Tag: lunchbox

10 of The Best Healthy Lunchbox Tips

So, you have come a long way, and there is hardly any packets in the lunchbox anymore. Lunch consists of: sandwich, apple, banana, yoghurt and a biscuit and muesli bar. Sounds ok huh?

What if I told you that there could be up to TEN hidden teaspoons of added sugar in this lunchbox? The recommended daily intake of added sugars from the World Health Organisation (WHO) is 4 teaspoons for a 5 year old (and a maximum of 8) this has just blown the sugar intake through the roof in just one meal! Let me explain; Fresh and fruity fruit yoghurt: just over 4 tsp sugar*. 2 superwine biscuits: 1 tsp. Muesli bar: around 3 tsp on average depending on the bar. Jam or honey in a sandwich: 1-2 tsp And just like that you have 8-10 tsp of added sugar all packaged up nicely in a healthy looking school lunch. Marmite and even some peanut butters have added sugar in them, it’s everywhere and unfortunately we have to become detectives to scope this out!

So what could you do about this? The trick is not to change everything at once, not only would that be hard work for you, your kids would probably be feeling pretty overwhelmed too if their lunchbox suddenly changed overnight. Make the changes small, easy for you to manage and sustainable – something you can do, and stick to, so you don’t look back. Some small, simple tips (choose one):

  • Replace the sandwich filling to something like ham, salami, egg or cheese Spreads: We slowly got rid of things like marmite and jam from the house, so they are not even an option.
  • Next time you run out of jam or Nutella, don’t replace it. We make homemade jam by blending up berries and adding some chia seeds and a tiny bit of honey.
  • Read the labels, make sure you get a peanut butter with no added sugar.
  • Try using plain Greek yoghurt instead of flavoured and add some fresh fruit to it, berries are perfect for that, fresh in summer, or frozen in winter. Even stirring a teaspoon of honey through plain yoghurt will have nothing on the sugar content of a brought flavoured pottle, you could try this with the intention to reduce it completely after a few weeks. For dairy free options, flavoured coconut yoghurt, does tend to have a little less sugar than some other dairy brands, but still check the label and try and choose the least sugar.

The lunchbox I described is one of the better lunches I’ve seen in the classroom, but just because it’s what everyone is packing, does it make it ok? (I’ll leave that to you to decide). There is no protien, fat or vegetables in this lunchbox – some ideal forms of fuel for little bodies to learn and grow. I will share my tips on how to add these in, in the coming weeks.

If you need a hand getting lunchboxes sorted I have created a Lunchbox Planner resource that comes with 70+ healthy, real food, minimal prep or fuss food ideas and 12 healthy lunchbox recipes. You can check it out here.

Come Back next week for tip #2 🙂

*one teaspoon of sugar is about 4 grams.

My kids lick the bowl has a fantastic blog post which shows how much sugar is in everyday items and how it correlates to WHO’s recommended daily intake. It’s been expertly calculated and put into easy to read visuals! I used this to help me with my lunchbox example. I highly recommend checking it out!

Kayla

The Lunchbox Mum

When Ashton was five and Felix was 6 months old, I quit my job to be a stay at home Mum. As I envisioned myself as a school Mum … a stay at home school Mum. I envisioned being that Mum that turns up to school pick up in activewear, because I’ve actually done yoga or gone for a run. The Mum with the slick pony tail who always knew what day it was, and sent her son off to school every day in clean clothes with a healthy 100% homemade packed lunch. The Mum who turned up to help out in class occasionally and paid the school fees on time. The Mum who was always smiling, and organised, with a clear head and a clean car.

