¾ cup breadcrumbs

Directions
1. In a large bowl, combine the chicken, oatmeal, half the grated parmesan, half the seasoning, the garlic powder and the pepper.
2. Knead the dry ingredients into the ground chicken.
3. Moisten hands to prevent sticking and form 1 tbsp of chicken mixture into a ball. Press into a small cookie cutter (play dough cutters work too!) for shaped nuggets or simply flatten for a basic nugget shape.
4. In a small shallow bowl, combine the breadcrumbs with the remaining seasoning and grated parmesan.
5. Press the nuggets into the bread crumb mixture and turn over, patting crumbs into surface to coat evenly.
6. At this point you can freeze the nuggets on a cookie sheet, then store in an airtight container or bag in the freezer for up to 3 months. Add 3-5 minutes to your cooking time when cooking from frozen.
OR
7. Bake in preheated 375° F oven. Arrange the nuggets on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray or lined with parchment paper. Lightly spray the nuggets themselves with cooking spray or olive oil for a crispier coating (optional). Bake 15-20 minutes, turning once, and checking - don't overcook!

• NOTE: These baked nuggets will not really brown - if browning is desired, place them under the broiler for a couple of minutes near the end of cooking.

Visit my post at MOMables.com for a print-friendly version of this recipe, and see how I used them to make a healthy kid-friendly lunch that beats the boxed storebought version :)

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Giveaway Closed
Thanks for entering & congratulations to the winner :)
Enjoy your Crunch a Color Healthy Eating Games!

Like the look of our EasyLunchboxes? Get some!

And the Crunch a Color Healthy Eating Games too!

Crunch A Color Review!

My family got to try a new game over the Winter Break, Crunch a Color: The Healthy Eating Game for Kids!

We love playing with our food :) And while playing the game hasn't got the sproutlets liking any new veggies yet,  it has gotten them to try things, which is a really big thing in itself for my family of fearfully picky eaters. The more they try something, the more chance they'll start to like it - so we'll keep playing, and maybe eventually somebody will find they do like cauliflower after all :)

This is what you get with Crunch a Color: The Healthy Eating Game:

• Reward Chart (the game comes with one double sided chart, & you can print out more from their website)
• 90 colourful cards - they are wipeable, like a deck of playing cards
• Rules of Play & Tips for Parents cards  
• Points by Color cards for easy reference

I wanted to get some pics of my family playing, even postponed my review until Sailor Boy was home to do so, but my camera broke! It's just the flash part, but unfortunately that meant no pics in low light, which is the only light available at supper time. Oh well, I'm sure you can picture us, right? Just imagine a family of 7 with a mess of food & cards on the table, cheering on the pickiest kid as he finishes his broccoli for the win :)

We also got to try Crunch a Color: Conversation Starters, which can be played on it's own or with The Healthy Eating Game.  Conversation Starters cards ask questions & present dilemmas that inspire creative thinking & healthy debates. Some are simple questions like "How did you help someone today?" while others are more thought-provoking, such as "What new product would you like to design?" And best of all, there are no incorrect answers :)

This is what you get with Crunch a Color: Conversation Starters:

• 100 Question cards like those in the Healthy Eating Game
• 4 Create Your Own Question cards
• Suggestions for Play card

I can think of uses for Conversation Starters beyond the dinner table! 

• Road trips & plane rides
• Doctors & dentists waiting rooms
• Restaurants, waiting for a table or the meal
• Homeschooling creative writing topics 
• Inspiration for writing to pen pals

We decided to use them for letter writing while Sailor Boy is deployed ♥

We'll draw a card each week, and each sproutlet will write their answer in a letter to Daddy. Then he'll write back with his own response to the same question :)

Mia Bella got started right away:

I think it will amuse him to read their different answers to the same question, as well as encourage communication and help him keep in touch with who they are, and of course it will be a good writing exercise for them!

Want to know more about Crunch a Color?

If you're like most parents, battles over broccoli can lead to a less than happy family dinner table. Jennifer Tyler Lee, mom of two formerly picky eaters, struggled to get her kids to eat healthy, balanced meals so she decided to turn healthy eating into a game! Crunch a Color is the award-winning series of nutrition games that make healthy eating fun. Kids earn points eating colorful veggies and trying new foods in The Healthy Eating Game. Racking up bonus points for starting a conversation is easy with Conversation Starters created by kids for kids. 

