Back-To-School Lunch Ideas

If you’re anything like me, you’re just about ready to do the back-to-school happy dance. I love the structure and routine of back to school - and truthfully, so do my girls. The one thing I hate - I mean hate with a passion - is making lunches. I have two very picky eaters, both allergic to nuts. They hate sandwiches, don’t eat cheese and turn up their noses at most veggies. So needless to say that making lunches for me really sucks.

This year, though, I'm trying to be proactive. I've been scouring the Internet, searching on Pinterest and asking lots of readers about their favorite recipes. Here are a few I've come up with.

Nut Free Oat Bars

High Fiber Oat Bar

These nut free oat bars are packed with fibre (shh....) and lots of other good stuff. The seeds make them crunchy (throw some chia seeds in there too!) and the honey and cinnamon give them a sweet and spicy flavor.

Banana Crunch Wraps

Banana-Crunch-Wraps

I found this one on Pinterest and showed it to my youngest (the one who may eat a sandwich if the feeling hits her). She gave it the thumbs up. It’s made with Wow Butter for those with nut allergies or for nut-sensitive schools but you could really make it with any type of nut butter. When it’s all rolled up, it reminds me of sushi and it’s easy to eat with your hands. I’m keeping this recipe close.

Mini Taco Pockets

Mini-Taco Pockets

I saw this on a site called Recipe by Photo and thought it was a great idea. My kids don’t eat sandwiches but they would eat these (I think) if they were warm and in a thermos. They’re made with crescent roll dough but I bet they could be made with homemade whole wheat dough for those of us who have the inkling to do so. They could be filled with just about anything but this mini taco idea sounds yummy to me. And I may be able to hide a vegetable inside!

Bento Box

Veggie Bento options

The idea of a Bento Box may be just wild enough for my girls to try. Basically, a bento box is a lunch that is packed bento-box style containing a variety of different types of foods: carbs, protein, fruits, veggies and even a treat. Sort of like a lunchable - but healthy. The best part is that you can put bits and pieces of whatever your kids will eat in it. I think if I packed it with enough variety, in a really cool Bento box (and no cheese), we may be good to go. Here are some ideas of what to pack.

Well, that’s it. If you have any suggestion on lunch ideas, I’m all ears. Good luck to you as the kids head back to school.

Cool Summer Treat

I love getting into the kitchen with my kid and I'm always looking for new things I can show her. I was thinking that maybe we could make ice cream and started looking for ice cream makers and different ways people do it themselves. I found a few different option but chose the ice cream ball. (That's the one I bought, I don't know if there are different brands that do the same thing). Basically you put the ice and salt in one end, put your ingredients in the other end, and then kick and shake it around for a while until you get ice cream.

Seriously.

We chose plain vanilla for our first attempt, and had it with the strawberries we picked ourselves.

Now that we know it works (and how tasty it is) we can try different recipes and have a little exercise before dessert.

6 Tips for Staying Healthy through the Holidays

by Jayda

The holiday season is upon us. The season of parties, celebrations, and get togethers. Many of these events involve food, lots of food. A time when we all fall, to some degree, off our respective wellness wagons. Here are 6 tips to help you stay within arms reach of that wagon.

1. Stay Active

Let’s be honest, we will all consume more calories/food/sugar than we should over the holidays. Keep moving. Continue your normal workout routine, or adopt a new one. Round up your friends and family and go out for brisk walk around the neighbourhood or play snow tag after that heavy meal. Aerobic exercise stimulates the release of appetite regulating hormones.

2. PRE-Eat At Home

Don’t starve yourself all day in anticipation of the dessert buffet being served at the holiday party. Eat a meal rich in whole foods at home before you go; you will be less inclined to make poor food choices driven by a ravenous appetite. Remember to eat breakfast. A nutritious breakfast will set the tone for your day. Additionally, feed the kids one of their favourite meal before attending holiday parties. This a great way to avoid behaviours related to hunger, in the case of  a delayed or late meals. Children are easily distracted at parties and may not eat to fullness so by pre-eating you can relax and enjoy your meal knowing that they had a wholesome meal at home and anything they eat at the party is a bonus.

3. Focus On Activities

Plan to meet friends and family for an activity in lieu of a meal. An afternoon of tobogganing or skating will take the focus off food and burn calories. Bonus! Too cold? Bust out the board games, get crafty or plan an indoor scavenger hunt. Host the activity between major meal times and serve a healthy snack or light meal.

4. 'THIS' then 'THAT'

When plating your food fill up on healthy, whole,  foods first then hit the dessert table. Consider incorporating all five flavours (pungent, sour, sweet, salty and bitter) when choosing foods. By satisfying all tastes, you are less likely to experience cravings after a meal.

5. Eat Mindfully

Eat with awareness, not just awareness of foods but rather awareness of the experience of eating. Mindful of the smell and taste of your meal. How does the food make you feel? Savour it. Enjoy it. Don’t forget to breathe. Take your time eating. Take a deep breathe between bites. Allow your body to feel full before going for a second helping.