The last two years has taught me, that I am in fact, none of those Mums! I’m the Mum that stays in the car at school drop off because she is wearing her slippers, and the toddler is in his pyjamas. I’m the Mum who may have actually been for a walk or a run, but is wearing track pants because she hasn’t shaved her legs in 6 months. I’m the Mum with the un-brushed messy bun, probably still up from overnight, and clothes covered in baby puke, snot and possibly poop, maybe chocolate – but probably poop. I’m the Mum who hasn’t been in to meet the new teacher except through the car window one time. I’m the Mum whose son goes to school regularly wearing odd socks, and on occasion, odd shoes. I’m The Mum who has no idea what day it is, but can tell the time by how heavy her eyes feel. And the Mum who can’t see the floor of her car (last time I checked there was an open jar of mayonnaise in the back seat). But I am also the Mum who tries her best to send her boy to school everyday with a lunchbox made with love. Love doesn’t have to be homemade, or tidy, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Love just has to try it’s best.

Here is what it looks like when I am that Mum, the one who is messy, unorganised, covered in baby excretions, and tired beyond belief, that tries to send her boys off with a nourishing lunchbox every day. My lunchboxes aren’t perfect, they are not 100% homemade, they are made quickly, on little sleep, and sometimes empty cupboards. When my boys open their lunchboxes, I hope that they see the love.

Don’t worry about perfection, because even the most experienced of us don’t get it right, all the time. Be inspired to pack lunchboxes out of love and the kids will have everything they need 💞

And if you need a little helping hand, this resource I created helped to make sure the kids had somewhat healthy lunchboxes packed daily, in my manic attempt to get everyone out the door on time

https://mailchi.mp/b75eda91781a/chefashton_lunchboxplanner?fbclid=IwAR2zWqBO66IABaMZNqWiyNpDMObZCwe_TTv5MeQgwt92_PsHLadMMrU41Eo

Kayla

Confessions of a Healthy Food Blogger

I share a fairly popular recipe for zucchini cheese – but I never make it myself, and always buy that super expensive vegan cheese from the supermarket.

I don’t like Brussel sprouts, I think they taste like farts. I live with three males (five including the cat and the dog) yes, I know what farts taste like.

My kids won’t eat frozen peas, in fact they won’t eat frozen mixed veggies either. Purely to make my life difficult. Except this one time I told my friend that my kids don’t eat peas and my 1 year old then stole and ate all the peas from her sons lunchbox.

Ashton, just Ashton. Ashton is incredibly fussy. He has the most ginormous list of foods he won’t eat, and bunch of finicky food preferences that I often comply with because I hate the moaning at the dinner table. If you want a winge-fest serve roast chicken (unless it’s a supermarket rotisserie basted in all sorts of non allergy friendly crap that he shouldn’t eat), or potatoes, especially mashed, roasted is marginally acceptable but only if they are cut into 1cm cubes, and crisp, but not too crisp, heaven forbid. Or try soup – if it’s soup, it’s inedible. Make sure you have you best gag face at the ready to make a performance at the table on soup night. Also if its marginally spicy, it may as well be poisonous. Someone save me from this kid he is a healthy food bloggers worst nightmare.

My kids won’t eat my homemade hummus, the two little ones just straight up won’t touch the stuff while Ashton will only eat “Lisa’s” hummus original flavour.

Sometimes I eat proper crisps for breakfast … and let the baby join me.

None of my kids eat raw carrot sticks, but I put them in their lunchboxes all the time because they look good in photos.

When I was a kid I used to steal meal mates crackers from the pantry and eat raro juice sachets like it was sherbet.

My mum buys the kids allergy friendly biscuits and chocolate and I eat it all myself.

Our children are allowed pudding once a week. But every night when they go to bed we eat chips and chocolate and mug cakes.

Most of my blog photos are taken on our bed covered in white sheets, or on the floor of our snail infested sunroom (best lighting in the house 😆)- I peg an upside down piece of scrap vinyl to a portable clothes rack to bounce the light off. Once I spilled a milkshake all through the bed during a photo shoot.

Sometimes I lie to the kids about what they are allergic to, so they don’t eat too much sugar, because I can’t handle the meltdowns.

Anyone else got anything to confess?!