Winner of the Dr. Toy and Parent Tested, Parent Approved awards, Crunch a Color® has been featured by Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, Laurie David’s Family Dinner, Kiwi Magazine, Dr. Greene, and Yum Food & Fun For Kids, among many others, as a simple, fun and playful way to get kids to eat healthy and try new foods. Jennifer’s passion is making mealtime fun, easy and healthy for busy families. Her easy recipes, quick tips, and new food adventures are regularly featured at Pottery Barn Kids, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, The Huffington Post, and on her weekly recipe blog at www.crunchacolor.com.

And like the box says, Crunch a Color gives back! A portion of your purchase of either game supports non-profit children's nutrition programs, so more than just your family will benefit!  I like that!

Want to Play?

Crunch a Color is generously offering to give a game to 5 lucky readers! 
All you have to do is leave a comment on this post, telling me which game you'd like you and/or what you'd use it for! And if you want bonus entries,  you can follow @crunchacolor on Twitter & Like them on Facebook.

Enter via Rafflecopter below :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Soup & Sassy

After all the candy she consumed Hallowe'en Night, Bella wanted a healthy lunch to take to school yesterday, and said tomato soup sounded good.

I also packed her a Sassy box full of veggies & crackers, and little cup of shredded cheddar to sprinkle on the hot soup in her Thermos Funtainer. 

And of course, a Lunchbox Love note ♥ Her whole lunch table enjoys them :)

I'll be posting a Lunchbox Love review & giveaway on Monday! 

Look, Horizon Organic milk boxes are a perfect fit in Sprout's Bynto! And there was just enough room to fit a string cheese in there too, perfect, the cold milk box would keep the cheese cool too :)

I was running behind by the time I packed Sprout's lunch so quickly cut her sandwich into hearts and added baby carrots & Hallowe'en Oreos. Pickle had Oreos in his lunch too, and a sandwich & yogurt, but there was no time for a pic of his. We were dragging our feet the morning after trick-or-treating!

Stuff I used for these lunches:

Making Healthy Snacks with Birdie

Birdie & I made spider snacks from our LANA Fruit & Vegetable Snack Recipes cookbook  :)

The recipe calls for dried apricots, pretzel sticks, & raisins. We modified our spiders a little, since we used the dried white peaches that came in our June NatureBox instead of apricots, and they were quite a bit bigger.

Birdie had fun with the cookbook. It's spiral bound, with thick laminated pages, so I let her play with it. She matched up all her pretzel sticks and raisins to the ones on the recipe page :)

 

At first, Birdie wasn't really interested in following the recipe to make a spider, she just wanted to snack & play. Here she is being silly with the one I made:

When she was ready to make her own, I got her started by poking some holes in the peach with a toothpick - then she filled them with the pretzel sticks. This was a good fine motor and hand-eye coordination activity.

 

She was very careful not to break the pretzels, and so pleased with her (almost) finished creation! Here are our dried peach & pretzels spiders after we added the raisin eyes:

Birdie wasn't done yet though. She picked up another peach and pretzel stick and started doing her own thing. What do you think she was making?

 

She made mushrooms! A plate of peach & pretzel mushrooms :) I love that she used her imagination to create a fun snack of her own! ♥  

We had a good time & made healthy snacks! I definitely recommend LANA's Fruit & Vegetable Snack Recipes cookbook if you're looking for fun & simple healthy snack ideas to make for or with your child. Like this Berry Cute Mice Snack we made a few months ago:

LANA (Learning About Nutrition through Activities) makes nutrition learning fun & easy! The LANA Preschool Program website is a wonderful resource for ways to help kids learn about making healthy eating choices through play. They even share FREE downloadable activities & recipes every month! 

You can Follow LANA on Facebook too :)  

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored review. I was not asked to write this post nor compensated in any way. I added the above comments because I believe in the LANA program and wanted to share about it! 

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

Bella's yummy heart-shaped homemade chicken nugget lunch is part of my latest This vs That post at MOMables!

Just posted today, Lunchbox Wars : Chicken Nuggets is a fresh, healthy remake of a boxed chicken nugget convenience lunch - and includes my recipe for the homemade chicken nuggets :)

Lunch For The Man: Airplane Food

Sailor Boy had to travel for work recently. Not on a ship though, he went by plane - so I packed him an EasyLunchbox to eat in the air.

He has grapes, kiwifruit, carrots, almonds, pistachios, blueberries, and black forest ham & mozzarella cheese rolls. I folded the cheese into the ham before I rolled and skewered it. Everything bite-size and mess-free.

