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!

Never Smile At A Crocodile

Today is World Animal Day,  and we're having a Blog Hop! Each blogger in the hop has chosen a different animal to include in a bento. I chose the crocodile, because I've had a certain song randomly popping in my head for weeks now, and I just happen to have a crocodile shaped play-doh cutter too :)

You know the song right? You might remember it from Disney's Peter Pan... but that's not the version in my head, I've been hearing the Paulette Sisters' version ♬♩Anyways...

I made a little preschool bento for Birdie. She has baby carrots with a smiling crocodile cupcake ring around one, 2 cheese stars (a nod to Peter Pan... second star to the right, and straight on till morning) atop grapes speared with a sword (Captain Hook's?) and a musical note, and 2 crocodile peanut butter sandwiches on honey wheat. And I found the perfect Lunchbox Love note!

I like the other side of the note too :)

Making this bento didn't get the song out of my head, but that's okay, I actually kind of like it. Want to sing along? Oh, come on! It's such a cute song...

Just click the Play button and follow the lyrics below :)

Never Smile At A Crocodile
by The Paulette Sisters
(the version from You've Got Mail)

♬ Never smile at a crocodile
No, you can't get friendly with a crocodile
Don't be taken in by his welcome grin
He's imagining how well you'd fit within his skin
Never smile at a crocodile
Never tip your hat and stop to talk awhile
Never run, walk away, say good-night, not good-day
Clear the aisle and never smile at Mister Crocodile
You may very well be well bred
Lots of etiquette in your head
But there's always some special case, time or place
To forget etiquette
For instance:
Never smile at a crocodile
No, you can't get friendly with a crocodile
Don't be taken in by his welcome grin
He's imagining how well you'd fit within his skin
Never smile at a crocodile
Never tip your hat and stop to talk awhile
Never run, walk away, say good-night, not good-day
Clear the aisle and never smile at Mister Crocodile ♫

There, wasn't that fun? Now,  it's time to hop along and visit the next animal bento, by Michelle of Creative Food...

Hey, after you've gone through the whole hop and find yourself back here,  why not vote for me as one the Circle of Friends Top 25 Canadian Mommies?

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 :)

A Berry Cute Snack

My sproutlets and I received some happy mail the other day, a package from LearningZoneXpress! One of the items inside was LANA's Fruit & Vegetable Snack Recipes cookbook, from the LANA Preschool Program. It's a step by step picture cookbook for preschoolers and caregivers to use together. The recipes are simple, adorable, and nutritious, and the instructions even suggest which steps the child can do. I love that the pages are sturdy and laminated, no worries about my messy little helpers handling it :) We love it!

My Sprout picked out the Strawberry Mini-Mouse Nibbles snack recipe right away, strawberries are her favourite. 

The recipe calls for graham crackers, strawberries, berry cream cheese, mozzarella string cheese, and sliced almonds. We didn't have any graham crackers (I thought we did, but it turns out we had an empty graham cracker box... I'm sure other parents with older kids are familiar with that sort of discovery) but we had everything else.

And we did have berry rice cakes, they'd make a yummy substitute :) 

Sprout enjoyed spreading the cream cheese. She spread quite a bit on her tongue too!  And only 2 of the 4 mice actually survived the snack's preparation, the other 2 were eaten in the process :)

 

Aren't they adorable?! Easy and fun too :)

Thanks LANA & LearningZoneXpress  ♥

Happy Friday!

All Star Lunches

All my school age sproutlets have stars in their lunchboxes today :)

Granny Smith apple with Bella's first initial, grape tomatoes, 

peppered turkey & sharp cheddar on a whole wheat bagel.

 Honey ham roll-ups, Granny Smith apple,

  raisins and whole wheat bagel for Beanstalk.

Pickle has a round sandwich with a star

 and a star sandwich with his first initial.

I hope all my little stars have an all-around good day :)

It's their Daddy's birthday today! He'll get to be the star this evening, with cake! Birdie & Sprout said he should have a chocolate cake with pink frosting, and what a nice Daddy, he said that's what he's always wanted. So the little girls and I will be baking and frosting today, and getting all chocolatey and pink  ♥

Don't forget to enter my Uforya Giveaway!