Kayla

Super Simple Muffins

This muffin recipe is a super simple, one bowl wonder that can take so many variations and substitutions there is sure to be something for everyone. The basis of the recipe is banana muffins but I’ve adapted it to also be berry muffins, chocolate muffins and carrot / zucchini muffins disguised as chocolate! They have no added sweetener and are sweetened using only bananas. I have managed to be able to move our ‘everyday’ baking & lunchbox items away from having any added sweetener, but if your kids are not used to this, then start with adding the optional sweetener, and you may be able to reduce it down over time, if you like.

Ingredients

2 bananas
1/4 c milk (almond, coconut, cows milk, rice milk)
1/4 c oil (light olive oil, coconut oil (melted), avocado oil – some sort of oil! – melted butter would probably work too.)
1 egg or egg replacement
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour (buckwheat, gluten free, wholemeal, white, spelt – whatever you use!)
2 tsp baking powder
Optional – 1/4 c sweetener (sugar, coconut sugar, maple syrup, honey – whatever you use)

adaptations / notes

Choc muffins
Swap 1/4 c of the flour for 1/4 c of cocoa, i even swapped 1/2 cup flour for 1/2 cup cocoa once when i ran our of flour. I have also used carob powder, which worked great too. Cocoa is naturally a bit bitter, so if you are on the fence about using a sweetener, now would be the time to think about that!

Zucchini & carrot muffins disguised as chocolate
I used the cocoa sub as above an also swapped one of the bananas for about 1 cup of very finely grated carrot and zucchini. I put a tiny sprinkle of coconut sugar on top of each muffin before baking since i swapped the sweet banana for veggies, just as insurance that they would get eaten!

Berry muffins
Add about 1/2 cup fresh or frozen berries to the mix with the flour.

Banana free

You can make these muffins banana free by replacing the bananas with 1 cup apple purée. You can also use 1 cup pumpkin purée – and be sure to add the sweetener to the pumpkin as well, taste the batter and adjust sweetness accordingly. I love to add cinnamon, orange juice (in place of the milk) and rind to the pumpkin muffins.

Egg free

My favourite egg replacer in these muffins is 1 Tablespoon of chia seeds + 1/4 cup water. Soak the chia seeds in the water for 5 mins, then add with the wet ingredients. You can find more egg replacement options Here.

This recipe makes a kinda odd number of muffins in two of my tins, but fills up my larger silicone 12 mini muffin pan perfect. Id say the silicone ‘mini’ muffin pan is slightly larger than your average ‘mini’ muffin. It makes about 10 regular sized muffins, and about 15 – 20 mini – mini muffins.

what to do

Preheat oven to 180 deg c, fan-bake. Grease or line a 12 hole muffin tin, or two 12 hole mini muffin tins (see notes above on muffin tin sizing!). Mash the banana and mix together with all the wet ingredients. Alternatively, chuck them all in the blender and blend away until smooth – then put into a bowl. Sift the dry ingredients over the wet and carefully fold everything together. Spoon the mixture into muffin tin. See cook times below depending on your muffin tin size.

Cook times:
Regular muffin size: 18-20 minutes
Large mini muffin size: 15 mins
Mini muffins: 10 – 12 mins

Kayla

Zucchini Cheese – Dairy free, melty delicious cheese

I am a lover of all things cheese. Cheese is life. When cheese and life begin to clash, in my world, this is quite a problem. I am 99% dairy free, as my body does not love me eating dairy. The 1% allows for me to sometimes, eat cheese. I save my cheese eating for special occasions, like when we are at a function, event or family gathering and someone brings out the cheeseboard! I allow myself some cheese, and my body seems to be ok with this (and so i sternly tell it). But at home, when life calls for cheese, i am totally happy for this replacement.

Sincerely Yours,

A fellow Cheese Lover

Recipe Notes

coconut free

Use light olive oil instead

Vegan

Replace gelatine with an equal measure of agar-agar

Cheesy Flavour

I brought nutritional yeast to try in there because apparently it tastes cheesy, i’m more than happy to leave this out, it is not to my taste! So if you like nutritional yeast then some of that too.
Half a teaspoon onion and / or garlic powder can also make this next level, or sometimes I use garlic salt instead of regular. But i don’t always have these and it’s fine without. A pinch of smoked paprika can give a subtle smokey depth and a more yellowy colour. 