I wanted to separate his foods but didn't want him to take any of my silicone muffin cups, and I stopped buying the disposable kind - but I save just about everything I think might be repurposed, so I dug up some plastic cups that once contained frosting in the ends of tubes of refrigerated cinnamon roll dough, and some medicine cups that came with cold syrup. Applesauce cups would have worked well too but I couldn't have fit as many.

I should have taken a photo from the side to show you - it's kind of hard to tell from the top - but the rims of all the little cups reach right to the lid when it's snapped in place. Everything was held securely enough that I was able to turn it completely sideways with nothing shifting or spilling over - perfect for traveling with the man :)

We Heart Super Healthy Kids!

March is National Nutrition Month, the perfect time to introduce your kidlets to the Healthy Habits plates from Super Healthy Kids!

The Healthy Habits kids plate helps kids learn and follow the USDA guidelines to make half their meal fruits and vegetables, using divided sections and fun images to reinforce the teaching. Kids and caregivers can easily see what portions of their plate should be filled with fruits & veggies, grains, & protein.

The Healthy Habits plate is available in Original and new Vegetarian design!

Here's Birdie showing off her Healthy Habits plate. She's not much of a meat eater, so she has the vegetarian version. Instead of a chicken drumstick, eggs & beans in the protein section, hers has a picture of nuts, seeds & beans :)

It's pretty common for toddlers to refuse meat, and I'm not a big meat eater myself, so I'm not concerned - but it's important to not just skip the meat, but to replace it with another source of protein. The Healthy Habits plate serves as a visual reminder for me to fill that portion of my little one's diet. I ♥ these plates!

The Healthy Habits plate also comes as part of gift set complete with a bowl that holds a full serving of vegetables, and a cup to encourage drinking water:

Super Healthy Kids also makes a 4 sectioned plate set that supports the USDA MyPlate icon, with sections for Grains, Protein, Vegetables & Fruit. It's available solo or as part of a Lesson Plan set, which includes a perfectly portioned Dairy bowl. I love that little Dairy bowl for my Pickle's yogurt, and the plate is 10 year Beanstalk's favourite. He doesn't like his foods to touch, so the deep sections are perfect for him, and the design is not too young.

Here are a few yummy balanced meals my sproutlets recently enjoyed served on their Healthy Habits plates!

This hearty vegetarian supper made a colourful plate! Cornbread muffin for grain, chili for protein, & carrots, corn & grapes in the fruit & veggies half:

Crisp lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, radishes, celery, and a sprinkling of shredded cheese make up the bulk of this lunch plate, with seasoned Triscuit crackers and soy protein stir-fried in Italian salad dressing making savoury sides. And my girls loved this heart-themed lunch featuring an egg for protein, rice cakes in the grain section, lots of juicy grapes & great big strawberries.

Sometimes we have convenience foods, and the Healthy Habits plates help us with our serving sizes of those foods, and remind us to make the rest of our meal fruits & vegetables :)

And I've decided this post is long enough, so come back tomorrow if you want to see my favourite plate lunch I've ever made,  so far...  and on Healthy Habits plates too :) ... (sneak preview in the 1st pic)

You'll also find a variety of plate suggestions and meal ideas on the Super Healthy Kids website. It's a fantastic resource for fun family nutrition! There are recipes, meal plans, printables, and more - including the Healthy Habits plates and sets available for purchase! And the awesome Super Healthy Kids blog!
There's even a recipe inspired by one of my lunches!

Would you like a FREE Healthy Habits plate?

Of course you would! And Super Healthy Kids has generously offered to give one lucky reader the Healthy Habits plate of their choice, free!

All you have to do to be entered is comment on this post, telling me which plate style you'd like if you win, Original or Vegetarian!

I'd also love it if you'd follow my blog, and Like both my page and Super Healthy Kids on Facebook, and/or Tweet this giveaway - but since not everyone is on Facebook & Twitter, I won't make those mandatory. I will give you a separate bonus entry for doing each of them though (or to say you already do)! Just make sure you leave a separate comment for each of the 4 possible bonus entries. And make sure I have a way to contact you if you win!  I'm not a detective! If clicking your name in your comment will not link me to your email address, please include it in your comment - thanks :)

Giveaway closes Friday March 9th at 11pm PST. Winner will be selected by Random.org and notified via email & in Monday's blog post. Good Luck!

The giveaway is now closed - thanks for entering!

Disclosure:  I received 2 Vegetarian Healthy Habits plates free for review from Super Healthy Kids, but was in no other way compensated.  All opinions are my own. I purchased the Original Healthy Habits plate, bowl & cup set, and the 4 section MyPlate set myself, since we liked the plates we received for review so much :)