6.  Stay Hydrated

Drink water, lots of water. Water will dilute the effects of the alcoholic holiday beverages and help flush the extra sugar out of your system and curb those cravings.

What do you do to stay healthy during the holiday season?

Jayda Siggers is a Mom of 2 ( JWS, 6 and LLS, 4), a nutritionist, a coach at Clean Plate Cleanse, a master mediator living under a co-dictatorship, whole food advocate, trying to live a little greener everyday.

Fall tye-dye cupcakes

by Carly

I really wanted to make something nut-free for the Little Man to eat for dessert at our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.  Since I knew the pie I was bringing had nuts, I decided to make some fall-themed cupcakes.  I didn't have time to fuss with fondant, creating fancy turkeys or pilgrim's hats (not that we really do the pilgrim thing here in Canada anyway).

Since Jake really likes rainbow coloured cakes and cupcakes, I used that as my jumping off point.  We made white cake batter, then divided the batter into three bowls.  One bowl of batter was tinted yellow, one orange and one terra-cotta (I'd run out of red but had terra-cotta lying around for some reason).  I used food paste as you need less of it to get a nice strong colour.

To make it easier to get the batter into the cupcake liners, I put it in plastic baggies and snip a tiny bit off one corner.  I started with the lightest colour, pouring some into each cup.  Then we added the orange and finally the terra-cotta.  Don't mix the colours as the batter will turn out muddy - just leave them "piled" on top of one another.

While the cupcakes were baking in their plain white cupcake liners, I nosed around our cupboards looking for some pretty fall-themed liners to put them in for added colour, but I came up empty handed.  So I tinted some extra white liners I had with yellow, orange and terra-cotta food paste mixed with water.  Using a spoon I poured the different colours over the liners while they sat upside down on a wire rack nestled in a rimmed cookie sheet to catch the run-off.

I didn't want to completely cover the liners, so I left a fair bit of white showing.  When I had tinted all the liners, I poured any excess dye off them, then put them right side up in a cupcake pan.  After taking out the baked cupcakes, I turned the oven off and put the liners into the warm oven to help them dry.  Keep a close eye on them - they only need a minute or two.  The bottoms were still damp, so I turned them upside down on the wire rack and popped them back into the still warm oven for another minute or two.

While the cupcakes cooled I made some buttercream frosting and divided that into three bowls.  I coloured each bowl using the same colours I'd used in the batter.  Each colour was then put into it's own individual piping bag and twisted closed at the top using a twist-tie.  I loosely attached the three bags together around the middle using a pipe cleaner, and put all three into another piping bag with my largest round tip attached.

I did a test swirl on a plate to make sure the three colours would come out nicely and fairly uniform, then piped the cooled cupcakes, starting at the outer edge and moving toward the middle.

Ta-da!  Tye-dyed cupcakes with tye-dyed frosting and tye-dyed decorative liners.

Carly has red hair and occasionally the temper to match.  She loves potatoes, rainy nights, photography, her husband, her 6 year old son, Jacob and her 10 month old son, Noah.  Probably in reverse order.   She also blogs.

All Star Eating

by Amy My family is big on going out for breakfast. It's something my husband and I have been doing together since we started dating and the kid's first trip out was to meet a friend for breakfast when she was two days old. We're always looking for a good breakfast place and we've tried quite a few. Last weekend we decided to head over to the Big Rig Brewery on Iris to see how their brunch tasted.

Big Rig is fairly new and I had heard a couple of good reviews but really had no idea what to expect from the place which is partly owned by Sens defenceman Chris Phillips (also known as Big Rig).

Right away I was impressed with the family friendliness. Kid-sized breakfasts are $2.99 and there's a decent selection. Our kid always wants pancakes and she got one big one and two little ones, which is much more reasonable that what some places serve for kids. Important note: The pancakes were served with some fruit and REAL maple syrup. In fact, all of our breakfasts seemed very fresh.

They also have small glasses for kids' drinks, which is one thing that I really look for in restaurants - please don't give my child a big glass that she can't hold, or a heavy bar glass.

Another thing that I'll give Big Rig a big A+ for is the TVs. We have been some places where the kid was so distracted by the TVs placed so close to the tables that she stopped paying attention to her meal. At Big Rig there are TVs - I got to watch the basketball game between Canada and Australia that Canada very nearly won - but they were placed around the restaurant and weren't so in-your-face as they can be.

The staff were great, they checked in and talked to the kid, got her another glass of milk when she finished the first, and she really enjoyed the high chair on wheels.

I can say we'll definitely try Big Rig for dinner sometime, especially after looking at the kids' dinner menu that seems to be healthier than a lot of places.

Amy is mom to two year old Maggie and a 6 year old schnauzer named Henry. You can read her blog at amyboughner.ca where she writes about motherhood and anything else that’s on her mind. She also shares a blog with her husband at boughner.ca where they talk together about parenting a daughter.