Gelatin

This ‘cheese’ is set with gelatin, make sure you choose a good quality, setting gelatin (I personally use Great Lakes Beef Gelatin) cheap supermarket gelatin can sometimes have a nasty flavour. I have tons of recipes on my blog that use good quality gelatin so you will have no trouble using it up! 

Storage

It stores in a sealed container in the fridge for about 5 days to a week. You can Freeze, but on defrosting it can be a little watery, so is best used for melting and adding to meals after that, rather than snacking. 

If you are after a delicious, cheesy dairy free meal, then my Mac and Cheese  is inspired by this recipe, I highly recommend you check it out! 

You could also use this cheese sauce recipe to make your cheese instead – (a few more ingredients but the flavour is next level!)  Use 2 Tablespoons gelatin to every 1.5 cups of cheese sauce. Heat the sauce, sprinkle the gelatin on and whisk through (or blitz in blender) until melted. Then set, as below in the recipe. 

Print Recipe

Dairy Free Zucchini Cheese

Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time10 mins
Keyword: AIP, allergy friendly, dairy free, easy recipe, egg free, grain free, paleo, SCD

Ingredients

  • 1 generous cup peeled diced raw zuchinni 2 small – med sized ones
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil i use refined coconut oil here because i don’t want my ‘cheese’ to have lingering notes of coconut!*
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice this makes it quite lemony but i like it this way, you could reduce slightly
  • 2 tablespoons gelatine**
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • Good shake of white pepper

Instructions

  • Steam the zucchini until tender (about 5 mins if its diced small) drain all water off, and keep in the hot pan.
  • Add the coconut oil to melt. Sprinkle the gelatine over the top and let it melt and dissolve in while stirring.
  • Add the rest of the ingredients.
  • blend up everything in your blender, food processor or stick blender. I have a taste and adjust seasoning accordingly.
  • I set ours in a mini silicone loaf pan so it make about 2 mini blocks of ‘cheese’. But set in a lined container of choice, that your are happy to store and slice your ‘cheese’ from that shape.
  • Takes a couple hours to set in the fridge. Stores in there in a sealed container for about 5 days to a week.

Notes

*coconut free? – use light olive oil instead
**vegan? You can replace gelatine with an equal measure of agar-agar

Kayla

Real Food Jelly Lollies

Ingredients

Strawberry & lime

1 cup strawberries (frozen is fine)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T lime juice

1 T maple syrup (optional)

2 T gelatin*

Blueberry

1 cup blueberries (Frozen is fine)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T maple syrup (optional)
2 T gelatin*

Peaches

1 cup peaches (i used tinned – rinsed and drained)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T maple syrup (optional)
2 T gelatin*

*(you can use up to 4 T gelatin for a firmer jelly / lolly like consistency)

what to do

Put the fruit, one lot of 1/4 cup water and sweetener for your your chosen flavour in a small pot and heat through.

While its heating add the gelatin to the other 1/4 cup water and stir. It will expand and soak up the water. Add this to the hot pot and stir through until dissolved.

Remove from the heat and blend the mixture in a blender, or with a handheld blender.

Pour into moulds, or line a tray with cling wrap and pour into the tray to cut into shapes when its set.

Set in the freezer for 20 – 60 mins depending on the size, or overnight. This part is essential for making sure the jellies come cleanly out of the moulds, especially if its a fiddly mould – like a lego man! you can store them in the freezer and defrost over night in the fridge before needed, or store in the fridge for a couple of days.

They should be able to handle being at room temperature for a couple hours, but are nicest when cold.

Kayla

Choc Almond Cranberry Bliss Balls

Ingredients

1 c almonds
1 c dates
1/2 c dried cranberries
1 t vanilla extract
1 T coconut oil
1 T raw cacao or cocoa powder
1 c desiccated coconut

what to do

Put the almonds in the food processor and pulse until they are broken down. If you want almond chunks then leave them a bit chunky, if you want them all blended in then grind them to a powder. Add the rest of the ingredients and process on high until the dates are broken down and the mixture is clumping and sticky. Roll into balls and store in the fridge or freezer. I store them in the freezer and they get eaten straight from there.

Remember there is lots of dried fruit in these, even though they are wholefoods etc, they are still a ‘sometimes’ treat 🙂 they are especially good as an after dinner sweet or a high energy lunchbox treat.

Kayla

Waffles – Free from gluten, dairy, egg, nuts

So if you have been following me for a while, you will know that I’ve spent a good part of this year trying to create the perfect gluten, dairy, soy free but also egg and nut free waffle. And a month or so ago I finally cracked it. Well actually, that’s kind of a lie, I found this fantastic pancake recipe from one of my favourite real food blogs and decided to try and turn it into a waffle. Low and behold, it turned out perfect! there is nothing I could have done to make this recipe any better. So i really can’t take any credit for the everything free waffle recipe I spent so long trying to create, but I’m totally cool with that because it found me in the end!

All the credit goes to Buffy from Be Good Organics who created this stunning pancake recipe which I then turned into waffles. Here is the original pancake recipe, and below I will outline how I make it into waffles! The best part is I can serve this to the whole family and everyone loves it, gluten eating Dad and egg eating Chef Ashton included, and the best part is that our little guy Felix can enjoy the same breakfast as the rest of the family! He thinks its pretty cool and loves to partake in ‘build your own’ waffle Sunday when I lay out a bunch of condiments on the table and you can choose what to top your waffle with. (think blueberries, banana, kiwi fruit, maple syrup, seeds, dark chocolate, whipped coconut cream, coconut yoghurt, homemade chia jam, honey).

This makes 4 waffles and feeds our family of 4, with toppings.

Ingredients

1c buckwheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp himalayan pink salt
1 large ripe banana
1c + 1/4c coconut milk (or milk of choice)
1/4 lemon (juice & flesh)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 dates

Oil – for the waffle iron (this is the one and only place I use an oil spray)

what to do

Turn the waffle iron on and set to preheat. Grease the waffle iron, grease it real good, like i said this is the one time i use an oil spray instead of coconut oil because you really need to get into all the crevices. Trust me, you don’t want the waffle to stick!

Add all the ingredients into a blender or food processor, except the 1/4 cup milk – i put them all into a 1 litre glass jug and use my hand held blender. If it’s too thick add at the 1/4 cup milk. The consistency works best if its thick, but pour-able, with the help of a spoon.
Blend until all the ingredients are combined.

When the waffle iron is heated set it to your desired doneness (i like it a little brown, but not too much – which is about a 4 or 5 on my machine). Pour 1/4 of the mix in and close the lid. Obviously your waffle iron might be a different size to mine, so be the judge over whether that will be enough or too much. You don’t want it to overflow! I’m always so greedy and pour too much in the first two then the second two end up kinda stingy (the kids get those ones haha).

Remove each waffle with a spatula when done and place in a low temp oven until the others are cooked. While they cook, I chop and assemble the toppings (see above for suggestions) also some nice suggestions in the original recipe you could check out.

So there you have it, the most delicious egg and nut free (and all the other stuff free) waffle! I’m generally not a hue fan of a strong buckwheat flavour, but I don’t find the buckwheat flavour over powering at all in these.

If you are like us, and need options for egg free baking, you should definitely check out Be Good Organics, why reinvent the egg free baking wheel when you can just go there! Some seriously yum stuff, using good, quality, real food ingredients that I’m happy to feed my family.

Kayla

Homemade Coconut Yoghurt

This makes just under 1 litre of coconut yoghurt, You might need to make sure your coconut cream is chilled, so you can scoop just the cream from the can. We don’t have to worry about that in Stratford, we have solid coconut cream and coconut oil pretty much all year round!

Ingredients

3 tins ‘essentials’ brand coconut cream (from countdown) or any coconut cream that lists only one or two ingredients: coconut extract, water.

1L glass jar or container (washed well with very hot water)

2 teaspoons probiotic powder (from a capsule or from a powdered probiotic)

1 Tablespoon sweetener (I use maple syrup)

what to do

Scoop the cream from the coconut cream and put into a small saucepan. Heat gently just to remove all the lumps and make it all smooth.

Take off the heat, make sure its only just luke warm. pour it into your jar or container. Then add the sweetener and probiotic.

Put the lid on and shake it. Place the jar in the oven with the oven light on, for 12 hours or overnight, this keeps it at a nice steady temp that’s not too hot or cold. (Make sure you tell the other family members about this or you might get up in the morning to find your coconut yoghurt has spent a long lonely night alone, in a cold, dark oven, when a well meaning spouse turns the light off before bed!)

Take it out and put straight in the fridge, it is ready to eat in another 6 or so hours when its properly chilled. Enjoy!

If you don’t have an oven light that works well (it turns out i might be quite privileged to have one of these?) then a hot water cupboard or a yoghurt maker will also work. With the yoghurt maker you need to make sure the water isn’t too hot and might need to change it once, after 6 hours in the winter.

Kayla

Crispy Hash browns |2 ingredients | egg free

These delicious crispy homemade hash browns are so easy to make. Only 2 ingredients (and one of them is salt!) These hash browns are made in the waffle iron, which makes them super quick, easy and fuss free. They are also gluten free, egg free and vegan, as well as free from all the other allergens.

I have no idea what inspired me to try and make a hash brown in the waffle iron, my first test I did, I used an egg to bind them, it worked ok but my fussiest child said it was ‘too eggy’ and one of my kids who was allergic to egg at the time, couldn’t have one. So I tried really squeezing the moisture out, and doing them without egg – and low and behold, it worked!

Nightshade / potato free?

If you are avoiding nightshades then you can make them using Kumara. You may not need to squeeze the Kumara as it doesn’t carry as much moisture as potatoes.

Type of potatoes

The type of potatoes you use also makes a difference, I always use agria potatoes, or any potato that has a yellowish flesh and floury texture. Don’t use the ‘white washed’ potatoes from the supermarket – they tend to go a bit gluey in the middle.

These make a fantastic breakfast or lunch. A great substitute for toast, and even go nicely instead of bread with soups! You can serve on their own or with fried mushrooms and spinach, poached eggs, or crispy bacon, tomatoes and avocado.

You can find more easy, nourishing breakfast ideas here.

If you make this don’t forget the tag me on Facebook and Instagram, and use the hashtag #chefashtonnz

Print Recipe

Crispy Homemade Hash Browns | Vegan | gluten free | 2 ingredients

These delicious crispy homemade hash browns are so easy to make. Only 2 ingredients (and one of them is salt!) These Gluten free hash browns are made in the waffle iron.
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Course: Breakfast, lunch, lunchbox, Main Course, Snack
Cuisine: American
Keyword: coconut free, dairy free, egg free, gluten free, grain free, hash brown, hash browns, hashbrowns, nut free, waffle hash brown, waffle iron
Servings: 4

Equipment

  • Waffle iron

Ingredients

  • 4-8 large Potatoes
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 Tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

  • Finely grate the potato (I use the smallest size on by box grater) and place into a large bowl.
  • Sprinkle with salt and leave to sit for a few minutes. The salt helps to draw the moisture out.
  • Preheat your waffle iron to high.
  • Place the grated potato into the middle of a muslin cloth, a cotton cloth, or old cotton shirt, a nut milk bag, or a clean tea towel.
  • Bring the edges up and around the potato, and squeeze like you’ve never squeezed before! Until all the liquid and moisture is squeezed from the potatoes.
  • Tip the mix back into your bowl and season with a little more salt, and pepper if desired. Grease the waffle iron with a little olive oil on the bottom.
  • Scoop ¼ of the mix out and pack into the waffle iron. Lightly swig some olive oil over the top. Close the lid tightly and leave to cook for about 5 minutes, or until the hash brown is brown and crispy.

Kayla